Mining millionaire paid $50,000 for land that became LA’s Griffith Park 14 years later

In 1882, mining millionaire Griffith J. Griffith paid $50,000 for 4,071 acres of ranchland in the Santa Monica Mountains, a purchase that would reshape Los Angeles for generations. Fourteen years later, in 1896, he donated 3,015 acres of that land to the city, creating what is now Griffith Park and setting aside the hillside that would later hold the Griffith Observatory. The gift transformed a private cattle ranch into one of the largest urban parks in the United States, providing open space, recreation and cultural institutions for a rapidly growing city, according to the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and the Los Angeles Times.

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