The history of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

began in 1781 when 44 settlers from central

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...

(modern Mexico) established a permanent settlement in what is now

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is a ...

, as instructed by Spanish Governor of

Las Californias The Californias (Spanish: ''Las Californias''), occasionally known as The Three Californias or Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexica ...

Felipe de Neve Felipe de Neve y Padilla (1724 – 3 November 1784) was a Spanish soldier who served as the 4th Governor of the Californias, from 1775 to 1782. Neve is considered one of the founders of Los Angeles and was instrumental in the foundation of San ...

, and authorized by Viceroy

Antonio María de Bucareli Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa (sometimes spelled ''Bucareli y Urzúa'') (January 21, 1717 in Seville, Spain – April 9, 1779 in Mexico City) was a Spanish military officer, governor of Cuba, and Viceroy of New Spain (1771–1779) during th ...

. After sovereignty changed from Mexico to the United States in 1848, great changes came from the completion of the

Santa Fe railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

line from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

to Los Angeles in 1885. "Overlanders" flooded in, mostly white

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

from the Lower

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

and

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

. Los Angeles had a strong economic base in farming, oil, tourism, real estate and movies. It grew rapidly with many suburban areas inside and outside the city limits. Its motion picture industry made the city world-famous, and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

brought new industry, especially high-tech aircraft construction. Politically the city was moderately conservative, with a weak labor union sector. Since the 1960s, growth has slowed—and traffic delays have become infamous. Los Angeles was a pioneer in freeway development as the public transit system deteriorated. New arrivals, especially from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, have transformed the demographic base since the 1960s. Old industries have declined, including farming, oil, military and aircraft, but tourism, entertainment and high-tech remain strong. Over time,

droughts A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

and

wildfires A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...

have increased in frequency and become less seasonal and more year-round, further straining the city's

water security Water security is the focused goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. T ...

Early times

By 3000 BCE, the area was occupied by the Hokan-speaking people of the Milling Stone Period who fished, hunted sea mammals, and gathered wild seeds. They were later replaced by migrants — possibly fleeing drought in the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...

— who spoke a

Uto-Aztecan language Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. Th ...

called

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historically ...

. The

people called the Los Angeles region Yaa in that tongue. By the 1700s CE, there were 250,000 to 300,000 native people in California and 5,000 in the

Los Angeles basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the ...

. The land occupied and used by the Tongva covered about . It included the enormous

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

drained by the

and San Gabriel rivers and the southern

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, including the Santa Barbara,

San Clemente San Clemente (; Spanish for " St. Clement") is a city in Orange County, California. Located in the Orange Coast region of the South Coast of California, San Clemente's population was 64,293 in at the 2020 census. Situated roughly midway between ...

, Santa Catalina, and San Nicolas Islands. They were part of a sophisticated group of trading partners that included the

Chumash Chumash may refer to: *Chumash (Judaism), a Hebrew word for the Pentateuch, used in Judaism *Chumash people, a Native American people of southern California *Chumashan languages, indigenous languages of California See also *Chumash traditional n ...

to the west, the

Cahuilla The Cahuilla , also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California.Mojave to the east, and the Juaneños and Luiseños to the south. Their trade extended to the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

and included

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. The lives of the Tongva were governed by a set of religious and cultural practices that included belief in creative supernatural forces. They worshipped

Chinigchinix Chingichngish (also spelled ''Chengiichngech'', ''Chinigchinix, Chinigchinich, Changitchnish'', etc.), also known as Quaoar (also ''Qua-o-ar'', ''Kwawar'', etc.) and by other names including ''Ouiamot'', ''Tobet'' and ''Saor'', is an important m ...

, a creator god, and Chukit, a female virgin god. Their Great Morning Ceremony was based on a belief in the afterlife. In a purification ritual, they drank '' tolguache'', a

hallucinogenic Hallucinogens are a large, diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized ...

made from jimson weed and salt water. Their language was called Kizh or Kij, and they practiced cremation. Boscana, Gerónimo, "Chinigchinish: An Historical Account of the Origins, Customs, and Traditions of the Indians of Alta California" in Generations before the arrival of the Europeans, the Tongva had identified and lived in the best sites for human occupation. The survival and success of Los Angeles depended greatly on the presence of a nearby and prosperous Tongva village called Yaanga, which was located by the freshwater

artesian aquifer An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. An artesian aquifer has trapped water, surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water contained within t ...

of the

Los Angeles River , name_etymology = , image = File:Los Angeles River from Fletcher Drive Bridge 2019.jpg , image_caption = L.A. River from Fletcher Drive Bridge , image_size = 300 , map = LARmap.jpg , map_size ...

. Its residents provided the colonists with seafood, fish, bowls, pelts, and baskets. For pay, they dug ditches, hauled water, and provided domestic help. They often intermarried with the Mexican colonists.

Spanish era: 1769-1821

In 1542 and 1602, the first Europeans to visit the region were Captain

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanis ...

and Captain

Sebastián Vizcaíno Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548–1624) was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Asia. Early career Vizcaíno was born in 154 ...

