Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. In 1860 Major Henry Hancock was given a large ranch known as Rancho La Brea. He excavated for the tar content of Brea (asphaltum). Carloads of bones not then known to have a scientific value were burned as rubbish. In the 1870s Hancock found the skeletal remains of dinosaur as well as an Indian woman within the tar pits. The area the La Brea Tar Pits are located in is now called Hancock Park. The steep bank of this tar pit at the La Brea Tar Pits is covered in wild grasses and sprouts. The tar forms a lighter crust near the center, which crinkles at the edges like pudding skin.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm. Photographic prints
Tar--California--Los Angeles Grasses--California--Los Angeles La Brea Pits (Calif.) Hancock Park (Los Angeles, Calif. : Park) Schultheis Collection photographs
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
