Hollywood Heritage Calls for L. Frank Baum Park

At a September 6 meeting with Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, Hollywood Heritage president Robert W. Nudelman requested that the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department rename the recently constructed Yucca Street Park to
L. Frank Baum Park.

This request is made to give recognition to L. Frank Baum, whose Hollywood home, called “Ozcot,” and its extensive gardens was located across the street from the park, at the southwest corner of Cherokee Avenue and Yucca Street. Mr. and Mrs. Baum built the house in 1911, and it is where L. Frank Baum died on May 6, 1919, and where his wife Maude lived until her death in 1940.

At this house, Mr. Baum wrote 8 of his 14 books about the “Land of Oz,” acting in his role as the "Royal Historian of Oz" (a title he created for himself while writing the Oz books here). He would invite neighborhood school children to the house to tell them stories of Oz and answer questions about these mythic adventures. Additionally at Ozcot, Mr. Baum wrote the stage success The Tick Tock Man of Oz during 1911-1912, with music by Louis Gottschalk.

In 1914 L. Frank Baum helped to create one of Hollywood’s pioneer film studios, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, with a 7 acre studio and film lab on Santa Monica Boulevard between Gower and Lodi Streets. Mr. Baum was president and Mr. Gottschalk was vice-president, composing original music for live orchestras to accompany these silent films. Four feature length (5 reels) films were produced there based on Mr. Baum’s work, including The Patchwork Girl of Oz and His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (both 1914).

Mr. Baum’s first Oz book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first published in 1900, would serve as the basis for one of the greatest and most popular motion pictures ever made, The Wizard of Oz, in 1939 (it also served as the basis of the 1925 version starring Larry Semon and Oliver Hardy). The 1939 Wizard of Oz had its world premiere a few blocks away at Grauman’s Chinese Theater with Mrs. Baum in attendance. His books have remained in print up to this day and have been translated into over 30 languages worldwide.

Because L. Frank Baum’s final home was located across the street from the site of the park, and his writings and resulting films have been immensely popular with children (and adults) worldwide for over 100 years, and because he was one of Hollywood’s earliest producers of feature films, Hollywood Heritage strongly recommends that the name of Yucca Street Park be changed to honor one of Hollywood’s most famous residents. Like the park, Mr. Baum’s books were created to provide enjoyment for children of all ages (many of his ideas for the Oz books written at Ozcot were based on letters sent by children to Mr. Baum). It would be hard to create a more fitting tribute for Mr. Baum, and at the same time remind people of the park’s famous former neighbor.

The enjoyment of the park would also serve as a reminder to people of what L. Frank Baum once wrote: “Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders.” Few statements better illustrate the success of the Hollywood mythos throughout the world.