It Is the Fiesta Park Track!

At some point, say within the past year or so, I was conducting research for Fast Digs 2, you know, just simple googlie searches for riders who raced in Los Angeles between 1900 and 1929, the dates that will be covered in volume 2. Included in what I found were the two photos here, one of Emil Agraz and another of Los Angeles' own Big Bill Furman. In neither of these (nor other similar ones) was the track identified, but since both photos were from the History San Jose collection I just assumed they were from a track in that city. But. Something always nagged at me - the track looked familiar, indeed it looked a lot like a track I had seen in very grainy, newsprint photos. I just couldn't make a definitive judgement. Then I noticed a sign on the face of the building shown behind Emile Agraz who, by the way, was from Salt Lake City. I could make out the first two words - 'Hotel' and 'Ponet' and that was the first clue; I knew from earlier research that Victor Ponet owned a large tract in downtown Los Angeles in the early 1900s. The third word looked like it could be 'Square', making Hotel Ponet Square.

The Hotel Ponet Square, or Ponet Square Hotel, what ever way you want to say it, was built in 1907, so it was there when the track at Fiesta Park opened a year later. The hotel was located in a fashionable area at the time, but by mid-century downtown development had moved further away, and the hotel became a residence for the elderly and low income families. Still, it far outlived the track built right next to it, finally meeting its demise in 1970 when it was destroyed by arson, a crime that also claimed the lives of nineteen residents.