Those are just a few of the Los Angeles Times headlines after a rainy Rose Parade 100 years ago.

The Times published a description of every float. Some highlights:

Happy New Year.

And here’s everything you need to know about this year’s festivities.

-- Matt Ballinger

That’s the first ever queen of the Tournament of Roses, Hallie Woods, with her royal court in 1905. In 1948, The Times caught up with her:

“There weren’t so many people present,” she was quoted as saying. “No automobiles, no movie cameras, no dreams of fame and a career.

“But it was a big thrill to me. I think it will always be.”

Read the rest: First 'Rose Queen' Says It Was Thrill (And don’t miss the story’s ending; it’s got a lovely little flourish.)

For this year’s festivities, here’s everything you need to know.

-- Matt Ballinger

Photo: Hallie Woods, shown here with her court in 1905, will forever hold the honor of being the first rose queen. Credit: Graham Barclay / Tournament of Roses Archives

I’m putting together some materials on the 1916 Rose Parade but couldn’t ignore these headlines on Page One of the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 2 of that year. 

A three-hour earthquake felt from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific? It was “San Andreas” but for real! 

Except not. I’ve found very little information from other sources about a major New Year’s Day earthquake in 1916.

And by the Jan. 4 edition, The Times was calling it a “slight earthquake shock”:

It would seem that the only injury from the “catastrophe of three hours’ duration” was to a switchboard operator who got a cramp handling all those phone calls.

-- Matt Ballinger

Images: Portions of Los Angeles Times articles from Jan. 2 and 4, 1916. Credit: Los Angeles Times archive

I just love this Los Angeles Times photo of Meadowlark Lemon, the Harlem Globetrotters star who died Sunday at age 83. The photo was taken by Fitzgerald Whitney in 1972 in L.A.; Lemon was demonstrating ball-twirling.

-- Matt Ballinger

A sampling of headlines from the front page of the Los Angeles Times 100 years ago today:

That last one is a reference to President Woodrow Wilson and his new wife, Edith, who had recently been married and were honeymooning in Virginia. (It was Wilson’s second marriage; his first wife died the year before.) The Times seemed very interested in their golf game -- on Dec. 24, a headline mentioned that the president’s wife was learning how to play (”Fore. Mrs. Wilson Learning Golf. Reports say she is proving an apt pupil.”) Then the Christmas Day article mentions that a Mr. Barton French, playing the course behind the presidential couple, almost hit the Wilsons with a golf ball. The president asked Mr. French to play ahead.

Merry Christmas.

-- Matt Ballinger

Fifty years ago today, The Times “guaranteed” a white Christmas in Southern California’s mountain areas. The weather report from Dec. 24, 1965, sounds a lot like what we’ve been experiencing this week. And considering all the precipitation we’ve had in the L.A. basin of late, the mountains could be snowy this year too. 

Read the full article: White Yuletide Guaranteed for Mountain Areas

Merry Christmas, and be safe out there in the weather.

-- Matt Ballinger

The Times’ Doug Smith this week had an interesting examination of the exotic and dying trees of Elysian Park.

Above is a photo spread published in 1923 showing some of those exotic trees, which the city was cultivating in Elysian Park for use in parks around the city. There are Atlas cedars, which are native to northwestern Africa; sycamores, commonly found on the East Coast; and the queen palm, a tropical tree. Click on the image of the page above to explore it further.

Read the rest of Smith’s article: Recovery plan lies dormant as Elysian Park’s exotic trees die off

-- Matt Ballinger

A few days after Thanksgiving in 1965, the Cossman family of Studio City had a guest who was overstaying its welcome.

Read the rest of the article: Bird Came to Dinner and Won’t Go Away

And whether you’re serving turkey, duck, turducken or tofurky, have a delightful Thanksgiving.

-- Matt Ballinger

Image: Screengrab of a photo that ran on Page 3 of the Nov. 29, 1965, Los Angeles Times. 

1940: Service Men to Dine in Style

This type of article is no reporter’s favorite assignment, but whoever wrote this unbylined article, which ran in the Nov. 21, 1940, Los Angeles Times, did a commendable job.

Read the full 1940 article: Service Men to Dine in Style

More on Thanksgiving from The Times’ Food section

-- Matt Ballinger

For $2.50 90 years ago, you could get a Thanksgiving meal and an evening of dancing to Ray West’s Alexandria Orchestra in the Franco-Italian room at the Hotel Alexandria in downtown L.A. This beautiful advertisement ran with dozens of others on Page 7 of the Nov. 25, 1925, Los Angeles Times. Click on the image above to see the full page.

Anybody serving “Mock Turtle aux Quenelles” on Thursday?

-- Matt Ballinger

This advertisement for the dentists Lutz and Lutz ran on Page I9 in the Nov. 21, 1915, Los Angeles Times.

It sounds like a very convenient dental-health experience -- plus there was a “Lady Attendant.”

For a more modern Thanksgiving, here’s The Times’ guide.

-- Matt Ballinger

Happy Thanksgiving

The plan this week is to publish one archival item a day -- from 100 years ago, 90 years ago, 75 years ago and 50 years ago -- with a Thanksgiving theme. The 1915 item will post later today.

