Mrs. Abbie Eshelman lived in Strasburg, the charming town southeast of Lancaster, PA.

In July of 1913, Abbie received a postcard from Zillah L. who mailed the greeting from Los Angeles.

The face of the postcard bears a hand-colored photograph of South Park, a park within a larger area south of the Historic South Central neighborhood and west of the Central Alameda area – also called “South Park”.

The neighborhood of almost one and a half square miles is called “South Park”; it surrounds a twenty- acre park established on a plot “purchased from the Boetcher Estate” in 1900.

The city planted oak, walnut, and orange trees in the park and it compared favorably to older parks in the city.

Today, this area is home to a large Latino community, relatively young in age.

The Park now has lighted baseball diamonds, basketball courts, and a children’s play areas.

The postcard was published by the Newman Post Card Company of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

A caption on the reverse of the postcard, “On the road of a thousand wonders”, suggests that this scene of Los Angeles may be part of a series.

On the reverse, Zillah writes, “I am in Calif. at last, it is a lovely place”.

Especially noticed were, “lots of flowers and fruit”.

We don’t have any more information about Zollah’s excursion – the reason for her visit, why the journey took so long, if or when she expected to return to her home, or where she stayed in Los Angeles.

The postmark announces the upcoming World’s Panama-Pacific Exhibition that opened in San Francisco in 1915.

Intended to celebrate the enormous increase in trade made possible by the newly-completed Panama Canal, the world’s fair also presented the glories of San Francisco which had rebounded from the Great Earthquake.

One hopes that Zillah was able to visit Mrs. Eshelman in Strasburg and to share more tales of her trip.