History of Griffith Park in Los Angeles

View from Griffith Park of LA at Night From the time of the great Los Feliz Rancho to the present, Griffith Park has had a very interesting and colorful history. In 1896 Colonel Griffith J. Griffith donated over 3,015 acres of land to the city of Los Angeles. This single act gave Los Angeles the largest municipal park in the world. Col. Griffith purchased the parklands when he acquired the Rancho Los Feliz in 1882. He was a wealthy man when he arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1880’s. He had made his money in investing in mines and now he was investing in land. The Los Angeles land booms of the late 1880’s made him even wealthier and then he married money. In 1903, something snapped in Col. Griffith. There is speculation that he suffered from alcoholic delusions brought on by drinking two quarts of whiskey a day. He had hinted that his wife was in cahoots with the Pope to poison him. And at the end of a month long vacation in Santa Monica, the Colonel shot his wife. She jerked her head, jumped out a window, landed on a canvas awning, and survived. She became the “society wife who wouldn't die.” Col. Griffith was convicted of attempted murder brought on by alcoholic insanity and was sentenced to 2 years in San Quentin. He served his time and then returned to Los Angeles. He was a hated and wealthy man. In he 1913 he set up a trust fund and donated $150,000 to build the Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theater.