Grand as a European palace and boldly Richardsonian Romanesque in character, the old Los Angeles County Courthouse dominates this vivid hand-tinted view from around 1912 — its red sandstone façade, green copper-clad roofline, and massive clock tower surveying Broadway and Temple Street with civic authority, while horse-drawn carriages still dot the foreground in the last gasp of the pre-automobile city. This magnificent Second Street Courthouse (completed 1891, demolished 1936) is today a lost landmark of Los Angeles, making any surviving postcard image a genuine piece of the city's vanished architectural heritage. The card was mailed from Los Angeles on May 2, 1912 at 2:30 PM, sent by a writer signed "Groff" — possibly a tourist or traveling businessman — to a Frank at "King of Fanton Players" (likely "Canton Players," a theatrical troupe reference) in Buchanan, Michigan, with a breezy message about enjoying California life, the grandeur of the landscape, and anticipating big automobile races. Published by Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco, one of the premier California postcard publishers of the era.