Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Some History Attached to Ellendale Place…

Dr. Walter Lindley, a Physician and Surgeon in Los Angeles, was born in Monrovia, Indiana, January 13, 1852. His father was Milton Lindley, distinguished in the history of Los Angeles, and founder of Ellendale Place.  Milton purchased forty acres of land adjoining the western limits of the city and made his home there until 1882.  After he sold his land that he had used for fruit orchards it was transformed into Ellendale Place, “one of the handsome residence sections of Los Angeles.”

Dr. Walter Lindley came to Los Angeles to practice medicine and was one of the greatest constructive factors in the modernizing of the city.  As Health Officer of Los Angeles, member of the Board of Education and Superintendent of the County Hospital of Los Angeles in the days when the city was emerging from the conditions of a Mexican pueblo, Dr. Lindley did much for the future of the place.  Dr. Lindley was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Orphans' Home, the Los Angeles Humane Society and the College of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

His greatest work, however, is the founding of the California Hospital in 1887.  Dr. Lindley conceived of a hospital owned and operated solely by physicians. The physicians in Lindley's building were "carriage trade" and were affiliated with the University of Southern California Medical School. The first physician-owned and operated hospital in Los Angeles was erected at 1414 S. Hope Street and was the first building in California especially invented for medical purposes - a project that Walter Lindley supervised at every stage of its design and construction.

Following the founding of the hospital, he organized the College Training School for Nurses, the first of its kind established in Southern California. He was also the President of the California State Board of Medical Examiners and ex-President of the State Medical Society.  Dr. Lindley was also a member of the California, University and Union League Clubs, the Los Angeles Humane Society and the Historical Society of Los Angeles. 

In other connections to USC, his Aunts were founders of USC’s Kappa Alpha Theta and his Grandson was a founder of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.