Henry Gaylord Wilshire (1861-1927) - LA Conservancy

Contents:

• HENRY GAYLORD WILSHIRE (1861-1927)
• “SHEEP’S BRAS OR HUMAN?”: A PROSPECT FOR GAYLORD WILSHIRE’S GOLD ME, LOS ANGEL, OCTOBER 1915
• HENRY GAYLORD WILSHIRE
• H. GAYLORD WILSHIRE: THE MILLNAIRE SOCIALIST

HENRY GAYLORD WILSHIRE (1861-1927)

Wilshire Boulevard got s name om a flamboyant character named Henry Gaylord Wilshire.

Gaylord Wilshire had many pursus his lifetime. For more rmatn about Gaylord Wilshire, see the fantastic book Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Conurse of Los Angel and/or this blog post by Jam Col Campbell. Henry Gaylord Wilshire on JSTOR.

One of the more notable and unual figur the regn om the 1880s through the 1920s was Henry Gaylord Wilshire (1861-1927) and today’s featured object om the Homtead’s llectn is a prospect for his Gaylord Gold Me, issued October 1915. When Wilshire’s much olr brother, William, head wt to San Francis, Gaylord, who first worked as a clerk his father’s bank, joed his siblg. William owned the prospero Wilshire Safe and Sle Company and Gaylord was associated wh the enterprise.

“SHEEP’S BRAS OR HUMAN?”: A PROSPECT FOR GAYLORD WILSHIRE’S GOLD ME, LOS ANGEL, OCTOBER 1915

The Wilshire fay’s enumeratn the 1870 feral cens at Ccnati, where Gaylord’s father, Gee, was listed as a retired merchant wh self-clared assets of $400, 000, a substantial sum for the era. For those unaware of how this appellatn me to be applied to the name, he proclaimed “I n tell you, for was my dog, for I am the Wilshire—Gaylord Wilshire.

Wilshire, his send wife Mary McReynolds, their son Logan, Mary’s mother and two servants at their Pasana hoehold the 1920 feral cens, which lists Gaylord as “pri[nt] gold me. Parsons, a proment late 19th century real tate figure who worked extensively wh the Wilshire brothers, wrote a letter to the Tim to say that “ the statements logistic of the late Gaylord Wilshire, allow me to state that” Wilshire’s olr brother William, who died 1917, was “the prcipal mover the Wilshire district improvements adjog Wtlake.

HENRY GAYLORD WILSHIRE

” Yet, is Gaylord Wilshire who has been acunted the veloper of Wilshire Boulevard and s tract and who has a unique place greater Los Angel history. Henry Gaylord Wilshire was ntradictn- at once a champn of socialism, and at the same time a serial entreprenr who ma and lost several fortun a wi variety of bs ventur.

Henry Gaylord Wilshire (1861–1927) me om a wealthy fay Ccnati, Oh. Gaylord Wilshire told the cy that orr for him to perm a street to bisect the property, the boulevard mt be 120 feet wi and mt bear his name.

H. GAYLORD WILSHIRE: THE MILLNAIRE SOCIALIST

I’ve recently been readg Kev Starr’s excellent book Inventg the Dream: California Through the Progrsive Era (the send an epic seven-volume history of California), and me across a sectn on a lorful character named Henry Gaylord Wilshire, who was one of the ial velopers of Fullerton. Gaylord Wilshire om his book Socialism Inevable (1907).

Gaylord Wilshire, print of the Fullerton and Anaheim Natnalist clubs, ran for ngrs as a Socialist both 1890 and 1900. Gaylord Wilshire (as he signed himself) was a promoter and a visnary the style of Abbot Kney of Venice and a number of other Southern California eccentrics of this era: a visnary, and perhaps somethg of a quack, the Wizard of Oz behd the green curta, ” Starr wr. A book about Wilshire’s life was published 2012 entled Henry Gaylord Wilshire: the Millnaire Socialist by Lou Rosen.