. The first permanent non-native presence began when the

Portolá expedition thumbnail, 250px, Point of San Francisco Bay Discovery The Portolá expedition ( es, Expedición de Portolá) was a Spanish voyage of exploration in 1769–1770 that was the first recorded European land entry and exploration of the interior of ...

arrived on August 2, 1769.

Plans for the pueblo

Although Los Angeles was a town that was founded by Mexican families from

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...

, it was the Spanish governor of California who named the settlement. In 1777, Governor

toured

Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...

and decided to establish civic pueblos for the support of the military ''

presidio A presidio ( en, jail, fortification) was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire around between 16th and 18th centuries in areas in condition of their control or influence. The presidios of Spanish Philippines in particular, were cen ...

s''. The new pueblos reduced the secular power of the missions by reducing the military's dependence on them. At the same time, they promoted the development of industry and agriculture. Governor de Neve identified Santa Barbara, San Jose, and Los Angeles as sites for his new pueblos. His plans for them closely followed a set of Spanish city-planning laws contained in the

Laws of the Indies The Laws of the Indies ( es, Leyes de las Indias) are the entire body of laws issued by the Spanish Crown for the American and the Asian possessions of its empire. They regulated social, political, religious, and economic life in these areas. T ...

promulgated by King Philip II in 1573. Those laws were responsible for laying the foundations of the largest cities in the region at the time, including Los Angeles,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_ ...

, Sonoma,

Monterey Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bot ...

, Santa Fe, and Laredo. The Spanish system called for an open central plaza, surrounded by a fortified church, administrative buildings, and streets laid out in a grid, defining rectangles of limited size to be used for farming (''suertes'') and residences (''solares''). It was in accordance with such precise planning—specified in the Law of the Indies—that Governor de Neve founded the pueblo of San Jose de Guadalupe, California's first

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

, on the great plain of Santa Clara on 29 November 1777.

''Pobladores''

The Pobladores ("settlers") is the name given to the 22 adults and 22 children from Sonora who founded Los Angeles. Twenty were of African American or Native American descent. In December 1777, Viceroy

Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular ...

and Commandant General

Teodoro de Croix Teodoro de Croix (June 20, 1730, Prévoté Castle, near Lille, France – 1792, Madrid) was a Spanish soldier and colonial official in New Spain and Peru. From April 6, 1784 to March 25, 1790 he was viceroy of Peru. Background Teodoro de Cro ...

gave approval for the founding of a civic municipality at Los Angeles and a new ''presidio,'' or garrison, at Santa Barbara. Croix put the California lieutenant governor

Fernando Rivera y Moncada Fernando Javier Rivera y Moncada (c. 1725 – July 18, 1781) was a Mexican-born soldier of the Spanish Empire who served in The Californias (''Las Californias''), the far north-western frontier of New Spain. He participated in several early ov ...

in charge of recruiting colonists for the new settlements. He was originally to recruit 55 soldiers, 22 settlers with families and a thousand head of livestock that would include horses for the military. After an exhaustive search that took him to

Mazatlán Mazatlán () is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The city serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding '' municipio'', known as the Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip ...

, Rosario, and Durango, Rivera y Moncada recruited only 12 settlers and 45 soldiers. Like the settlers of most towns in

, they had a mix of Indian and Spanish backgrounds. The

Quechan The Quechan (or Yuma) ( Quechan: ''Kwatsáan'' 'those who descended') are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite t ...

Revolt killed 95 settlers and soldiers, including Rivera y Moncada. According to Croix's ''Reglamento'', the newly baptized Indians were no longer to reside in the mission but had to live in their traditional ''rancherías'' (villages). Governor de Neve's plans for the Indians' role in his new town drew instant disapproval from the mission priests. Zúñiga's party arrived at the mission on 18 July 1781. Some had

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

, so all were quarantined a short distance away from the mission. Members of the other party arrived at different times by August. They made their way to Los Angeles and probably received their land before September.

Founding

The official date for the founding of the city is September 4, 1781. The families had arrived from

earlier in 1781, in two groups, and some of them had most likely been working on their assigned plots of land since the early summer. The name first given to the settlement is debated. Historian Doyce B. Nunis has said that the Spanish named it "El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles" ("The Town of the Queen of the Angels"). For proof, he pointed to a map dated 1785, where that phrase was used. Frank Weber, the diocesan archivist, replied, however, that the name given by the founders was "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciuncula", or "the town of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciuncula." and that the map was in error.

