M. V. Hartranft

"[6] In 1907 he helped establish the "Little Landers" colony of Tujunga, which was based on the principle that everything a family could need might be gained through farming the property that they owned and that "land had value only if people lived on it."

[1]: 32, 38 In 1910 Hartranft began the first "auto stage," or motorbus, route from Tujunga to Los Angeles in a "two-cylinder Buick pick-up truck with no top and seats along the sides.

In it, Hartranft spoke of the "communistic implications" of Steinbeck's "notoriously inaccurate" novel[8] and argued that "California still has room for all who can feed themselves from our endless-chain gardens, instead of from the State Treasury.

[9]Hartranft was a member of the California State Forestry Board in 1943, and he was instrumental in persuading officials to stock supplies of fire-resistant pine seeds as a way to reforest areas destroyed by brush and forest fires.

[10] His wife was Louise Owens Hartranft, born about 1872, who worked with him in opening real estate developments in North Los Angeles, Glendale,[11] Montrose and Sunland-Tujunga.