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Image / Exhibition building at the Los Angeles County Fair

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Title
Exhibition building at the Los Angeles County Fair
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection;
Creator
Schultheis, Herman
Contributor
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
Date Created and/or Issued
1937
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
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.
The first Los Angeles County Fair was held on October 17, 1922 and ran for five days through October 21, 1922 in a former beet field in Pomona. For the first few years, highlights included harness racing, chariot races, airplane wing-walking exhibitions, and agricultural exhibitions. Since its inception, the Fair has been the link between California's agriculture industry and the public. During World War II, from May 7 to August 24, 1942, these grounds were used as a Wartime Civilian Control Administration assembly center, which held more than 5,000 Japanese Americans prior to sending them to internment camps. Curiously, there is no known historical marker at the site. Now in its 87th year, the L.A. County Fair is the largest county fair in the United States, with attendance topping one million people in every year but one since 1948, and generating a national economic impact of more than $250 million dollars. The Fair is held each September on 543 acres of fairgrounds known as Fairplex (L.A. County Fair, hotel and exposition complex), and is operated by the Los Angeles County Fair Association.
View shows the interior of the exhibit hall at the Los Angeles County Fair. Crowds of people can be seen patronizing the kiosks, which are side-by-side. Rows of bright and interesting lamps and chandeliers line the ceiling from one end to the other. The building is 800 feet long and 150 feet wide. It is the largest building known of such dimensions of steel arches and concrete walls, arranged so that there is not a single interior pillar. The fair ran from September 17-October 3.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00082007
Herman J Schultheis Collection; Los Angeles Photographers Collection;
N-006-474 8x10
CARL0002883736
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/36047
Subject
Los Angeles County Fair (Los Angeles County, Calif.)
Fairs--California--Los Angeles County
Exhibition buildings--California--Pomona
Exhibit stands--California--Pomona
Crowds--California--Pomona
Pomona (Calif.)
Schultheis Collection photographs

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