The historic Los Angeles Times Building,
located at 1st and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles, opened
in 1935. At the time, it was the tallest building in the western United
States designed and occupied entirely as a daily newspaper publishing
operation.
Gordon B. Kaufmann designed The Times Building, which won a gold medal
at the 1937 Paris Exposition for its Streamline Moderne architectural
style. Kaufmann's other works include Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada
border. Locally, Kaufman designed Santa Anita Park in nearby Arcadia
and the Athenaeum at the California Institute of Technology.
The story of the Los Angeles Times begins much sooner than 1935, however.
The Times was actually first published on December 4, 1881, under
the name of the Los Angeles Daily Times. In a town of 11,000 people
with four competing newspapers, circulation was very low. Perhaps
less than 1,000 Los Angeles Daily Times newspapers were circulated
in the early days. Financial problems forced the original owners to
turn the fledgling paper over to its printer, the Mirror Printing
Office and Book Bindery. The company hired as editor former military
officer Harrison Gray Otis, who quickly turned the paper into a financial
success. Otis and a partner purchased the entire Times and Mirror
properties in 1884 and incorporated them as the Times-Mirror Company.
Two years later, Otis purchased his partner's interest in the company.
In October 1886, the word "Daily" was removed from the title, and
the newspaper became the Los Angeles Times
As the city grew, so did the Los Angeles Times. However, competition
among local newspapers was fierce, and it was not until the mid-1940s
that The Times became the leading newspaper in Los Angeles. Today,
The Times is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the country, with
a daily circulation of approximately one million.
In June 2000, The Times became a Tribune Publishing newspaper when
Tribune Company acquired Times Mirror, former parent of the Los Angeles
Times.
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