RODGER YOUNG VILLAGE CELEBRATION

Check out the coverage here: Rodger Young Village Celebration (youtube.com)

On April13th, 2024 we joined the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust, Councilmember Nithya Raman, the Los Angeles Department Recreation and Parks, The Autry Museum of the American West and retired Park Ranger historian, Ranger Anne, to welcome several former residents of the Rodger Young Village to celebrate the dedication of an informational sign at the Autry Museum.

The Rodger Young Village was a public housing project, established to provide temporary housing for veterans returning to the Southern California area following the end of World War II. The village was named for Rodger Wilton Young, an American infantryman in the U.S. Army during World War II. Thousands of Californians had left the area for military duty. When these men and women returned from the war, they found that housing had been taken by the thousands who had come to work in plants producing war material. The Village consisted of 750 Quonset huts, were intended to house 1,500 families. Over 5,000 persons lived there. The Village was dedicated on 27 April 1946 and closed in the mid-1950s. The Quonset camp met a desperate need for living space.

The Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust has donated over a dozen educational signs in the park. Many are already up, with 10 more (including a P-22 sign) will be installed next month. The Rodger Young Village sign was designed by the Trusts’ Clare Darden who is a brilliant graphic artist and the text for the sign was provided by Griffith Park historian and expert , Mike Eberts.