Meanwhile, from the present, here are a few Times items to help you prepare for Thursday’s festivities:

Day-by-day guide to prepping for Thanksgiving

Where to eat out or get takeout on Thanksgiving

Don’t panic: Here’s how to carve a Thanksgiving turkey

-- Matt Ballinger

I thought it would be fitting to close this week’s exploration of typography with this dispatch from The Times basement. Above a door that leads to a staircase is a lovely exit sign that glows mostly for no one.

Here’s a closer look.

It’s green, of course, and the texture makes me think it could be stained glass (though it might be plastic). The two aspects that stand out to me are the serifs, especially on the E and the T; and the slanted middle line on the E.

This sign is well off the beaten track and the highlight of no tours, but when I noticed it recently, something about it stood out -- and pushed me to embark on this week-long exploration of typography and lettering around the building.

Finally, the answer to yesterday’s question: That’s the Spring Street lobby’s directory first, the Globe Lobby’s second.

-- Matt Ballinger

Photos: An exit sign in the basement of the Los Angeles Times building. Credit; Matt Ballinger / Los Angeles Times

Mailboxes are eye-catching features of the two main lobbies of the Los Angeles Times building in downtown L.A. And I’ve always been fascinated by what must be custom lettering on their facades.

The top image is of the Globe Lobby mailbox. That part of the building was built in the 1930s. I love how there is no negative space in the P and how the A’s have similar (but not identical) shapes. The second image is from the Spring Street lobby, part of a 1948 building. The lettering is similar -- notice the A shapes and the E’s. But the U’s on the Spring Street mailbox are squarer than those in the Globe Lobby.

And the Times Eagle is on both, but in strikingly different representations.

Also in both lobbies are building directories with beautiful type. Can you guess which is which?

-- Matt Ballinger

Photos: Mailboxes and directories in the Globe and Spring Street lobbies at the Los Angeles Times building. Credit: Matt Ballinger / Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times building

That’s the answer to the trivia question in the previous post. The Vs are meant to be read as U’s, of course.

More typography posts to come...

-- Matt Ballinger

Slight change in plans. Today I was going to talk about Art Deco lettering on a mailbox, but I’ll do that tomorrow. And it will be two mailboxes! Today, let’s look at the facade of The Times’ headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.

Above the doorway to the Globe Lobby on First Street are the words “Los Angeles Times” -- and on either side are reliefs of The Times’ eagle and a few words. The one on the left side of the doorway says “Truth,” then “Liberty under the law.” The U’s are represented as Vs, in the style of old monuments and inscriptions. 

Trivia: What does the relief on the other side of the doorway say?

-- Matt Ballinger

Photo: The exterior of The Times building on First Street in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: Matt Ballinger / Los Angeles Times

“The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold. There is no dimming, no effacement here. Each new pulsation keeps the record clear.”

That text rings the Los Angeles Times’ Globe Lobby, and I thought the word “newspaper” -- specifically the style of writing in which it is displayed -- would be a good place to launch an exploration of typography around The Times’ building in downtown L.A.

The first sentence is from an 1887 book of Henry Ward Beecher sayings, “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit.” (Here is an 1887 Times article on Beecher’s death: “Beecher Dead.”) The next two lines are from a poem, “The Memory of the Heart,” by Daniel Webster, a famous U.S. congressman who lived from 1782 to 1852. 

Let’s look a bit more closely at that type. The S stands out immediately.

But more interesting to me is the R. 

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the vertical and diagonal straight lines of an R connected like that.

So as we kick off this week of interesting Times typography, let me note that I am in no way an expert on the subject. I can tell you the difference between serif and sans-serif type, of course, but my knowledge runs out soon after that. So if there are experts (and I have a couple of colleagues in mind who I’ll try to talk with this week) who want to weigh in, please get in touch. And if you have examples of interesting typography at The Times building or elsewhere, post it on your Tumblr or tweet it @latimespast; I’ll try to reblog it.

Coming tomorrow: Some Art Deco type from an elevator lobby.

-- Matt Ballinger

Photo: The word “newspaper” in The Times’ Globe Lobby, photographed on Nov. 16, 2015. Credit: Matt Ballinger / Los Angeles Times

This one isn’t pretty.

Today, The Times’ Kate Linthicum has a report about federal deportation efforts in the 1950s. Her article -- pivoting off Donald Trump’s recent comments about the program -- tells the story of people whose lives were forever changed by the program, which had the highly unfortunate name “Operation Wetback.” I pulled some historical L.A. Times coverage of deportation raids in 1954 and wrote about the term.

Above are the stylebook entries in question -- 1995 on top, 1979 below. 

Read the full report: The dark, complex history of Trump's model for his mass deportation plan

See Times photos: Historical photos of 1950s mass deportations in Southern California

Read coverage from 1954 and 1955: How The Times covered mass deportations in the Eisenhower era

-- Matt Ballinger

Photo: The W sections of Los Angeles Times stylebooks from 1995, top, and 1979. Credit: Matt Ballinger / Los Angeles Times