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History Lessons

At my heart I’m a historian. So sometimes I write essays on weird topics. Yes, I write these because I want to, not because I’m getting paid or anything. Seriously.

Myself standing in front of the old west medicine wagon sits in the middle of the parking lot. It is red and reads "Gower Gulch Medicinal Ointment" and has an image of an Indian wearing a headdress, wearing a black peasant top, and a green skirt with western images on it.

The Forgotten History of Gower Gulch, Hollywood’s Western Strip Mall

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Gower Gulch. Sounds like a small town in the deserts of Arizona, right? But you’d be wrong. It’s in fact a western themed small strip mall that sits at the corner of Gower and Sunset in the middle of Hollywood. But why a western theme? And just how did this corner get its name? The…

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A rounded front building faces the street, atop it a tall spire stretches toward a bright blue sky. Near the bottom red letters spell out "Crossroads of the World." Atop the spire a globe.

The Violent History of LA’s Iconic Crossroads of the World

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Sunset Boulevard is synonymous with Hollywood. It’s home to a plethora of iconic buildings and linked to many legendary people. One such building is Crossroads of the World, a bizarre little 1930s shopping center turned office complex that looks like something out of a Disney theme park, with a steamship style building “sailing” past storefronts…

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The Buffalo Soldiers: Multi-Talented Defenders of Westward Expansion

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On September 21, 1866, a brand new regiment was formed. The 10th Calvary Regiment was comprised of Black men, and was given the nickname, The Buffalo Soldiers. The nickname was given to them by the Native Americans, due to their hair reminding them of the top of a buffalos head. The regiment served in the…

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Bass Reeves: US Marshall and the Lone Ranger?

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Bass Reeves was born into slavery in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas. During the Civil War, he beat up his slave master to get out of slavery, and fled into Indian Territory. There he lived with the Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee Indians learning their languages, until he was freed by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.…

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Bill Pickett: The Rodeo Innovator that History Forgot

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Bill Pickett was born the second of thirteen children on December 5th, 1870 in Williamson County, Texas. Pickett’s bloodline was of Cherokee and Black. In the 5th grade, he left school to be a ranch-hand, and he learned all there was to know about being a cowboy. He invented the technique known as Bulldogging, which…

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Donald and his arsenal to do his taxes: A range of books (including two law books, a math book, and an algebra book), yardstick, globe, a bottle of paste, a bottle of aspirin, a box of files, two adding machines, a compass, and his piggy bank.

That Time Donald Duck Helped America Pay Their Taxes

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For those in the United States, it’s tax season…everyone’s favorite time of the year, right? Well, once upon a time, a little angry duck helped everyone pay their taxes a lot quicker. On December 12th, 1941 Walt Disney received a call from the United States government. Walt had already lent his studio’s services for the…

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Mary Fields: The Forgotten Badass of the US Postal Service

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Hello all! I’m Carla, and I blog over at Tiny.Angry.Crafts. This month I will be showcasing a Black Person of the week from The Wild West. As a young child, I was very fortunate to have my grandmother teach me something new; her being a schoolteacher and all, she would give me a double dose…

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Cut out images of James Dean and Vampira set against a yellow and red background.

The Mysterious Horror Hostess that Reportedly Cursed James Dean

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The inside of a “dingy frame house” on Larrabee Street in West Hollywood looked more akin to a “witch-doctor’s shack in the wilds of Haiti.” Scattered were “objects of the kind associated with Black Magic” and stuck to the wall by a small golden dagger were cut-outs of  James Dean’s eyes and ears. On the…

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