Lost Burbank

Slowly fading with the city’s ever-changing landscape, the places and people of Burbank’s past tell a vibrant story. Before the arrival of Warner Bros. and Walt Disney, First National Pictures built its original studio lot on Olive Avenue in 1926. For over sixty years, Lockheed Aircraft Company produced some of the nation’s best airplanes where the massive Empire Shopping Center now stands. Heavyweight champion James Jeffries turned his Burbank ranch home and barn into a beloved landmark and boxing venue. And inventor Joseph Wesley Fawkes’s scheme to build a monorail to Los Angeles became a local laughingstock. Die-hard Burbankers Wes Clark and Michael McDaniel collect these and many more forgotten local stories where they can finally be found.