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Los Angeles Paving Company Records: Finding Aid
mssLA Paving Co records
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Table of contents
Title: Los Angeles Paving Company Records
Dates (inclusive): 1903-1974
Bulk dates: 1912-1964
Collection Number: mssLA Paving Co records
Creator:
Los Angeles Paving Company.
Extent: 8,477 items. 15 boxes plus one
rolled item and 38 volumes.
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2129
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains the business records of the Los Angeles Paving Company,
an important business enterprise in 20th century Southern California. The collection chiefly dates from the 1910s to the 1960s
and includes business and project files,
correspondence, photographs, and some ephemera and additional files of the Werdin family, who owned and managed the company.
The papers provide a unique perspective of 20th century California history and American business history and more specifically,
a view of business practices in Los Angeles.
Language: English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Los Angeles Paving Company Records, The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
Gift of Linda Carson Werdin, November 19, 1999.
The Los Angeles Paving Company, owned and managed by the Werdin family, was an
important business enterprise in 20th century Southern California. Ernest R. Werdin
was born in 1869 in Minnesota and moved to Los Angeles in 1886. In 1902, he was
elected Superintendent of Streets of the City of Los Angeles, which probably gave
him opportunities to establish extensive connections for his future paving business.
In 1912, he started the Los Angeles Paving Company. After his death in 1932, his son
E. Russell Werdin inherited and continued the business. Over the decades, the Los
Angeles Company expanded and it accomplished paving tasks for many families,
businesses, and governmental agencies in the region. The company paved many of the
streets in Southern California, including Los Angeles' famous Sunset Boulevard.
Both Ernest R. Werdin and E. Russell Werdin joined several business-related and
non-business-related club and associations. Both were life members of Al Malaikah
Temple. Ernest R. Werdin was a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. E.
Russell Werdin was president of both the Vernon and Carson Chambers of Commerce, and
he was active in the Rotary Club for 63 years before his death in 1997. He also
graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Commerce in
1932, and later became one of the university's trustees and served as president of
the USC Alumni Association in 1960 to 1961.
The papers provide a unique perspective of 20th century California history and
American business history and more specifically, a view of business practices in Los
Angeles.
The Business Files, the largest series of the collection with 6,436 items, is
arranged alphabetically by folder title (which is usually the name of the company
with which the contents relate) includes invoices, receipts, bills of lading,
purchase orders, bid requests, bids, statements, daily reports of the plants, daily
time reports, accident reports, and other general account and job information
including handwritten notes, drawings, construction plans and diagrams. Some of the
more notable clients and companies included in this series are: Al Malaikah Temple,
American Red Cross; General Motors Company; Mobil Oil Company; Shell Oil Company;
Sears, Roebuck and Company; United States Navy; Loyola Marymount University; UCLA;
and the cities of Glendale and Vernon, California. This series also contains a few
items related to the Werdin family including legal files for lawsuits.
The Correspondence series contains 768 items. Most of the correspondence is
business-related. The majority of the correspondence has been batched by the first
letter of the author’s name. Some clients’ correspondence was given its own folder.
The correspondence from the LA Paving Company has been organized in the same manner;
most of it has been batched but some clients have their own folder. The letter by
Meyer Lissner to Werdin talks about Hiram Johnson’s campaign (see Box 10, Folder 40). Some of the notable
clients and companies in this series are: Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad
Company; Ford Motor Company; General Electric Corporation; General Motors Company;
May Company; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Railroad Commission of the State of
California; RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.; Peter Soo Hoo (LA Paving Company paved Gin
Ling Way in Chinatown in Los Angeles); Southern California Edison; United Artists
Corporation; United States Federal Housing Administration; United States Navy;
Universal Pictures Company; UCLA; Walt Disney Productions; Southern Pacific Company;
and the cities of Glendale and Vernon, California. The American Red Cross is a subject in the correspondence files of John
B. Rauen (Box 11, Folder 49)
and E. Russell Werdin (Box 11, Folder 68).
The Photographs and Negatives series contains 1,110 items. The items are arranged
alphabetically by folder title (chiefly the subject of the photographs). These
photographs (and negatives) include views of jobs (at various stages of completion),
plants, machinery, as well as a few aerial views of the company’s jobs.
The Ephemera series contains 124 items and is organized alphabetically by folder
title. The series includes: business-related newsletters and bulletins, brochures
and publications, newspaper clippings; tax forms, several LA Paving Company related
artifacts, a copy of the 1926
Who’s Who in Los Angeles and a copy of
Scratches: A Volume of Cartoons and Caricatures of Los Angeles Citizens,
1911 (Ernest R. Werdin is in both volumes). There is also one folder related to E.
Russell Werdin’s involvement in the USC Alumni Association.
The 38 volumes include bid requests, daily job reports, invoices, journals, one
photograph album, a plant and shop register, and stock certificates. They are
arranged alphabetically by title and then chronologically. They are located at the
end of the collection and are not in boxes.
The papers are organized in the following manner: Business Files (Boxes 1-9);
Correspondence (Boxes 10-11); Photographs and Negatives (Boxes 12-14); Ephemera (Box
15); and Volumes.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Los Angeles Paving
Company.
University of Southern
California.
Business enterprises -- California --
Los Angeles -- Archives.
Pavements -- California,
Southern.
Concrete roads -- California,
Southern.
California -- History
-- 20th century -- Sources.
Chinatown (Los Angeles,
Calif.)
Glendale
(Calif.)
Los Angeles (Calif.) --
History -- 20th century -- Sources.
Vernon (Calif.)
Business records -- California -- 20th
century.
Letters (correspondence) -- California
-- 20th century.
Photographs -- California -- 20th
century.
Soo Hoo, Peter, recipient.
Werdin, E. Russell.
Werdin, Ernest R.
American Red Cross.
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
Railroad Company.
Ford Motor Company.
General Electric Corporation.
General Motors Company.
Loyola Marymount University.
Mobil Oil Company.
Paramount Pictures Corporation.
Railroad Commission of the State of
California.
RKO Radio Pictures.
Sears, Roebuck and Company.
Shell Oil Company.
Southern California Edison Company.
Southern Pacific Company.
United Artists Corporation.
United States. Federal Housing
Administration.
United States. Navy.
Universal Pictures Company.
University of California, Los
Angeles.
Walt Disney Productions.