Pisgah Home Historic District, Historic district in Highland Park, Los Angeles, United States

Pisgah Home Historic District occupies the Highland Park site where Finis E. Yoakum ran his sanatorium from about 1900. His Queen Anne-style house stood beside a barn used as a tabernacle and lined with beds, and followers added tents, cottages and bungalows, giving the grounds the look of a tent city. The Tudor-style mansion at 140 South Avenue 59, built by residents, is separately designated a historic landmark.

Finis E. Yoakum, a former Denver physician, opened a sanatorium at his Highland Park house around 1900, after a 1895 Christian Alliance prayer meeting that he regarded as a miraculous cure. By 1903 it was called Pisgah Faith Home, named for the biblical peak, and its barn served as tabernacle and dormitory. Capacity grew from eight beds toward 150, and the site became a base for the early Pentecostal movement.

The name Pisgah comes from the biblical peak where Moses first saw the promised land. Residents, called inmates, ate simple home-cooked meals, received Bible instruction, were bathed and set to work around the grounds. By 1913 the movement ran several branches, among them the Pisgah Home for Reformed Drunkards, The Ark for Homeless Girls, the Pisgah Orphanage and the Pisgah Gardens.

The district is a protected historic area within Highland Park that you can explore on foot while observing the buildings from the street. Plan your visit during daylight hours to see the architectural details and check locally which buildings might be viewable from public areas.

The Tudor-style mansion at 140 South Avenue 59, built by residents and later Yoakum's home, is itself a designated historic landmark. Before founding the mission, Yoakum claimed in 1897 that X-rays could locate gold in mine tunnels, and he sold stock in a mining company at 25 cents a share in 1902.