14 Vintage Photos of Houses Moving in Los Angeles From the Past

All over Southern California there are opportunities to buy houses for the moving… houses which stand in the way of such building projects as shopping centers, apartment buildings, parking lots, filling stations, churches, government construction and road projects.

Approximately 700 houses are moved each year in the Los Angeles area alone. John Koslov, right-of-way clearance agent for the State Highway Department, District 7, says that to make room for one 3-mile section of the Foothill Freeway, the Highway Department purchased 396 improved parcels, of which they sold 251 and demolished 145.

Aug. 31, 1958: A house moved from Hollywood is elevated to clear its new neighbor's roof on East 90th Street.

PREVIOUS Jan. 8, 1959: A house is raised 25 feet to move into its new location on West 43rd Street. The structure was moved from 94th Street and El Manor Avenue.

Aug. 23, 1960: A barge carrying a pair of houses is prepared to sail from Los Angeles Harbor to Port Hueneme in Ventura County.

July 10, 1968: At about 5 a.m., a garage being moved from La Cañada to Hollywood slipped off its truck on Broadway near Alpine. Wreckers had to rip the structure apart to remove it before morning rush hour.

Aug. 16, 1973: John and Cheryl Fremdling moved their 349-ton home in Pasadena to keep it from being demolished.

Aug. 16, 1973: John and Cheryl Fremdling check out their house after its move to a new Pasadena location.

Oct. 22, 1973: An early 1900s house crossing over the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland stops so workers can free its eaves from being entangled with a light pole.

September 1974: A house being moved in LaCrosse, Wis., stalls on a railroad track, but workers were able to move the structure before a train arrived.

PREVIOUS Jan. 21, 1976: One section of a house, left, is in position at Harriman Avenue and Edison Street in Los Angeles, ready for the arrival of another portion being moved from Glendale. But the second section collapsed after hitting a dip just a half-block short of its destination. Both sections had to be demolished.

March 1978: One of two Victorian houses, both designated as Los Angeles historical-cultural monuments, is shown being moved from Court Street, just west of downtown, to 1300 Carroll Ave., seven blocks away.

May 11, 1989: The Edward Strong mansion in downtown Los Angeles is moved from its site of 102 years on West 15th Street to make room for an expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Oct. 25, 1950: The parsonage of Inglewood First Methodist Church is moved to Grace Methodist Church in Lennox. Ed French, left, the foreman on the moving job, talks with Rev. M.K. Stone and Willis L. Hanna of Lennox.

July 10, 1951: Cables are used to pull a six-room, 20-ton house up a hill – one of the steepest in town – on Baxter Street, just east of Lake Shore Avenue, in Silver Lake.

June 1952: Parked cars block the path of a two-story house being relocated from Doheny Drive just south of Sunset Boulevard to Santa Monica.

(via Los Angeles Times)