While Pio Pico, who once counted his acres in hundreds of thousands, spent his last days in abject poverty—his ranchos, his city property, his hotel and his home all sold for a mortgage—nothing was left—nothing but his medals of honor and his memories of the past. [Illustration: _Mission de San Fernando_] Rancho Tajauta Rancho Tajauta, sometimes called Rancho Los Cuervos, was like a dwarf among giants. It could have fitted into one corner of its neighbor, the Rancho San Pedro, or been lost in the San Fernando, and yet it was no small plot of ground. It extended from what is now Manchester Avenue on the north to the north boundary of the Rancho San Pedro on the south and between Central Avenue on the west and the Los Angeles River and Rancho San Antonio on the east. At the height of the cattle days there was only one house on the Rancho Tajauta, a two-room adobe. Today it is estimated over 20,000 people live within its boundaries, which include most of Watts and adjoining area in the southerly part of Los Angeles—and a fourth of the rancho is yet to be subdivided. The size of the rancho, however, was no criterion to the number of its owners and changes in its title. Before California became a state, its original owner, Anastacio Abila, died and left so many heirs that it was necessary to divide the estate into seventieth parts to properly partition it. These small interests in the rancho were then traded in like second-hand Fords are today. Phineas Banning, passing the rancho in his stage-coach and eyeing it carefully for bandits, noticed the soil was excellent, visioned the railroads that would cross it and bought many small interests. O. W. Childs, famous for the water ditch which he constructed and for which he received most of downtown Los Angeles in payment, likewise bought a few interests. So did Don Mateo Keller, who owned the Rancho Malibu and Francis Mellus of Mellus Row. And among the owners was the entire legal fraternity of that day—A. B. Chapman, Andrew Glassell, A. Brunson and R. M. Widney, all famous names in Southern California history. A $50 gold slug, the common medium for exchange in those days when small change was unknown, often bought an interest. Enrique Abila, one of the heirs of Anastacio Abila, in addition to his own holdings, gradually acquired many of the interests of the other heirs. He made his home on the rancho and lived to see the city reach and surround him. A little rancho was Rancho Tajauta, but a very active one. Rancho Repetto Rancho Repetto, as such, was not an original Spanish or Mexican rancho, yet in character and size it was just as a Spanish or Mexican rancho would be. Its history, although covering a period much shorter than the life of the Spanish grant, is full of the romance of the ranchos of the Dons.