Sunset to Commerce: A Tujunga Timeline

The crowd hushed as Ella leaned over the table and skillfully positioned her cue. After a moment of stillness to line up her shot, she unleashed a lightning-fast stroke that sent the cue ball racing across the felt. Curving as it went, it careened into a ball that propelled it into the corner pocket. Rebounding around the table another ball sank, then another. Not until six billiard balls had disappeared from the table did the cue ball finally come to rest. The small crowd in the Tujunga establishment broke into applause.

This was the scene on Sunset Boulevard, today’s Commerce Avenue, in the late 1920s, when a pocket billiard exhibition was headlined by Harold and Ella Baker, a husband-and-wife team of trick-and-fancy-shot specialists. Ella was a self-described “pool hall widow” until she became an accomplished trick-shot specialist in her own right. Her husband, Harold “Red” Baker, was a prominent billiards champion who competed against the likes of Willie Mosconi. The two became local legends for their exhibitions at small billiard halls like that of Rice’s Billiard Parlor at 425 Sunset Blvd.

That’s just one of many stories I’ll share at Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave., at 1 p.m. on Oct. 10, as I present my program, Sunset to Commerce: A Tujunga Timeline. I’ve spent several years researching the many storylines that have unfolded over the decades on Tujunga’s main street and I’m excited to share some of them.

First, let’s look at how this thoroughfare went from Sunset Boulevard before 1932 to Commerce Avenue after. 

Both Sunland and Tujunga were annexed to the city of Los Angeles just a handful of years apart. When these acquisitions occurred, any street in the newly annexed area that had the same name as a street already in the city of Los Angeles had to be changed. Foothill Boulevard was Michigan Avenue for many years prior to the annexations. There’s a Michigan Avenue that leads right to the gates of Evergreen Cemetery near downtown Los Angeles, so our Michigan Avenue had to be changed and it became Foothill Boulevard.

The earliest days of life in what is now downtown Tujunga began on Sunset Boulevard. At 250 Sunset Blvd. the cornerstone of the Little Landers Clubhouse was laid on April 12, 1913. It was completed and dedicated in August of that year. From there, the town’s early growth began. The colonists’ co-op store was built, then a dry goods store went up. Soon, a small post office was established on the southeast corner of what is today Valmont and Commerce.

This is where things stood by 1915 but over the next decade almost all of the 22 lots on the west side of Sunset Boulevard were built upon, and nearly half that number were occupied on the east from Foothill Boulevard to Valmont Street. Some of those businesses included Jepson’s Gift Shop, Buck’s Real Estate, Cinderella’s Beauty Salon, the Shoe Hospital, the Tujunga Sentinel, Sunset Fair clothing store, Bludworth’s Hardware, Tujunga Valley Bank, The Morning Glory Inn, the Kandy Kitchen, Sunset Radio Shop, Daley’s Grocery and, at the south end of the street, the famous Garden of the Moon Dance Hall containing both the Cozy Cup Café and the Welcome Inn eating establishments.

All these businesses existed on Sunset Boulevard before 1932. After Tujunga’s annexation in that year, things continued to flourish along what became Commerce Avenue. Many more wonderful and dramatic stories transpired along this colorful stretch of businesses between then and now, and I’ll do my best on Oct. 10 to reveal the best of them. Please join me!

Next time, I’ll be telling some tales surrounding the infamous Verdugo Hills Cemetery to inform you of a very special event that will take place there on Nov. 1 ^– the Day of the Dead. Mark your calendars; there’ll be more to come.