Griffith Park

The land was said to be haunted, so the man who owned it put an ostrich farm on it to get people to come and look.

Griffith J. Griffith made his money speculating in mining and bought Rancho Los Feliz, near the Los Angeles River, in 1882. He leased some of it to investors for an ostrich farm, ostrich feathers being in demand for women's hats in the late 19th century. That was not the real purpose. Griffith wanted to lure Angelenos out to look at his nearby property developments, which were supposedly haunted by the ghost of Antonio Feliz, a previous owner of the land.

After the property rush peaked, Griffith and his wife Christina donated 3,015 acres to the City of Los Angeles on 16 December 1896. The gift came with written instructions, and they are worth reading in full: public parks are a safety valve of great cities, and should be accessible and attractive, where neither race, creed nor colour should be excluded.

Then the harder part of the record. In a 1903 incident at Santa Monica, Griffith shot his wife in the face and severely wounded her. He was tried and convicted. On release from prison he funded the construction of an amphitheatre and an observatory in the park. Some objected, his reputation being what it was, and the city eventually accepted his money anyway. That is where the Greek Theatre and the Griffith Observatory come from.

The park now covers 4,310 acres, and in January 2014 the commission adopted the description that fits it best: an urban wilderness, and the largest municipal park with urban wilderness area in the United States.

It was Tongva territory long before any of this. The Tongva placename Mocovenga is associated with the ground just southwest of Ferndell, which has been a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument since 1973.