Highland Park's History Unfolds Along Franklin High School's Walls

At a pace that matches the glacial march of history itself, teachers and students at are completing a mural project that will one day provide a complete artistic tour through Highland Park's past.

The Franklin Mural Project, a labor of love first conceived in the minds of Franklin substitute teachers Reies Flores and Arturo Ernesto Romo-Santillano in 2005, is about a quarter of the way complete.

The plan, according to Flores, is to portray Northeast Los Angeles' history in four phases along the walls of the high schools' four breezeways.

depicts a Tongva ceremonia from an era that predates the Spanish settlement of Los Angeles. On the opposing wall are painted various inter-cut nature scenes depicting the vastness and solitude of Northeast Los Angeles in the pre-settlement days.

The second phase of the project, which is currently in the process of being sketched on the wall by student volunteers, will depict the Spanish Mission de Americana era. The third story will show Highland Park's roaring "boom-town" days, and the final phase will display the post World War II era.

"We hope that when people walk through these halls they will get grounded in this place," said Romo-Santillano, the project's lead artist. 

All four four phases of the project have been paid for through two $10,000 community beautification grants from the Los Angeles Department of Public Works.

That the completion of the mural has taken so long is a testament to the hours upon hours of research that Romo-Santillano and Flores have invested in it, which included hours of hiking through Northeast Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley with local outdoors author Christopher Nyerges. 

Those hours of hiking through the hills informed Flores' and Romo-Santiallo's artistic vision, which has resulted in a more realistic and representative mural, but also in one that has required many more hours to complete.

"The research phase consisted of hours of hiking. When you're out hiking you can see for miles, or you can at times only see a thicket or a cliff that's right in front of you," Flores said. "All these slightly different points of view gave us all these different themes to work with, so we couldn't just portray it through a simple panorama."

The students at Franklin seem to have responded positively to Flores' and Romo-Santillano's painstakingly crafted vision. Incidents of tagging on the mural have been minimal. 

"A lot of the students seem to recognize this is a work in progress and they haven't messed with it too much," Romo-Santillano said.

There are also those students, like senior Diana Delgado, 17, and sophomore Miriam Bribiesca, 16 and many before them who have given up their weekend mornings to sketch out Romo-Stantillano's drawings on the walls.

"I just got involved because I though it would be really fun," Bribiesca said. "Once you start doing it, though, you get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing what you can do."

Delgado, who graduates later this month, said she plans to come back to participate in future phases of the project.

"I do want to come back," she said. "I feel like I started this so I want to come back to finish it, so I can feel like I'm giving something back to the community.