Pioneer memorial

The 400-foot monu­ment loom­ing over Hill Street on the north side of down­town com­mem­or­ates the first Fourth of Ju­ly in Los Angeles when Mor­mon sol­diers who had marched 2,000 miles from Iowa raised the U.S. flag at the fort they built to de­fend the city in the Mex­ic­an-Amer­ic­an War. This col­lec­tion of stor­ies tells the story of the Mor­mon Bat­talion, the evol­u­tion of Ft. Moore Hill and the build­ing of the me­mori­al.

This 1934 re­port re­called a passing era of el­eg­ant man­sions and set the stage for trau­mat­ic changes on the way.

Plans to ex­cav­ate the hill for the Los Angeles County Court­house pre­cip­it­ate this flowery his­tory of the Civic Cen­ter geo­graph­ic fea­ture.