For many Southern Californians, Griffith Park is the perfect urban oasis for flora, fauna, and fun. Former owner Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bought the land and gifted it to the City of Los Angeles, turning the 4,071 acres into what would become one of the largest urban parks in the country. However, Los Angeles folklore claims that the park’s history is much more twisted than it seems.
Outdoor environmental educator Jason Wise recounts the tale of “The Curse of Griffith Park.”
“To talk about the curse, we need to go in a time machine really, to pre-Griffith Park, to Rancho Los Feliz.
It's 1863 and Don Antonio Feliz is the proprietor living in the Adobe with his beloved niece Petranilla. But Don Antonio falls ill with smallpox, which is highly contagious. So he sends Petranilla to a hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.
One night, in his sick bed that will soon become his deathbed, he gets a visit from Antonio Coronel – a good friend and the former mayor of LA – who shows up with his lawyer and some paperwork. They convince him to deed his property to Coronel instead of to his niece. By the next morning, [Don Antonio] was dead.
When Petranilla found out about it, she was angry to say the least. So she confronted Coronel and his lawyer. She cursed them both, and she cursed the land, and then immediately [fell] dead to the ground.
The curse that Petranilla laid out was:
‘Your falsities shall be your ruin. The substance of the Feliz family shall be your curse. The lawyer that assisted you in your infamy and the judge shall fall beneath the same curse. The one shall die and untimely death and the other in blood and violence. A blight shall fall on this terrestrial paradise. The cattle shall sicken. The fields shall no longer respond to the tiller. I see a great flood spreading destruction. I see grand oaks wither in the tongues of flames.’
So now Antonio Feliz is dead. Petranilla Feliz is dead. The current new owner Antonio Coronel starts to see the curse come to fruition.
First, his lawyer is murdered in a bar fight in Downtown Los Angeles. Then we see drought and famine and flood on the Rancho [Los Feliz]. There are reports from workers that they saw the ghosts of Petranilla and Antonio Feliz riding the waves down the canyons of Griffith Park during these floods. A drought comes through the next winter and summer, and all of the grass dies, so all of the cattle die.
And meanwhile, this rumor, this word of the curse is all over the news in Los Angeles. It spreads like wildfire, and so no one wants to visit the land. No one wants to buy any land to build houses on it.
Owner after owner has trouble making any money off of it. People don't want to buy any property on the land in order to develop homes. We see developments happening in the Hollywood Hills right up to the border of Rancho Los Feliz.
The final owner is Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (who gave himself the title of Colonel, by the way). He's coming from a successful mining business. And he thought he could break the curse and make money off of this land finally. But he didn't.
Not even his failed ostrich farm where he charged people to ride ostriches [could make him any money]. So he thought that maybe he would just give it to the city. Now this could be because he loves parks, but some would also say that he just wanted a tax break. He also had a bad reputation in the city. So this was a way to make him look a little nicer. Either way, he gave this land to the City of Los Angeles. And so this called for a celebration.
So the party is held at the old Feliz Adobe. Today, this is the Griffith Park headquarters. Griffith J. Griffith is there, every city dignitary is there, the mayor of Los Angeles is there. But at the stroke of midnight, someone else shows up.
It's none other than the ghost of Antonio Feliz. To the stunned party goers he declares, ‘Señores, I am Antonio Feliz, [I’ve] come to invite you to dine with me in hell. In your great honor, I have brought an escort of sub demons.’
And with that, the party is over. The guests flee and the ghost of Antonio Feliz chases them out on horseback. What a way to become a public park.
So the curse lives on for decades. The ghosts of Antonio Feliz, Petranilla Feliz, and Colonel Griffith, J. Griffith are all said to have been seen roaming around the park after dark. Every tragic event in the park has been blamed by some on the curse. Such is an urban legend, based on real events, but then, many questions.
Antonio Feliz did give his land to Antonio Coronel and not Petranilla. But did she curse it or not? Griffith did give the land to Los Angeles. But did the ghost of Antonio Feliz break up the party or not?
I don't have the answer to these questions. That is up to all of you to decide. But what I do know for sure is that because enough Angelenos believed in the curse, this land was protected from development. And that enabled it to become the park it is today: one of the largest urban parks in North America.
So I don't know if the curse is real, but I'm grateful for it either way.”
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.