Down at the Farm, in L.A.
Los Angeles entered the American imagination as an agricultural boom town. In the 1880s, railroad lines dangled promises that in the thriving Southern California Citrus Belt, just 10 or 15 miles from downtown, 60 or 70 lemon trees on a half-acre of land could make a family’s fortune. Some new Californians ventured into logging or, a decade later, oil, or 25 years after that, the movies. No city better fit Horace Greeley’s proclamation, “Go West, young man, go West, and grow up with the country!” No entertainer showcased SoCal-style success or the area’s urban and rural glories more brilliantly than Nebraska-born transplant Harold Lloyd.
In 1917, this silent-comedy genius, already a star at the Hal Roach Studios, donned a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and
