- Seal of Los Angeles County, California
The official Seal of
Los Angeles County ,California has changed twice since its first inception in1887 .The current seal portrays an image of a Native American woman, representing the early inhabitants of the Los Angeles Basin, surrounded by six smaller iconic images, with three on each side. The words “County of Los Angeles, California” surround the seal.
The Native woman stands on the shore of the
Pacific Ocean with theSan Gabriel Mountains and the sun in the background [http://lacounty.info/seal.htm] .On her right, there are the engineering instruments of a triangle and a
caliper (representing the industrial construction complex of the County and its vital contribution to the exploration of space), a Spanishgalleon (Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo 's ship the "San Salvador", which sailed intoSan Pedro Harbor onOctober 8 ,1542 ), and atuna fish (representing thefishing industry ).On her left, the images of The
Hollywood Bowl (representing the County's cultural activities) with two stars above it (to represent the motion picture and television industries), theMission San Gabriel Arcangel (representing the historic role of the missions in the settlement of the Los Angeles region), and the championshipcow Pearlette (representing the dairy industry).History
The original
1887 County seal displayed grapes, surrounded by the words "Board of Supervisors - Los Angeles Co. Cal."Former L.A. County Supervisor
Kenneth Hahn designed a new seal, which was drawn byMillard Sheets , and adopted by theL.A. County Board of Supervisors onJanuary 2 ,1957 , effectiveMarch 1 ,1957 . It included an image ofPomona , the Roman goddess of fruit trees, and the symbols of across and oil towers.In
2004 , the seal was altered. A short time later, on May 25th, 2004, the ACLU claimed that the seal'scross was a violation of theEstablishment Clause of the Constitution. The Board's new seal had also voluntarily eliminated Pomona and the oil towers, without references by the ACLU.In the current seal, the stars and an image of the
Hollywood Bowl (originally in the middle right column, also where the cross was originally placed) replaced the oil towers. The cross was removed, and replaced with an image of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel.External links
* [http://lacounty.info/seal.htm About the seal, at the official Los Angeles County portal]
* [http://www.laalmanac.com/government/gl05.htm Los Angeles County Seal - Old and New]
* [http://savetheseal.net SaveTheSeal.net "The Official Website of the Petition Drive to Save the Los Angeles County Seal"]
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