Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
heritage designation of the city of Los Angeles, California, USA
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites which have been designated by the Los Angeles, California, Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria.
History
The Historic-Cultural Monument process has its origin in the Historic Buildings Committee formed in 1958 by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects. As growth and development in Los Angeles threatened the city's historic landmarks, the committee sought to implement a formal preservation program in cooperation with local civic, cultural and business organizations and municipal leaders. On April 30, 1962, a historic preservation ordinance proposed by the AIA committee was passed.
The original Cultural Heritage Board (later renamed a commission) was formed in the summer of 1962, consisting of William Woollett, FAIA, Bonnie H. Riedel, Carl S. Dentzel, Senaida Sullivan and Edith Gibbs Vaughan.
The board met for the first time in August 1962, at a time when the owner of the historic Leonis Adobe was attempting to demolish the structure and replace it with a supermarket. In its first day of official business, the board designated the Leonis Adobe and four other sites as Historic-Cultural Monuments.
In the commission's first decade of operation (August 1962–August 1972), it designated 101 properties as Historic-Cultural Monuments. By April 2018, there were over 1150 designated properties. As of 2025, that number rose to more than 1300.
“Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument” enters the record as heritage designation of the city of Los Angeles, California, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Angeles, Historic-Cultural and Monument can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Angeles, Historic-Cultural and Monument provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5335134. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1962, 1972 and 2018.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument primary sources, Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument archive and Angeles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.