Spanish pueblo

The town grew as soldiers and other settlers came into town and stayed. In 1784 a chapel was built on the original Plaza. The original Plaza was located a block north and west of the present one — its southeast corner being roughly where the northwesternmost point of the present plaza is, at the former intersection of Upper Main and Marchessault streets. It was also oriented diagonally, i.e. at precisely a 90-degree angle to the four compass points. The ''pobladores'' were given title to their land two years later. By 1800, there were 29 buildings that surrounded the Plaza, flat-roofed, one-story adobe buildings with thatched roofs made of tule. By 1821, Los Angeles had grown into a self-sustaining farming community, the largest in Southern California. Each settler received four rectangles of land, ''suertes'', for farming, two irrigated plots and two dry ones. When the settlers arrived, the Los Angeles floodplain was heavily wooded with willows and oaks. The

flowed all year. Wildlife was plentiful, including deer and black bears, and even an occasional

grizzly bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...

. There were abundant wetlands and swamps.

Steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

swam the rivers. The first settlers built a water system consisting of ditches (''zanjas'') leading from the river through the middle of town and into the farmlands. Indians were employed to haul fresh drinking water from a special pool farther upstream. The city was first known as a producer of fine wine grapes. The raising of cattle and the commerce in tallow and hides came later. Because of the great economic potential for Los Angeles, the demand for Indian labor grew rapidly. Yaanga began attracting Indians from the Channel Islands and as far away as

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

and

San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly hal ...

. The village began to look like a refugee camp. Unlike the missions, the ''pobladores'' paid Indians for their labor. In exchange for their work as farm workers, ''vaqueros'', ditch diggers, water haulers, and domestic help; they were paid in clothing and other goods as well as cash and alcohol. The ''pobladores'' bartered with them for prized sea-otter and seal pelts, sieves, trays, baskets, mats, and other woven goods. This commerce greatly contributed to the economic success of the town and the attraction of other Indians to the city. During the 1780s, San Gabriel Mission became the object of an Indian revolt. The mission had expropriated all the suitable farming land; the Indians found themselves abused and forced to work on lands that they once owned. A young Indian healer,

Toypurina Toypurina (1760–1799) was a Kizhhttps://gabrielenoindians.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Toypurina_Raeganletter_220909_154647_page-0001-1_220909_155854.pdf medicine woman from the Jachivit village. She is notable for her opposition to the c ...

, began touring the area, preaching against the injustices suffered by her people. She won over four ''rancherías'' and led them in an attack on the mission at San Gabriel. The soldiers were able to defend the mission, and arrested 17, including Toypurina. In 1787, Governor

Pedro Fages Pedro Fages (1734–1794) was a Spanish soldier, explorer, first Lieutenant Governor of the Californias under Gaspar de Portolá. Fages claimed the governorship after Portolá's death, acting as governor in opposition to the official governor ...

outlined his "Instructions for the Corporal Guard of the Pueblo of Los Angeles." The instructions included rules for employing Indians, not using corporal punishment, and protecting the Indian ''rancherías''. As a result, Indians found themselves with more freedom to choose between the benefits of the missions and the pueblo-associated ''rancherías''. In 1795, Sergeant Pablo Cota led an expedition from the

Simi Valley Simi Valley (; Chumash: ''Shimiyi'') is a city in the valley of the same name in the southeast region of Ventura County, California, United States. Simi Valley is from Downtown Los Angeles, making it part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. The ...

through the Conejo-Calabasas region and into the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

. His party visited the'' rancho'' of Francisco Reyes. They found the local Indians hard at work as ''vaqueros'' and caring for crops. Padre Vincente de Santa Maria was traveling with the party and made these observations:

All of pagandom (Indians) is fond of the pueblo of Los Angeles, of the rancho of Reyes, and of the ditches (water system). Here we see nothing but pagans, clad in shoes, with sombreros and blankets, and serving as muleteers to the settlers and rancheros, so that if it were not for the gentiles there were neither pueblos nor ranches. These pagan Indians care neither for the missions nor for the missionaries.

Not only economic ties but also marriage drew many Indians into the life of the pueblo. In 1784, only three years after the founding, the first recorded marriages in Los Angeles took place. The two sons of settler Basilio Rosas, Maximo and José Carlos, married two young Indian women, María Antonia and María Dolores. The construction on the Plaza of La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles took place between 1818 and 1822, much of it with Indian labor. The new church completed Governor de Neve's planned transition of authority from mission to pueblo. The ''angelinos'' no longer had to make the bumpy ride to Sunday Mass at Mission San Gabriel. In 1811, the population of Los Angeles had increased to more than five hundred persons, of which ninety-one were heads of families. In 1820, the route of

El Camino Viejo El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles ( en, the Old Road to Los Angeles), also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta Cali ...

was established from Los Angeles, over the mountains to the north and up the west side of the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

to the east side of

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...

Mexican era: 1821-1848

Map of the Spanish and Mexican ranchos of Los Angeles County

Mexico's independence from Spain on September 28, 1821, was celebrated with great festivity throughout Alta California. No longer subjects of the king, people were now ''ciudadanos'', citizens with rights under the law. In the plazas of Monterey, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and other settlements, people swore allegiance to the new government, the Spanish flag was lowered, and the flag of independent Mexico raised. Independence brought other advantages, including economic growth. There was a corresponding increase in population as more Indians were assimilated and others arrived from America, Europe, and other parts of Mexico. Before 1820, there were just 650 people in the pueblo. By 1841, the population nearly tripled to 1,680.

Secularization of the missions

During the rest of the 1820s, the agriculture and cattle ranching expanded as did the trade in hides and tallow. The new church was completed, and the political life of the city developed. Los Angeles was separated from Santa Barbara administration. The system of ditches which provided water from the river was rebuilt. In 1827

Jonathan Temple Don Juan Temple (né Jonathan; August 14, 1796 – May 31, 1866) was a Californian ranchero and merchant. Born in Massachusetts, he emigrated to Alta California in 1827, becoming a Mexican citizen, adopting the Spanish language and a Spanis ...

and John Rice opened the first general store in the pueblo, soon followed by J. D. Leandry. Trade and commerce further increased with the secularization of the California missions by the

Mexican Congress The Congress of the Union ( es, Congreso de la Unión, ), formally known as the General Congress of the United Mexican States (''Congreso General de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos''), is the legislature of the federal government of Mexico cons ...

in 1833. Extensive mission lands suddenly became available to government officials, ranchers, and land speculators. The governor made more than 800 land grants during this period, including a grant of over 33,000-acres in 1839 to Francisco Sepúlveda which was later developed as the westside of Los Angeles. Much of this progress, however, bypassed the Indians of the traditional villages who were not assimilated into the ''mestizo'' culture. Being regarded as minors who could not think for themselves, they were increasingly marginalized and relieved of their land titles, often by being drawn into debt or alcohol. In 1834, Governor Pico was married to Maria Ignacio Alvarado in the Plaza church. It was attended by the entire population of the pueblo, 800 people, plus hundreds from elsewhere in Alta California. In 1835, the Mexican Congress declared Los Angeles a city, making it the official capital of Alta California. It was now the region's leading city. The same period also saw the arrival of many foreigners from the United States and Europe. They played a pivotal role in the U.S. takeover. Early California settler

John Bidwell John Bidwell (August 5, 1819 – April 4, 1900), known in Spanish as Don Juan Bidwell, was a Californian pioneer, politician, and soldier. Bidwell is known as the founder the city of Chico, California. Born in New York, he emigrated at the age of ...

included several historical figures in his recollection of people he knew in March 1845.

It then had probably two hundred and fifty people, of whom I recall Don Abel Stearns, John Temple, Captain Alexander Bell,
William Wolfskill William Wolfskill (1798–1866) was an American-Mexican pioneer, cowboy, and agronomist in Los Angeles, California beginning in the 1830s. He had earned money for land in a decade as a fur trapper near Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had become ...
,
Lemuel Carpenter Lemuel Carpenter (c. 1808 in Kentucky – November 5, 1859 in California) was one of the first Anglo-American settlers of what is now the Los Angeles, California metropolitan area. Early life Lemuel Carpenter was born c. 1808 in Kentucky. H ...
,
David W. Alexander David W. Alexander (June 22, 1812 – April 29, 1886) was an early California politician and pioneer in Los Angeles County, California. He was on the Board of Supervisors in 1853 and 1854, and in 1855 he was elected the third sheriff for the count ...
; also of Mexicans,
Pio Pico Pio may refer to: Places * Pio Lake, Italy * Pio Island, Solomon Islands * Pio Point, Bird Island, south Atlantic Ocean People * Pio (given name) * Pio (surname) * Pio (footballer, born 1986), Brazilian footballer * Pio (footballer, born 1 ...
(governor), Don Juan Bandini, and others.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles in 1831,

Jean-Louis Vignes Jean-Louis Vignes (April 9, 1780 - January 17, 1862), also known as Don Luis del Aliso, was a French-born Californian vintner and ranchero. He was the one of the first commercial wine makers in California and one of the first men to import and pla ...

bought of land located between the original Pueblo and the banks of the

. He planted a vineyard and prepared to make wine. He named his property ''El Aliso'' after the centuries-old tree found near the entrance. The grapes available at the time, of the Mission variety, were brought to Alta California by the

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

Brothers at the end of the 18th century. They grew well and yielded large quantities of wine, but Jean-Louis Vignes was not satisfied with the results. Therefore, he decided to import better vines from Bordeaux:

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebanon ...

Cabernet Franc Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone, as in the Loire's Chinon. In addition to being u ...

, and

Sauvignon blanc is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words ''sauvage'' ("wild") and ''blanc'' ("white") due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in ...

. In 1840, Jean-Louis Vignes made the first recorded shipment of California wine. The Los Angeles market was too small for his production, and he loaded a shipment on the ''Monsoon'', bound for Northern California. By 1842, he made regular shipments to Santa Barbara,

and San Francisco. By 1849, ''El Aliso'', was the most extensive vineyard in California. Vignes owned over 40,000 vines and produced 150,000 bottles, or 1,000 barrels, per year. In 1836, the Indian village of Yaanga was relocated near the future corner of Commercial and Alameda Streets. In 1845, it was relocated again to present-day

Boyle Heights Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include: Disambiguation *Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...

. With the coming of the U.S. citizens, disease took a great toll among Indians. Self-employed Indians were not allowed to sleep over in the city. They faced increasing competition for jobs as more Mexicans moved into the area and took over the labor force. Those who loitered or were drunk or unemployed were arrested and auctioned off as laborers to those who paid their fines. They were often paid for work with liquor, which only increased their problems.

Invasion by United States

In May 1846, the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...

started. Because of Mexico's inability to defend its northern territories, California was exposed to invasion. On August 13, 1846, Commodore

Robert F. Stockton Robert Field Stockton (August 20, 1795 – October 7, 1866) was a United States Navy commodore, notable in the capture of California during the Mexican–American War. He was a naval innovator and an early advocate for a propeller-driven, steam- ...

, accompanied by

John C. Frémont John Charles Frémont or Fremont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, military officer, and politician. He was a U.S. Senator from California and was the first Republican nominee for president of the United States in 1856 ...

, seized the town; Governor Pico had fled to Mexico. From Stockton and Frémont until late 1849, all of California had a military governor. After three weeks of occupation, Stockton left, leaving Lieutenant

Archibald H. Gillespie Major Archibald H. Gillespie (October 10, 1812 – August 16, 1873) was an officer in the United States Marine Corps during the Mexican–American War. Biography Born in New York City, Gillespie was commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1832. He co ...

in charge. Subsequent dissatisfaction with Gillespie and his troops led to an uprising. A force of 300 locals drove the Americans out, ending the first phase of the

Battle of Los Angeles The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to a rumored attack on the continental United States by Imperial Japan and the subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which ...

. Further small skirmishes took place. Stockton regrouped in San Diego and marched north with six hundred troops while Frémont marched south from Monterey with 400 troops. After a few skirmishes outside the city, the two forces entered Los Angeles, this time without bloodshed.

Andrés Pico Andrés Pico (November 18, 1810 – February 14, 1876) was a Californio who became a successful rancher, fought in the contested Battle of San Pascual during the Mexican–American War, and negotiated promises of post-war protections for Calif ...

was in charge; he signed the so-called

Treaty of Cahuenga The Treaty of Cahuenga ( es, Tratado de Cahuenga), also called the Capitulation of Cahuenga (''Capitulación de Cahuenga''), was an 1847 agreement that ended the Conquest of California, resulting in a ceasefire between Californios and Americans. T ...

(it was not a treaty) on 13 January 1847, ending the California phase of the Mexican–American War. The

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( es, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo), officially the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 ...

, signed on 2 February 1848, ended the war and ceded California to the U.S.

Early American era: 1847-1870

According to historian Mary P. Ryan, "The U.S. army swept into California with the surveyor as well as the sword and quickly translated Spanish and Mexican practices into cartographic representations." Under colonial law, land held by grantees was not disposable. It reverted to the government. It was determined that under U.S. property law, lands owned by the city were disposable. Also, the ''diseños'' (property sketches) held by residents did not secure title in an American court. California's new military governor Bennett C. Riley ruled that land could not be sold that was not on a city map. In 1849, Lieutenant

Edward Ord Edward Otho Cresap Ord (October 18, 1818 – July 22, 1883) was an American engineer and United States Army officer who saw action in the Seminole War, the Indian Wars, and the American Civil War. He commanded an army during the final days of ...

surveyed Los Angeles to confirm and extend the streets of the city. His survey put the city into the real-estate business, creating its first real-estate boom and filling its treasury. Street names were changed from Spanish to English. Further surveys and street plans replaced the original plan for the pueblo with a new civic center south of the Plaza and a new use of space. The fragmentation of Los Angeles real estate on the Anglo-Mexican axis had begun. Under the Spanish system, the residences of the power-elite clustered around the Plaza in the center of town. In the new U.S. system, the power elite resided in the outskirts. The emerging minorities, including the Chinese, Italians, French, and Russians, joined with the Mexicans near the Plaza. In 1848, the gold discovered in Coloma first brought thousands of miners from Sonora in northern Mexico on the way to the gold fields. So many of them settled in the area north of the Plaza that it came to be known as Sonoratown. During the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

years in northern California, Los Angeles became known as the "Queen of the Cow Counties" for its role in supplying beef and other foodstuffs to hungry miners in the north. Among the cow counties, Los Angeles County had the largest herds in the state followed closely by Santa Barbara and Monterey Counties. With the temporary absence of a legal system, the city quickly was submerged in lawlessness. Many of the New York regiment disbanded at the end of the war and charged with maintaining order were thugs and brawlers. They roamed the streets joined by gamblers, outlaws, and prostitutes driven out of San Francisco and mining towns of the north by Vigilance Committees or lynch mobs. Los Angeles came to be known as the "toughest and most lawless city west of Santa Fe." Some of the residents resisted the new powers by resorting to banditry against the

gringo ''Gringo'' (, , ) (masculine) (or ''gringa'' (feminine)) is a term in Spanish and Portuguese for a foreigner, usually an English-speaking Anglo-American. There are differences in meaning depending on region and country. In Latin America, it is ...

s. In 1856, Juan Flores threatened Southern California with a full-scale revolt. He was hanged in Los Angeles in front of 3,000 spectators.

Tiburcio Vasquez Tiburcio, the Spanish form of Tiburtius, may refer to: *Tiburcio Carías Andino (1876–1969), Honduran military strongman *Tiburcio de León, Filipino general (the Philippine Revolution and Philippine-American War) * José Tiburcio Serrizuela (bo ...

, a legend in his own time among the Mexican-born population for his daring feats against the Anglos, was captured in present-day

Santa Clarita, California Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17 ...

, on May 14, 1874. He was found guilty of two counts of murder by a San Jose jury in 1874, and was hanged there in 1875. Los Angeles had several active "Vigilance Committees" during that era. Between 1850 and 1870, mobs carried out approximately 35 lynchings of Mexicans—more than four times the number that occurred in San Francisco. Los Angeles was described as "undoubtedly the toughest town of the entire nation." The homicide rate between 1847 and 1870 averaged 158 per 100,000 (13 murders per year), which was 10 to 20 times the annual murder rates for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

during the same period. The fear of Mexican violence and the racially motivated violence inflicted on them further marginalized the Mexicans, greatly reducing their economic and political opportunities. John Gately Downey, the seventh governor of California was sworn into office on January 14, 1860, thereby becoming the first governor from Southern California. Governor Downey was born and raised in Castlesampson,

County Roscommon, Ireland "Steadfast Irish heart" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Roscommon.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Connacht , subdi ...

, and came to Los Angeles in 1850. He was responsible for keeping California in the Union during the Civil War.

Plight of the Indians

Los Angeles 1850 and 1869 four square Spanish leagues

Los Angeles was incorporated as a U.S. city on April 4, 1850. Five months later, California was admitted into the Union. Although the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo required the U.S. to grant citizenship to the Indians of former Mexican territories, it did not happen for another 80 years. The

Constitution of California The Constitution of California ( es, Constitución de California) is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of California, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of California. California's original ...

deprived Indians of any protection under the law, considering them as non-persons. As a result, it was impossible to bring an

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to peopl ...

to trial for killing an Indian or forcing Indians off their properties. Anglos concluded that the "quickest and best way to get rid of (their) troublesome presence was to kill them off, (and) this procedure was adopted as a standard for many years." With the coming of the U.S. citizens, disease took a great toll among Indians. Self-employed Indians were not allowed to sleep over in the city. They faced increasing competition for jobs as more Mexicans moved into the area and took over the labor force. Those who loitered or were drunk or unemployed were arrested and auctioned off as laborers to those who paid their fines. They were often paid for work with liquor, which only increased their problems. When New England author and Indian-rights activist

Helen Hunt Jackson Helen Hunt Jackson (pen name, H.H.; born Helen Maria Fiske; October 15, 1830 – August 12, 1885) was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She de ...

toured the Indian villages of Southern California in 1883, she was appalled by the racism of the Anglos living there. She wrote that they treated Indians worse than animals, hunted them for sport, robbed them of their farmlands, and brought them to the edge of extermination. While Indians were depicted by Whites as lazy and shiftless, she found most of them to be hard-working craftsmen and farmers. Jackson's tour inspired her to write her 1884 novel ''

Ramona ''Ramona'' is a 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set in Southern California after the Mexican–American War, it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scottish– Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and ...

'', which she hoped would give a human face to the atrocities and indignities suffered by the Indians in California, and it did. The novel was enormously successful, inspiring four movies and a yearly pageant in Hemet, California. Many of the Indian villages of Southern California survived because of her efforts, including

Morongo The Morongo Band of Mission Indians is a federally recognized tribe in California, United States. The main tribal groups are Cahuilla and Serrano. Tribal members also include Cupeño, Luiseño, and Chemehuevi Indians. Although many tribes in C ...

Temecula Temecula (; es, Temécula, ; Luiseño: ''Temeekunga'') is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The city had a population of 110,003 as of the 2020 census and was incorporated on December 1, 1989. The city is a ...

, Pechanga, and Warner Springs. Remarkably, the

also survived. in 2006, the ''Los Angeles Times'' reported that there were 2,000 of them still living in Southern California. Some were organizing to protect burial and cultural sites. Others were trying to win federal recognition as a tribe to operate a casino.

Industrial expansion and growth

The city's first newspaper, ''

Star of Los Angeles ''Los Angeles Star'' (''La Estrella de Los Angeles'') was the first newspaper in Los Angeles, California, U.S. The publication ran from 1851 to 1879. History Early history and background The first proposition to establish a newspaper in Los ...

