View-Master World presents scenes from the View-Master packet Southern California (A 169) from the State Tour Series.
Featuring:
- USC Campus
- Rose Bowl
- Death Valley
- Sequoia National Park
Packet cover
Booklet cover
From the 16-page booklet:
LAND OF THE BIG ADJECTIVES
Southern California is a place that lives up to all the adjectives hurled by movie publicists to describe their latest release. It is “fabulous” because it is legendary the world over, and its way of life, as portrayed (often inaccurately) in movies, is supposed by many in other countries to be the American norm. It is “colossal” because it has so many “biggests” and “bests” and “firsts.” The land itself is awe-inspiring, with snow-capped peaks and burning deserts; long white beaches and fertile valleys. Southern California is a favorite with tourists. It is a place of striking contrasts, in people as well as terrain. It is a land of sun-bronzed youth, surfing, and fast-driven automobiles; but it is also a haven for retired senior citizens. Its people enjoy one thing in common, however; a climate that is usually ideal.
A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES. Surprisingly, California as a whole—famous for its big cities and crowded freeways—also manages to outstrip Iowa as the No. 1 farm state in the nation. Sunny California’s growing season lasts all year; California is harvesting melons when Iowa’s fields are deep in snow. Southern California contributes its share to the state’s leadership in production of apricots, avocados, celery, grapes and raisins, lemons, lettuce, muskmelons, peaches, pears, plums and prunes, strawberries, sugar beets, tomatoes, walnuts, turkeys, eggs, and—in the mineral line—borax.
GEOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING. Southern California has a remarkable variety of landscapes—which is one reason why the movie industry is located there. Surfers’ beaches and skiers’ mountains are only a short distance apart. The Sierra Nevada range, with the second highest peak in the nation, towers above Death Valley, the lowest point. On the Sierra slopes grow the world’s largest trees.
THE HUMAN SIDE. California overtook New York in 1963 to become the most populous state; its estimated population in 1965 was 18,761,000. The 13 counties of Southern California alone contain more people than Texas (9,628,763 in 1960), and, on their own, could rank as the No. 5 state in population! (Nearly two-thirds of these live in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.)
02 Bovard Hall, USC Campus
Bovard Hall, University of Southern California
From the 16-page booklet:
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAMPUS
“Tommy Trojan,” statue symbolizing the prowess of the University of Southern California athletic teams, stands guard at the entrance of Bovard Hall, administration building. South of the campus is 130-acre Exposition Park, with the world’s largest rose garden. It also contains the 105,000-seat Memorial Coliseum, home football field for USC, UCLA, and the professional Rams.
04 Pasadena Rose Bowl
Pasadena Rose Bowl
From the 16-page booklet:
ROSE BOWL, PASADENA
We are flying over the Pasadena Rose Bowl, in which the granddaddy of all New Year’s Day bowl games has been played annually since 1916. The game is a feature of the Tournament of Roses, climaxed by its classic parade of fresh-flower floats and pretty girls.
The Pasadena area is also famous for California Institute of Technology, one of the leading schools of its kind in the world; Pasadena Playhouse, dean of the “little theaters”; and Huntington Library, in nearby San Marino, one of the finest in the world. It contains such priceless items as the 500-year-old Gutenberg Bible and Gainsborough’s renowned painting, The Blue Boy.
16 Death Valley Scotty’s Castle
Death Valley Scotty’s Castle
From the 16-page booklet:
DEATH VALLEY SCOTTY’S CASTLE
Now we view California’s lowest and highest regions from the air. At Bakersfield we take a plane to Death Valley, deepest gash in North America. Much of it is below sea level; Badwater, at minus 282 feet, is the lowest spot in the hemisphere. But mountains rise with dramatic abruptness on either side. It is a wild, beautiful valley, a tortured land of jumbled rock and sculptured sand dunes.
Many prospectors, seeking a shortcut to the 1849 gold fields, died here of thirst. But despite its furnace heat (a record 134 degrees in 1913), Death Valley was tamed by man. Famous 20-mule teams hauled from it many wagonloads of borax.
Near the valley’s northern end stands a most bizarre sight—Scotty’s Castle, a $2-million Spanish palace built by a prospector, Walter Scott (Death Valley Scotty), whose spending sprees were legendary. Since his death it has been open to the public as a museum.
18 Sequoia National Park
Sequoia National Park
From the 16-page booklet:
BIGGEST SEQUOIA
Returning to Bakersfield, the tour route swings via highway up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, where giant sequoia trees stand amid scenery of rugged mountain beauty. They are earth’s biggest plants. The sequoia, a relative of the coast redwood, is not as tall as its cousin but is thicker and more massive. Its tough bark is almost impervious to forest trees’ worst enemies, fire and insects.
This is the General Sherman Tree, largest living thing on earth and one of the oldest. It is 272 feet tall; its base measures 102 feet around; and it contains enough wood to build a village of 55 six-room houses. It has been alive and growing for 3,500 years; it was already a century old when Pharaoh Tutankhamen of ancient Egypt was born!
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