We'uns At Westlake

The message is visable, but since it's sideways, "We'uns the two next the bank.. Taken at West Lake Park Los Angeles, Cal. Jan. 7.  Many thanks for the present comes in handy.  K. H. Gelleus, Ash Fork, Ariz."  It was mailed from Ash Fork on February 26, 1906 and made it to Miss Jesse Wilson in Caney, Kansas on the 28th of the same month.  I'm not sure the post office could make the same quick delivery today.

So, a few things.  It was actually Westlake Park, named for Dr. Henricus Wallace Westlake, a Canadian doctor who moved to L.A., was a successful physician, bought  and sold real estate, and was the president of a couple of no longer in existence companies.  He donated the land to the city for a park.  Today we would call it a wetland, but at the time it was considered a swamp, and a good place to dump garbage. It's name was changed to MacArthur Park after World War 2.  Yes, the same MacArthur Park of the weird, stoner song of the same name.

 Ash Fork is the self proclaimed flagstone capitol of the world.  I've been there.  It's in northern Arizona along one of the few remaining bits of old route 66, and I-40.  Truthfully, I have no real memory of the place, but I've driven the route.  Caney, Kansas is just a small town in the middle of the prairie.

I wasn't quite sure of the spelling of the Gelleus name, but after trying a few variations, I found it on Ancestry.com.  I wasn't willing to break out the credit card to do a detailed search, but in 1891, there was exactly one Gelleus family  in all of Great Britain.  They lived in London, and it's interesting to speculate that they ended up in northern Arizona, working at a flagstone quarry, or perhaps the Harvey House at the Ash Fork,  Santa Fe Station.

This card really shows how photographs travel.  The original photograph was taken in Los Angeles.  It was made into a postcard and mailed from Ash Fork, Arizona to Caney, Kansas,  I bought it at an antique store in Pasadena, in L.A. County.  How did it get back to California?