In 1887, the 35 acres of orange...

In 1887, the 35 acres of orange groves on the southwest corner of Main Street and Washington Boulevard were turned into a resort known as Washington Gardens. It boasted of beautiful gardens, an “opera house,” which was really a glorified honky-tonk saloon, and a modest zoo. The Main and Temple streetcar (first horse-drawn, later electric) would stop at the park’s doorstep. Fifteen years later came Chute’s Park, an amusement park with water slides.

Then came baseball.

On sunny afternoons around the turn of the century, the Los Angeles Angels, one of six original Pacific Coast League teams, called 5,200-seat Washington Park home. The Vernon Baseball Club also played most of its home games there, as did the Venice Baseball Club for two years.

General admission was 25 cents, and women were admitted free on Thursdays.

The PCL Angels won 14 pennants--six at Washington Park in 1903, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1916 and 1921.

In the early 1920s, chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. bought the Angels and made them a minor league team of his Chicago Cubs. At the end of the 1925 season, the Angels, with manager Marty Krug, abandoned Washington Park for the newly built Wrigley Field at 42nd Place and Avalon Boulevard.

In 1926, the ballpark was dismantled, allowing Hill Street to be extended to the south. But the park’s abandoned baseball field, choking in weeds and dust, was magically transformed many times into an exciting sawdust and canvas theater as circus tents, trucks, performers and animals captivated audiences at the site.

When the Clyde Beatty Circus opened on April 11, 1946, “it was knee-deep with kids, some as old as 80 under the canvas Big Top,” according to an account in The Times. Legendary animal trainer Beatty loomed as a heroic figure for 45 years as he entered cages filled with lions and tigers.

Where crowds had once roared at the crack of the bat, they sat awe-struck as big cats roared as they were put through their paces. Garbed in white, wearing boots and with a gun loaded with blanks at his hip, Beatty had been the star attraction under many big tops, including the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the early 1930s.

Beatty entered the cage carrying a chair in one hand and a whip in the other. He was probably the first to mix lions and tigers in the same cage, working with as many as 44 big cats at once.

He was mauled more than 100 times, and was nearly killed several times. But he loved his work and his animals. He knew the cats by name and judged their moods by their eyes, their gaits, their slightest movements.

Beatty performed at Washington Park many times, including in 1948, when the circus was filmed for television for the first time. For years, Beatty’s circus arrived at dawn at 8th Street and Alameda Avenue to begin setting up for its 12-day run--with two performances daily--at the old ballpark site at Washington and Hill.

Other big-name circuses--Ringling Bros., Russell Bros., Hagenbeck-Wallace and the Cole Bros.--also played on the old ballpark grounds. Auto shows and religious revivals were held there until 1958, when the L.A. Mart--with its 350 showrooms of furniture, fabric and accessories--was built on part of the land once used to enthrall ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages.