Elysian Park

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929 Academy Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 485-5054
www.laparks.org/park/elysian

Home to Dodger Stadium and the LAPD Police Academy, Elysian Park is the city's oldest public park and (at 575-acres) the second largest.

In 1769 Gaspar de Portola and Father Juan Crespi camped on the Los Angeles River bank opposite Buena Vista Hill (near the present day North Broadway Bridge.) Yang-Na Indian villagers were living in Solano Canyon and at the current location of the Los Angeles Police Academy. In 1781 the Pueblo of Los Angeles was officially established by Spanish California Governor Felipe de Neve with the Royal Grant of 4 square Spanish leagues (roughly equal to 28 square miles) of Pueblo Lands.

Of this public land grant, the 575 acres of Elysian Park is the last remaining large piece. All else was auctioned off or simply given away. (Los Angeles even had to buy back the site of the present City Hall.) One of the first official acts of the U.S. government was the Ord Survey of 1849 to record the boundaries of these Pueblo Lands so they could be auctioned to produce city revenue. Elysian Park was then known as the Rock Quarry Hills for the building stone mined in the area. Instead of being sold, the Rock Quarry Hills area were "reserved" for public purpose and withdrawn from public auction.

On April 5, 1886, Mayor E.F. Spence and the City Council of Los Angeles dedicated the Rock Quarry Hills as a city park renaming the area Elysian Park (Elysian Fields being the ancient Greek idea of paradise). Subsequent city charters have protected dedicated park lands and their use for park purposes in perpetuity. These are rare charter provisions, as city charters go, and have given parkland protectors a legal base for support of dedicated park land in the City of Los Angeles, in order to conserve it for future generations as a part of the Santa Monica Mountains system of urban open space.