The Archive

Every business creates records—think folders and filing cabinets.  The Santa Monica Land & Water Company was incorporated February 23, 1897 as a land company tasked with developing about 50,000 acres of land located in what is now West Los Angeles.  It started creating records in 1897.  The company remained actively in business until about 1983. 

Over its almost 100 years in the land development and real estate business, the company created and filed documents, advertising ephemera, clippings,  photos, correspondence, maps, accounting records, and much more.  These files tell the history of West Los Angeles.  The Santa Monica Land & Water Company Archives was formed in 1983 to manage and protect this treasure trove of information.

The archive is not open to the public, but Jan Loomis, as its archivist, has worked with the material to create two books for Arcadia Publishing:  Images of America: Brentwood and Pacific Palisades.  A third book, Tales from West Los Angeles, tells the stories, often forgotten, about how West Los Angelses morphed from open fields to suburban communities.

The Images of America books tell the story of how Brentwood and Pacific Palisades went from open land to upscale suburbs.  Each book has over 200 photos, many unpublished until now, and captions that explain how they relate to the development of the area.  There are pictures of the promoters, the neighborhoods, the streets, the tract advertising, and events that shaped these communities.