Serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, and the Greater Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2011.

FLASHBACK: How the Mammoth Arrived at La Brea Tar Pits

Mammoth-on-wilshire
Photo by retired LA Times staff photographer Joe Kennedy, was published in the Jan. 19, 1967 Los Angeles Times and the Feb. 17, 1967 issue of LIFE Magazine.

We Mid-Wilshire folk love our mammoths stuck in the tar pits. They were an unlikely sighting the first time you saw them, but have grown to be  familiar fauna in the heart of one of America’s biggest cities. It used to worry my young daughters peering through the fence: the struggling mama stuck in the muck, the baby at the edge of the broiling pit. But have you ever wondered how these life-size fiberglass replicas of the imperial mammoth got there?

The LA Times Framework section has a beautiful black and white photo piece on the delivery of the first mammoth, via WV bug no less, from sculptor Howard Ball’s studio in Torrance to Hancock Park in 1967.  Take a look:

LA Times: Mammoth Delivery to La Brea Tar Pits

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Julie Grist
Julie Grist
Julie co-founded the Larchmont Buzz with fellow buzzer Mary Hawley in 2011 and served as Editor, Publisher and writer for the hive for many years until the sale of the Buzz in August 2015. She is still circling the hive as an occasional writer.

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