Lloyd Aldrich

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Lloyd Aldrich was an American civil engineer from Los Angeles who ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 1949, challenging Fletcher Bowron.

He was born on July 1, 1886, in Marion, Kansas. When he was three months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. He was orphaned at age 12 and lived with his older brother in Colorado. Aldrich graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then worked on engineering projects in Colorado and California. He was once a hunting partner of President Theodore Roosevelt.

In the late 1930s, Los Angeles began a major regional transportation planning effort to create the first large freeway system in the United States. Aldrich was the chief engineer for this project and proposed a plan to build a wide expressway and a transit system to link downtown Los Angeles with the suburbs, while involving local communities in the process. However, due to limited funding, the project was overtaken by the government.

Aldrich retired in 1955 and then worked in private consulting. He died on July 21, 1967, at the age of 81.