Once Was: Bicycling in Los Angeles

The annual Decoration Day Field Day athletic contests of the Los Angeles Athletic Club for 1895 were preceded, the evening before, by a bicycle lantern parade with fully 1200 riders (with some estimates as high as 1500) participating. As reported in the San Francisco Call: "The appearance presented in the parade was imposing, and as the column came down Spring street, cheered by the crowds gathered along the line of the route, it was easy to comprehend the grip bicycles have on the people of the city. In this city at least the wheel knows no age. It gathers them all in, for side by side with the "kids" of six can be seen the grandfathers and grandmothers bowling along under the burden of three score and more."

And get this, as the story continues: "Los Angeles is said, by those who profess to know, to be rapidly wheeling to the front as the leading city of the United States for cyclists, proportionate to population. Up to a year ago that honor was generally conceded to Denver, but it is now believed that Los Angeles can justly lay claim to the distinction."

I am just going to leave that right there, but the image of what once was could lead to deeper considerations of how the city got from there to here.