'', was a bilingual publication which began its run in 1851. In the 1870s, Los Angeles was still little more than a village of 5,000. By 1900, there were over 100,000 occupants of the city. Several men actively promoted Los Angeles, working to develop it into a great city and to make themselves rich. Angelenos set out to remake their geography to challenge San Francisco with its port facilities, railway terminal, banks and factories. The

Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles Farmers and Merchants Bank (F&M) is a historic lending institution (1871−1952) based in Downtown Los Angeles, California. It is known both for its architecture and its pivotal role in the economic development of early Los Angeles. Other, non-r ...

was the first incorporated bank in Los Angeles, founded in 1871 by John G. Downey and Isaias W. Hellman. Wealthy Easterners who came as tourists recognized the growth opportunities and invested heavily in the region. During the 1880s and 1890s, the central business district (CBD) grew along Main and Spring streets towards Second Street and beyond. Much of Los Angeles County was farmland, with an emphasis on cattle, dairy products, vegetables and citrus fruits. After 1945, most of the farmland was converted into housing tracts.

Railroads

The city's first railroad, the

Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad The Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad was Southern California's first railroad. Its line from San Pedro Bay (California), San Pedro Bay to Los Angeles was built from 1868 to 1869 and began operations on October 26, 1869. The railroad was the brain ...

, was inaugurated in October 1869 by John G. Downey and

Phineas Banning Phineas Banning (August 19, 1830 – March 8, 1885) was an American businessman, financier and entrepreneur. Known as "The Father of the Port of Los Angeles," he was one of the founders of the town of Wilmington, in Los Angeles County, Califor ...

. It ran between San Pedro and Los Angeles. The town continued to grow at a moderate pace. Railroads finally arrived to connect with the Central Pacific and San Francisco in 1876. The impact was small. Much greater was the impact of the Santa Fe system (through its subsidiary

California Southern Railroad The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe) in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between wh ...

) in 1885. The Santa Fe and Southern Pacific lines provided direct connections to the East, competed vigorously for business with much lower rates, and stimulated economic growth. Tourists poured in by the thousands every week, and many planned on returning or resettling. The city still lacked a modern harbor. Phineas Banning excavated a channel out of the mud flats of San Pedro Bay leading to Wilmington in 1871. Banning had already laid track and shipped in locomotives to connect the port to the city. Harrison Gray Otis, founder and owner of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', and a number of business colleagues embarked on reshaping southern California by expanding that into a harbor at San Pedro using federal dollars. This put them in conflict with

Collis P. Huntington Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested i ...

, president of the Southern Pacific Company and one of California's " Big Four" investors in the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific. (The "Big Four" are sometimes numbered among the " robber barons" of the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...

). Southern Pacific had initially supported the San Pedro port, and when in 1875 a potential rival emerged in a Santa Monica wharf connected to downtown by the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, Southern Pacific bought the railroad and demolished the wharf. However, by the 1890s Southern Pacific favored a location for the Port of Los Angeles in Santa Monica because of their control of the land there, and opened the Long Wharf in 1894. The Wharf extended 4,600 feet into the ocean, and was the longest wharf in the world at the time. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce feared Southern Pacific controlling the port, and so attempted to favor the San Pedro location, sparking the Free Harbor Fight. Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to choose the location, and in 1897 they chose San Pedro. Train at Arcade Station, 1891 (00031881)

Train at Arcade Station, 1891 (00031881)

In 1876 the Newhall railroad tunnel located north of Los Angeles between the town of San Fernando and Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop (now Newhall) was completed, providing the final link from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the railroad. The took a year and a half to complete. More than 1,500 mostly Chinese laborers took part in the tunnel construction, which began at the south end of the mountain on March 22, 1875. Many of them had prior experience working on Southern Pacific's located tunnels in the

Tehachapi Pass Tehachapi Pass (Kawaiisu: ''Tihachipia'', meaning "hard climb") is a mountain pass crossing the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, California. Traditionally, the pass marks the northeast end of the Tehachapis and the south end of the Sierra Nev ...

. Due to the sandstone composition of the mountain that was saturated with water and oil, frequent cave-ins occurred and the bore had to be constantly shored up by timbers during excavation. The initial location for the north end of the tunnel near Newhall was abandoned due to this. The north end of the tunnel excavation commenced in June 1875. Water was a constant problem during construction and pumps were utilized to keep the tunnel from flooding. Workers digging from both the north and south ends of the tunnel came face to face on July 14, 1876. The bores from each end were only a half inch out of line with dimensions of high, wide at the bottom and over at the shoulders. Track was laid in place soon after the tunnel dig was completed and the first train passed through on August 12, 1876. On September 4,

Charles Crocker Charles Crocker (September 16, 1822 – August 14, 1888) was an American railroad executive who was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and took ...

notified Southern Pacific that the track had been completed on the route between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The San Pedro forces eventually prevailed (though it required Banning and Downey to turn their railroad over to the Southern Pacific). Work on the San Pedro breakwater began in 1899 and was finished in 1910. Otis Chandler and his allies secured a change in state law in 1909 that allowed Los Angeles to absorb San Pedro and Wilmington, using a long, narrow corridor of land to connect them with the rest of the city. The debacle of the future Los Angeles harbor was termed the Free Harbor Fight. Streetcar service in Los Angeles began with horsecars (1874-1897), cable cars (1885-1902) and electric streetcars starting in 1887–1963. In 1898, Henry Huntington and a San Francisco syndicate led by Isaias W. Hellman purchased five trolley lines, consolidated them into the Los Angeles Railway (the 'yellow cars') and two years later founded the

Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway syst ...

