86 years ago, the Dick Whittington Studio took these photos around Van Nuys.

Locations are unknown, but what one sees is prosperity and industry tethered to art.

The tiled bungalow with its vast wings, rafters, and a vented and vaulted front door entrance is an amalgamation of styles: Spanish, Adobe, Mission; wealth without ostentation, a type of house that might exist in Pasadena. Architects back then, trained in classical styles, could superimpose styles governed by correct proportion.

In 1926, people lived and worked here next to a neat row of trees, a farmhouse, fruit trees and a clean concrete roadway with one lone automobile.

Workman construct a cottage, surrounded by agriculture, as a suited man, probably the owner or architect, watches.

And making it all possible, the Bureau of Power and Light, housed in a neat little brick building, business conducted behind venetian blinds, rooms cooled by operable vents above sheets of glass.

Los Angeles has changed a lot since then.

(USC Digital Archives)