Fire at Vineyard Junction
View of Vineyard Junction, Sears and Roebuck Pico store and the West Blvd Bridge. Cooper Lumber Company, the business located in the lower left hand area of the image, has just suffered a devastating fire as the rubble of destroyed buildings show. Cooper Lumber did rebuilt and survived into the late 70’s, when the property was sold to a chain of home improvement stores that was known as Builders Emporium. Today the tracks are gone and have become San Vicente Blvd, and Cooper Lumber property is a mixed use transit center.
Ralph Melching Photo, Pacific Railroad Society Collection
Ralph Melching Photo, Pacific Railroad Society Collection
View looking east from Pico Blvd Viaduct showing traffic detour at Rimpau on acct of fire at Cooper Lumber Co. on 1-6-40. Eastbound traffic on Pico Blvd is being diverted north on Hudson Ave. Westbound traffic is being diverted north onto Rimpau Blvd.
Ralph Melching Photo, Pacific Railroad Society Collection
Leave a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Positively amazing! Always wanted to have a sense of what West Blvd. bridge, and the yard before it, looked like. Very cool.
I tried my hand at colorizing the final photo and I think the results came out pretty good! Thanks for an excellent website.
http://tvdads.com/nowthen/rainy.jpg
amazing work, Jim! beautiful colorization!
Great work! Really makes the picture come alive. Thanks for the time and effort.
Mr O’Kane: You make 1940 look like 2016!
Does anyone have a link that still works for the colorized photo that Jim O’Kane did? Thank you!
Amazing! I used to work at Cooper Lumber in 1967. I was drafted and when I came back it was gone. The owner that I knew was Bill Cooper. He was a very cool guy, had a bus converted to an RV and dated the stars. He had a friend that owned the Triumph motorcycle store & got me a great deal on a bike. Anyway, it’s nice to finally know what happened to the store.