Before the oil boom and rise of Hollywood brought today's renowned landmarks to downtown Los Angeles, an entirely different and often forgotten high Victorian city existed. Prior to Union Station, there was the impressive Romanesque Arcade Station of the Southern Pacific line in the 1880s. Before UCLA, the Gothic Revival State Normal School stood in place of today's Los Angeles Public Library. Elsewhere the city held Victorian pleasure gardens, amusement piers and even an ostrich farm, all lost to time and the rapid modernization of a new century. Local author Charles Epting reveals Los Angeles's unknown past at the turn of the twentieth century through the prominent citizens, events and major architectural styles that propelled the growth of a nascent city.

Born in Santa Monica and raised in Huntington Beach, California, Charles Epting is an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California studying history and geology. He is the author of A Brief History of University Park, Los Angeles" and "The New Deal in Orange County, California," as well as the editor of "Orange County Pioneers: Oral Histories from the Works Progress Administration."