This is the story of the gold panner.
He stands at the corner of San Vicente and Crescent Heights. The picture above is from yesterday.
Once upon a time, there was a very large movie theater in this area, a movie palace. It was called the Carthay Circle Theater.
It was a theater shaped like a circle, at least inside, hence the name. Over time, the neighborhood became known as "Carthay Circle," even though there is no circle there.
Both the interior and exterior had quite a bit of western / pioneer themed decoration, including the gold panner you see above:
The interior:
A newspaper clipping listing the Carthay. You can see in the listing to the right many of the neighborhood theaters from this time are gone, but quite a few are still around. For example The El Rey is a concert theater, the Nuart still shows movies, the Culver shows plays, and the Fine Arts awaits a buyer.)
The theater was sadly demolished in 1969 and replaced by a rather non-descript office park.
Some of the statues and ornaments found their way to people's front yards. The gold panner was placed in a tiny patch of grass where San Vicente and Crescent Heights intersect.
One morning in 2008, it was discovered the gold panner was gone!
A scrap metal yard had recently bought him from two guys who'd walked in. The scrap metal yard was suspicious and called police, who tracked down the two guys who had sold the panner to the scrapyard. They were put under surveillance, and were observed stealing other items, including two bronze giraffes from a Beverly Hills front yard!
They were arrested, but sadly the miner had been chopped in half by the thieves.
Luckily he was put back together and placed back at the intersection.
Here he is at the beginning of his life, in 1928, with the sculptor who made him looking on:
In an odd side note, the Carthay Circle Theater was actually recreated.....at an amusement park. It currently stands inside California Adventure. This is because Disney first premiered Snow White at the Carthay. However.....there is no actual theater inside the amusement park replica. It houses a restaurant.
