| Artist: | Douglas Tilden |
| Title: | Stephen M. White |
| Date: | 1908 |
| District: | Fourth Supervisorial District |
| Location: | Near the entrance of Cabrillo Beach at Oliver Vickery Circle Way & Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro, CA 90731 |
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This 8‘ h hollow bronze sculpture depicts Stephen M. White, his right arm outstretched, standing in front of a claw-footed arm chair. White (1853-1901) was a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, LA County District Attorney, California State Senator, and U.S. State Senator. Originally, the statue, created in 1908 by Douglas Tilden, stood in front of the red sandstone County Courthouse at Temple and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. When the Courthouse was destroyed in the 1933 earthquake, the sculpture faced an empty lot until it was moved in 1959 to the corner of First and Hill.
Since the 1930s, citizens of San Pedro had petitioned for the statue to reside in their community because of White’s instrumental support in arguing for San Pedro’s deep water harbor. In 1989, due to the efforts of the Stephen M. White Statue Committee and then Fourth District Supervisor Deane Dana, the County relocated the statue to its current location near Cabrillo Beach, facing the harbor White helped to build. With its move to a city-owned park, the County may have conveyed ownership.
Information provided courtesy of “Statue Goes from Broadway to Hill to Storage Yard to Grand…to San Pedro” by Roger M. Grace in the Metropolitan News-Enterprise of October 30, 2006.
About the Artist: Douglas Tilden (1860-1935) lost his ability to hear at the age of five due to a severe scarlet fever infection. He attended the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley and then went to Paris to study sculpture under Paul Chopin (who was also deaf). He returned to the San Francisco area and became one of the most prolific sculptors in California. He was also very active in the deaf community and served as President for the California Association of the Deaf.