George Willett: Naturalist, Ornithologist and First Curator of L.A. County Museum of Natural History, Edited and Compiled by Robert Roy van de Hoek

AN UPPER PLEISTOCENE FAUNA FROM THE BALDWIN HILLS, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
by
GEORGE WILLETT
LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM
1937
Sand Diego Society of Natural History Transactions
Volume 8, Number 30: Page 379-406.

Compiled and Edited by Robert “Roy” van de Hoek, March 29, 2000.

In 1926 Professor A.J. Tietje, in a discussion of the Pliocene and Pleistocene history of the Baldwin Hills, referred to a warm water fauna uncovered in Trench 6 of the Los Angeles Outfall Sewer, giving it the name of the Centinela Gravels. A much more extensive exposure of what is apparently the same fauna occurred a few years later during the widening of Lincoln Avenue, which crosses teh outfall sewer about two miles northeast of Playa del Rey. At a point just south of the sewer, at an altitude of about fifty feet above sea level, excavations by steam shovels cut into the upper part of the fossiliferous strata, exposing large numbers of marine invertebrates.

During 1935 and 1936 I made many trips to this fossil locality, and excavated, screened and carefully examined several tons of material. This resulted in an accumulation in the Los Angeles Museum of more than 30,000 specimens.
GEORGE WILLETT

Closing Thoughts by Robert Roy van de Hoek, Naturalist: This article shows how George Willett had an interest not only in birds but in fossils of marine shells in the field of conchology. He spent part of two years down near Lincoln and Jefferson Boulevard. I suspect that field notes of the birds he saw while doing the paleontological field work must be in the L.A. County Museum of Natural History. Someone should look for these notes. This is at the Ballona Wetlands where real estate development threatens currently. We see that George Willett had an interest in both the Baldwin Hills and Balloan Wetlands and perhaps even recognized how these two geographies, with different landscapes are linked into a GREATER ECOSYSTEM.