Everyone loves France. Well, most everyone does.
If France wasn't so beloved, "French girl style" wouldn't be trending on TikTok, Paris wouldn't be flooded with tourists all the time, and French food wouldn't be enjoyed around the world.
Well...Los Angeles was supposed to get what was billed as the world's largest amusement park.
It was called Somewhere in France.
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| Former location of Somewhere in France amusement park. Note the street "Pigott Drive", named after Allied Amusements' general manager William Pigott. |
I solemnly swear on my personal copy of Le Guide Français that I am not making this up.
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| 1923 article on plans for Somewhere in France amusement park, with pictures of the park's planners and concept art Allied Amusements floated a stock issue to get the project off the ground. In December of 1922, sixteen acres went into escrow "on Washington Boulevard near Tilden Avenue". With frontages on both Washington and Venice Boulevards (which both had streetcar lines), it was estimated that 17,000,000 people would pass the site each year. By the spring of 1923, the planned park had increased in size - first to 22 acres, then to 35 acres. That would have made it about twice the size of Disneyland. The 1923 city directory lists "Somewhere in France Co.", at Allied's downtown office. The park was said to cost a staggering $4 million or more - in 2022 dollars, that's about $70 million. The true cost would likely be MUCH higher today due to the sky-high land value and significantly stricter fire and earthquake safety standards. |
Construction began in May of 1923. The park's founders had hired T.H. Eslick, who had built amusements around the world (and designed the La Monica ballroom that once stood on the Santa Monica pleasure pier), to build the park. The park's art director was Edward Langley, who had directed Douglas Fairbanks' acclaimed picture "Robin Hood".
Addressing the Ebell of Pomona, Langley told the club members that the park would be beautiful, educational, and cultured, appropriate for club women or for children. (At the time, amusement parks were not necessarily kid-friendly, and could be downright seedy.)
Langley teased some of the park's features:
- The park's gate would have opened onto "a typical French street".
- A scaled-down railroad would have passed through "reproductions of cities, typical of every land, and the architecture is to be wondrous and withal authentic."
- A 90-foot mountain "which flanks one side of the park and wherein is concealed a great treasure cove of waterfalls and lily ponds and quaint scenic views is, in fact, our old friend the roller coaster."
- An onsite cinema and movie sets (Langley was a director, and Culver City is the "Heart of Screenland", after all).
- Wild animals from the Hagenbeck Zoo in Berlin (the plan was to exhibit every species of wild animal ever held in captivity).
- The largest Ferris wheel in the US.
- The largest indoor swimming pool on the Pacific Coast.
- A children's playground.
- War re-enactments (the Great War was an entirely too-recent memory).
- Some sort of water spectacle.
- A replica of France's war trenches.
- One of the largest dance halls on the Pacific Coast.
- Tea rooms and restaurants, all unique.
For some unspecified reason (although money is usually a good guess with amusement parks), construction was halted and resumed in August 1924.
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| Somewhere in France on 1924 Sanborn map with alternate name "Bohemia" |
Strangely, I could find no record of Somewhere in France ever opening its gates. The park was already being hyped before construction began (mostly by developers); surely a grand opening would be a newsworthy event.
How could this Disney-worthy dreamland fail to materialize in a land of make-believe?
In the absence of hard evidence, it’s hard to say, although I did find a 1927 court case regarding a legal dispute (Allied Amusements v. Superior Court). I don’t speak legalese, but I can tell you the parcel was partly in Culver City and partly in unincorporated LA County, and the city wanted to acquire land to open Washington Place and widen the street. While this was going on, the unincorporated County land was annexed to the City of Los Angeles. (Disney had the right idea forty-some years later when they set up the Reedy Creek Improvement District, since Walt Disney World straddles two counties.)
A 1928 article covers plans to build the world's largest roller rink - at Washington Place and Sepulveda Boulevard. Which happens to be on the Somewhere in France property. This time, Allied went with theatrical designer Carl Bollerf and Pasadena contractors J.W. Woodworth and Son.
The plans called for a large skating pavilion - 15,600 square feet of skating floor alone (the average roller rink has about 10,000 square feet of skating surface) - with "lounge rooms, smoking and radio rooms, nursery, skating rooms for beginners and another for children." Adjoining land was to become...drumroll please...another #$@%ing parking lot.
It's a pity Somewhere in France didn't open its doors. It would most likely have changed the game for Southern California's amusement parks. The idea of a clean, classy, but still kid-friendly amusement park would not be seen again in the Los Angeles area until Walt Disney, sitting on a bench in Griffith Park watching his daughters on the carousel, got the idea for Disneyland (which used to be cleaner, trust me) about 30 years later. (Knott's Berry Farm technically pre-dates both, but it wasn't an amusement park when it opened.)
Incidentally, Walt Disney arrived in Los Angeles in 1923. He was firmly focused on animation at the time, of course, but it's remarkable how Disney-like Somewhere in France could have been. Consider that Disneyland's gates open onto Main Street USA (even at Disneyland Paris), there are scaled-down railroads at Disney parks around the world, man-made mountains double as roller coaster settings (the Matterhorn, Everest, etc.), there is an entire movie-themed park called Disney's Hollywood Studios, EPCOT takes visitors on an educational trip around the world, and Animal Kingdom is even more impressive than the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Allied might have thought of combining all of it first, but Walt Disney (and his brother Roy) managed to get the gates open.
By the way, there was only one French national on Somewhere in France's advisory board. It was Amaury Mars, of all people.
