(AUTOMOBILE TOURING ‑ CALIFORNIA MANUSCRIPT) PRATT, Ira. Auto Touring in Southern California, 1913.

(California) Pratt, Ira. TOURING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. MANUSCRIPT AUTOMOBILE TOURING DIARY. Los Angeles: 1913. 12mo. Limp leather-bound ruled memo book. (73) pages of manuscript entries by Ira Pratt.

Manuscript diary of a mid-western man who spent two months vacationing in southern California - based at Highland Park in Los Angeles - with, apparently, his wife and mother. The family traveled to California from Chicago in May and departed in July. The diary covers May 12th through July 17th 1913, with 67 pages of entries plus 6 pages of notes (mostly on expenses). Pratt's focus is to document the time, distance, and sights seen by traveling by auto around Southern California, down to San Diego and as far north as Santa Barbara. Much commentary on roads, traffic, sights, farms, the beaches, oil fields...that is, of the present day.

May 20: "We went to the theatre to hear Edison's Moving & Talking Pictures. They were just as real as life and talked and sang as natural, what a wonderful inventor. What will be done in future, time only can tell."

May 24: "Morris, Ella & children All of us went to Long Beach to see where the floor fell, the accident if so called was 15 feet of floor fell on the lower floor filled of people & all floors, timber and people was dumped in a heap on the sane below. Had the tide been in all would have fallen in water, 32 persons was killed and one hundred wounded, 8 more have died since. We saw Mrs. Ashley to day."

"Fullerton... the commencement of the oil wells and from here to Whittier can see hundreds of wells on the hillsides, in the hollows and on top of hills are wells with no tanks at wells. When we leave Whittier on the left of road is lots of tanks (could not guess number) large ones to store oil. From here to Los Angeles are groves all the way and this had been the most sight-seeing day we have had all the trip…" (Curtis)