REMEMBERING WILL ROGERS’ STABLES – Lost in the Palisades Fire, Los Angeles, CA, Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Will Rogers' Stables and Horses, circa 1930s, Los Angeles, CA.

My friend Caroline Hatton, a children’s writer and frequent contributor to this blog, took these photos in the 2010s, during the many years when she spent time at the park with horses, for joy and fitness.

“A man that don’t love a horse, there is something the matter with him.”—Will Rogers, cowboy, humorist, movie star and commentator of the 1920s and 1930s. He had a ranch near Los Angeles. After he died, his widow Betty donated it to the State of California to be enjoyed as a public park and as a memorial to him. It became Will Rogers State Historic Park.

In a recent post  on this blog Caroline Arnold described how the devastating 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, California, destroyed buildings in the park, including the house and stables. As she wrote, “They remain only in pictures and in our memories.”

Will Rogers' Stables, 2013, lost in 2025.

Here are some pictures and memories of Will Rogers’ stables. They looked to me mostly like in the historic photo (at the top of this blog post), which was displayed inside the stables’ central rotunda.

When I first came to the park in the late 1900s, horses lived in the stables, so those were not open to visitors. Later on, the use of the stables ended in order to preserve the building and it was opened to the general public.

For years, I went to the park to read, write, hike, carry a full pack up the trails to train for summer backpack trips in the Sierra Nevada, and best of all, to spend happy times horseback riding in lessons or on trails, and volunteering to help children with special needs benefit from Therapeutic Horseback Riding under the guidance of specially-certified instructor Tami Leevan. I often walked through the stables and paused the passage of time to listen for echoes from the past.

Just outside the stables.

The above sign, in front of the stables, survived the fire. It marks the graves of two of Will Rogers’ favorite horses, Bootlegger and Soapsuds.

Posted in the stables.

Corridor inside the stables.

View of rotunda in the stables.

Will Rogers.

Four large doors (on the rotunda front and back, and at the ends of the left and right wings) gave access to 24 stalls and two restrooms, each with a flush toilet and a bathroom-type sink.

View from inside the rotunda, 2014.

Arena, stables, pasture, 2014.

Visitors on a guided trail ride, 2018.

Far from being a lifeless place haunted by the ghosts of horses and the humans who loved them, the equestrian facility was kept vibrant by passionate users. Westside Riding School, the concessionaire operating the business inside the state park from 2006 to 2021, offered riding lessons and trail rides. In the above photos, a young student rides a well-loved lesson horse, bareback; a teen student competes at the annual school show; and one-time visitors enjoy a guided trail ride to Inspiration Point and back. A different concessionaire was in business until the 2025 fire. Equestrian visitors were welcome to bring their own horses to the park for day-use of the riding and roping arenas, and trail to Inspiration Point.

Westside Riding School. 10th Anniversary photo (by B. Hatton), posed like the historic photo.

On the 10^th anniversary of Westside Riding School, owner Dorte Lindegaard Wolf (7th from the right in the above color photo) led students (including me, the author of this post, 5th from the left) and friends to pose with school horses, like in the historic photo.

Polo practice.

Events at the park included polo matches, with practice sessions in the few days before.

This was my happy place for many years. Some of my absolute best horse memories are from there. The time a kind horse named Doc carried me bareback at a gentle gallop, up the trail to Inspiration Point. How years of helping children with special needs gave me an idea for a children’s story, which got published in a magazine. The friendships and connections with humans and horses. No wildfire can erase the memories of the countless people who found happiness at the park.

FOR MORE INFO

 Read Caroline Arnold’s 2020 post about Will Rogers State Historic Park.