Before tour buses roamed the region, tourists saw the Southern California seaside sites on day-long trolley trips operated by the Pacific Electric. The most popular was the Balloon Route that boasted 10 beaches and 8 cities and 101 miles for 100 cents in 1 day. City, agricultural, and ocean vistas swept past sightseers seated in attractive parlor cars and entertained by tour guides. During the tourist high season, an average of 10,000 people rode the Balloon Route each month. While other routes like the Old Mission, Mt. Lowe and Triangle Trolley were popular, the Balloon Route was the showpiece of the streetcar system, wrote Norman Klein in The History of Forgetting.
Unlike today's tour buses, the Balloon Route operated with an ulterior motive: to entice potential homeowners to buy property, owned by the railway developers, along the route. As Klein wrote, fancy Balloon Route brochures were pitched at Sunday workman and his family, riding in imperial splendor to the ocean, where inexpensive property was listed for sale (land along the beach was cheaper than downtown, at that time.) While the Balloon Route's eventual success was attributed to promoter Charles M. Pierce, the trip was initially conceived by land developers Moses Sherman and Eli Clark, who created the route as part of their Los Angeles Pacific Railway company. The pair had been methodically buying, building, merging and (in some cases) losing railway lines in Southern California, starting with the Pasadena and Los Angeles Electric in 1895. Debuting in 1901, their Balloon Route crisscrossed much of their Westside and seaside properties.
The Balloon Route did modest business under Sherman and Clark but it really flourished once Charles M. Pierce was hired as manager. Pierce had a knack for engaging tourists profitably. Before he was hired by the railway, Pierce led horse-drawn carriage tours that ended by bringing visitors to his Glen Holly Hotel in Hollywood. In a 1955 interview archived by the Pacific Electric Historical Society, Charles M. Pierce detailed his strategy for publicity:
We went to work assembling a staff of guides and advertising men. For guides I hired big men of commanding presence. When they said anything, the people listened. The advertising men drummed up business for us. We printed thousands of circulars describing the attractions of our trip and these the advertising men distributed. One man made the rounds of the large downtown hotels, another rode the Catalina steamer daily, and another rode other excursions, such as the Santa Fes Kite Trip.
Visitors boarded the Balloon Route in downtown Los Angeles. Balloon Route signs hung from each train. Upon exiting downtown through tunnels, passengers rode past Echo Park, Sunset Junction (then Sanborn Junction), and into Hollywood and the Cahuenga Valley.
Balloon Route brochure, courtesy of the Pacific Electrical Historical Society
A Balloon Route excursion car near Venice. Courtesy of the Metro Transportation Library and Archive.
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Hollywood The Balloon Route's first significant stop was the beautiful garden owned by French artist Paul de Longpre, Hollywood's King of Flowers. Considered one of Hollywood's first tourist attractions, de Longpre's mansion and garden sat at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga. Pierce had the train parked in a spur - a remnant of an old freight station across the street - so that tourists could easily disembark. Tourists who missed seeing the gardens and gallery was said to not have done Southern California. Real estate men could depend on de Longpre to be the first stop when showing prospective Midwesterners local land for sale, wrote Gregory Paul Williams in When the Railroad Leaves Town.
Passengers on the Balloon Route pose in front of De Longpre's home. Courtesy of the Security Pacific National Bank Collection - Los Angeles Public Library.
Postcard of Paul De Longpre's Hollywood garden, courtesy of the Werner von Boltenstern Postcard Collection, Department of Archives and Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount University.
Sawtelle Soldiers Home The next major Balloon Route stop was the Old Soldiers Home, officially named the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. This campus for Civil War soldiers who fought for the Union was built on land donated by John P. Jones and Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, who believed the facility would help stimulate economic development. While the campus (now the Veterans Affairs West Los Angeles Healthcare Center) may not rank high on most modern-day tours, the Soldiers Home was a popular attraction 100 years ago. In fact, visitors were encouraged to tour the campus' sweeping landscapes and bucolic gardens. The train depot still stands (as Building #66) and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At this stop, Balloon Route passengers posed for a souvenir photo on the steps of the Soldiers Home dining hall. A photographer hired by Pierce then rushed back to downtown to process the photos and met the trolley at the Vineyard station, in time to sell the photos to passengers on the cars returning to downtown.
Balloon Route passengers pose in front of the Soldier's Home. Courtesy of the Security Pacific National Bank Collection - Los Angeles Public Library.
Picturesque view of the Soldiers Home, courtesy of the Department of Veteran Affairs, West Los Angeles archives.
Santa Monica's Long Wharf Billed as the world's longest pier, the Long Wharf opened in Santa Monica Bay in 1894 as Port Los Angeles. While riding over the wharf's 4,720 feet, Balloon Route passengers were told they were on the only ocean voyage in the world on wheels. Built by the Southern Pacific, the wharf was meant to compete with the rudimentary harbor in San
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Before tour buses roamed the region, tourists saw the Southern California seaside sites on day-long trolley trips operated by the Pacific Electric. The most popular was the Balloon Route that boasted 10 beaches and 8 cities and 101 miles for 100 cents in 1 day. City, agricultural, and ocean vistas swept past sightseers seated in attractive parlor cars and entertained by tour guides. During the tourist high season, an average of 10,000 people rode the Balloon Route each month. While other routes like the Old Mission, Mt. Lowe and Triangle Trolley were popular, the Balloon Route was the showpiece of the streetcar system, wrote Norman Klein in The History of Forgetting.
