Hotels have long served as temporary abodes for those visiting Southern California. Luxury hotels like the Raymond and the Green made Pasadena a coveted resort destination among East Coast elites in the 1880s. The Hotel Arcadia helped put Santa Monica on the map. And today hotels serve the region's still-vital tourism industry.
But Los Angeles' first hotel, the Bella Union, functioned as more than simply temporary lodging for out-of-town visitors. For decades after it opened in 1849, it was the heart of civic life in the recently conquered American city. Judges deliberated, lovers wedded, and gunfighters traded menacing glances all inside the Bella Union's walls.