Los Angeles State Historic Park occupies the former Southern Pacific rail yard known as the Cornfield, near the Los Angeles River and Chinatown. Opened as a park in 2017, it reconnects a long-industrialized urban site with public open space.
Guide preview
The open field around you once served the movement of freight. For decades, the Southern Pacific used this area as a rail yard and switching ground known as the Cornfield, close to the river and downtown. After railroad use ended, community advocates helped secure the site for a park instead of another round of industrial development.
Continue exploring
Discover the full story
Keep reading with a travel pass and explore every full guide and tour.
UpgradeQuick facts
- The park opened in 2017 and covers 34 acres.
- The site was a Southern Pacific freight yard known as the Cornfield.
- State Parks identifies it as Tongva homeland and a historic port of entry to Los Angeles.
More places in Los Angeles
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
The Academy Museum occupies the restored May Company building and a newer spherical addition on Wilshire Boulevard. Its architecture links Los Angeles’s commercial past with the art and technology of filmmaking, giving the museum a campus shaped by both preservation and invention.
Angels Flight Railway
Two compact cars climb a steep slope in a short ride that links downtown’s modern grid to the former Bunker Hill neighborhood. Angels Flight is a surviving funicular, and its interrupted history reflects the dramatic rebuilding of central Los Angeles.
Beverly Hills Sign
The Beverly Hills sign and lily pond sit within Beverly Gardens Park, a landscaped ribbon that gives the city a recognizable public image. The sign works as a civic marker, while the water and planting soften the surrounding urban streets.
Bradbury Building
The Bradbury Building’s restrained street façade opens into a dramatic five-storey atrium of brick, iron, marble and daylight. Built in 1893, the office building makes its interior circulation the main event, drawing visitors’ eyes up through stairways and open balconies.
California Science Center
California Science Center presents science through hands-on galleries and major artifacts in Exposition Park. The Space Shuttle Endeavour anchors its aerospace story, connecting visitors to the engineering, teamwork and research behind human spaceflight.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
The cathedral’s angular concrete walls and amber-toned alabaster panels create an interior shaped by filtered light rather than conventional stained-glass storytelling. Rafael Moneo’s design places a contemporary Catholic landmark beside the civic buildings of downtown Los Angeles.