![]() The Bridle Path Association placed signs at the paths' entrances proclaiming that they led from "Beverly Hills to the Sea and the Mountains" - a reference to the organization's ambitious plans to lace the Santa Monica Mountains with equestrian trails. A grand pageant marked the completion of the city's bridle path network on January 10, 1925. ![]() And lastly, though saddle horses were never as common on city streets as draft horses, they nostalgically recalled that dying breed - the urban horse.įor a time, Beverly Hills' bridle paths teemed with horseback riders and the occasional tally-ho. They preserved the rustic feel of a city that was fervently carving itself out of the open countryside of Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. They reinforced the image of Beverly Hills as a place of wealth and privilege. They satisfied the recreational urges of the city's many equine enthusiasts. Laid with decomposed granite and buffered from automobile traffic by curbs and ornamental plants, these bridle paths served several purposes. Two more snaked their way up Coldwater and Benedict canyons. Another occupied the median of Rodeo Drive, where it replaced an abandoned Pacific Electric trolley line that once connected Santa Monica Boulevard with the Beverly Hills Hotel. One stretched from the city's eastern to western boundary, meandering through town down the center of Sunset Boulevard. ![]() Heavy-duty trucks replaced horse-drawn wagons.įrom the early 1920s through the 1960s, pathways dedicated to horse travel ran down the center of several Beverly Hills streets. Automobile taxis replaced horse-drawn hacks. Across the Southland in the early 1920s, horses were vanishing from public streets, their once-essential motive power made obsolete by the internal combustion engine. ![]()
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