The Romance of the RanchosConner, E. Palmer (Edmund Palmer)
History
The Romance of the Ranchos
Conner, E. Palmer (Edmund Palmer)
Land grants -- California -- Los Angeles County; Los Angeles County (Calif.) -- History
In the western and southern parts of the rancho development followed
rapidly. The Lick Tract, now part of Hollywood, was platted, then
Ivanhoe and the Edendale district. But most of the mountain and slope
land of the Los Felis Rancho was undeveloped except by hand of nature
until 1898 when Colonel Griffith deeded 3,015 acres of unsurpassed land
to the City of Los Angeles, one of the finest gifts ever presented to a
city—Griffith Park.
Rancho San Pedro
Within the boundaries of Rancho San Pedro was Nigger Slough, Rattlesnake
Island and the Salt Flats, and its own name was none too beautiful. But
the Rancho San Pedro overcame all such handicaps and developed into a
favorite child in the family of the Spanish Ranchos.
This rancho, containing 43,119 acres, was one of the tremendously big
Spanish grants made by a Spanish King, who believed the limit of
population which Southern California could ever care for was represented
in the ten Missions, four Pueblos (San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara
and San Luis Obispo) and the comparatively few Ranchos.
The grant was made to Juan Jose Dominguez of an illustrious family quite
different from the average Spanish family living in California in its
early days. The Dominguez heirs have each in succession adapted
themselves to every change and kept a large part of their rancho intact
to the present day. But much of the land was so strategically located on
the sea, around the harbor and on main lines of boulevards and railroads
between Los Angeles and San Pedro, that it was inevitable that intensive
development should take place on these parts.
On December 22, 1854, the Dominguez heirs sold 2,400 acres at the harbor
to Phineas Banning, B. D. Wilson, John G. Downey and associates for
$20,000, or nearly $10.00 an acre, and on this and adjoining land
Banning founded the town of Wilmington, originally called New San Pedro.
During the Civil War Phineas Banning and B. D. Wilson in a burst of
patriotic enthusiasm donated a large parcel of land in their new town to
the United States government for Drum Barracks, and as such it served a
useful and vital purpose, not only as a supply station and barracks,
but, as well, to hold down anti-Union sentiment. It was easy to donate
the land but it took eight years and a special act of Congress for
Banning and Wilson to get the land back after the close of the War.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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