(the 'red cars'). Los Angeles Railway served the city and the Pacific Electric Railway served the rest of the county. At its peak, Pacific Electric was the largest electrically operated interurban railway in the world. Over of tracks connected Los Angeles with Hollywood, Pasadena, San Pedro,

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporat ...

Venice Beach Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to i ...

, even as far as Riverside,

San Bernardino San Bernardino (; Spanish for "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 cen ...

, Santa Ana, and

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws ...

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' concluded that at their peak, the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway (itself with 642 miles of track) "made the region's public transportation the best in the country, if not the world".

Oil discovery

Oil was discovered by Edward L. Doheny in 1892, near the present location of

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ...

. The

Los Angeles City Oil Field The Los Angeles City Oil Field is a large oil field north of Downtown Los Angeles. Long and narrow, it extends from immediately south of Dodger Stadium west to Vermont Avenue, encompassing an area of about four miles (6 km) long by a quarter ...

was the first of many fields in the basin to be exploited, and in 1900 and 1902, respectively, the Beverly Hills Oil Field and Salt Lake Oil Field were discovered a few miles west of the original find. Los Angeles became a center of oil production in the early 20th century, and by 1923, the region was producing one-quarter of the world's total supply; it is still a significant producer, with the

Wilmington Oil Field The Wilmington Oil Field is a prolific petroleum field in Los Angeles County in southern California in the United States. Discovered in 1932, it is the third largest oil field in the United States in terms of cumulative oil production. The field ...

having the fourth-largest reserves of any field in California.

Conflicts

With the growth of Los Angeles, came conflicts and a high crime rate. Some of the conflicts were racial.

The Chinese Massacre of 1871

Although there had been some anti-Chinese behavior in the preceding decades, editorial attacks in the local press beginning just before 1870 was followed by increased attacks. A racial massacre targeting Chinese immigrants occurred on October 24, 1871 when approximately 500

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...

and Hispanic Americans attacked, harassed, robbed, and murdered the ethnic Chinese residents. The mob gathered after hearing that a policeman and a rancher had been killed as a result of a conflict between rival

tongs Tongs are a type of tool used to grip and lift objects instead of holding them directly with hands. There are many forms of tongs adapted to their specific use. The first pair of tongs belongs to the Egyptians. Tongs likely started off as ...

. Nineteen

Chinese immigrants Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ...

were killed, fifteen of whom were later

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...

by the mob in the course of the riot. Those killed represented over 10% of the small Chinese population of Los Angeles at the time, which numbered 172 prior to the massacre.

Populism

At the same time that the ''Los Angeles Times'' was spurring enthusiasm for the expansion of Los Angeles, the newspaper was also trying to turn it into a union-free or open shop town. Fruit growers and local merchants who had opposed the

Pullman strike The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chi ...

in 1894 subsequently formed the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M & M) to support the ''Times''s anti-union campaign. The California labor movement, with its strength concentrated in San Francisco, largely had ignored Los Angeles for years. However, in 1907, the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutua ...

decided to challenge the open shop. In 1909, the city fathers placed a ban on free speech from public streets and private property except for the Plaza. Locals had claimed that it had been an Open Forum forever. The area was of particular concern to Harrison Grey Otis and his son-in-law Harry Chandler. This conflict came to a head with the

bombing A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanica ...

of the Times in 1910. Two months later, the Llewellyn Iron Works near the plaza was bombed. A meeting hastily was called of the

Chamber of Commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ...

and Manufacturers Association. The ''L.A. Times'' wrote: "radical and practical matters (were) considered, and steps taken for the adaption of such as are adequate to cope with a situation tardily recognized as the gravest that Los Angeles has ever been called upon to face." The authorities indicted John and James McNamara, both associated with the Iron Workers Union, for the bombing;

Clarence Darrow Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of t ...

, famed Chicago defense lawyer, represented them. At the same time the McNamara brothers were awaiting trial, Los Angeles was preparing for a city election. Job Harriman, running on the

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

ticket, was challenging the establishment's candidate. Harriman's campaign, however, was tied to the asserted innocence of the McNamaras. But the defense was in trouble: The prosecution not only had evidence of the McNamaras' complicity, but had trapped Darrow in a clumsy attempt to bribe one of the jurors. On December 1, 1911, four days before the final election, the McNamaras entered a plea of guilty in return for prison terms. Harriman lost badly. On Christmas Day, 1913, police attempted to break up an IWW rally of 500 taking place in the Plaza. Encountering resistance, the police waded into the crowd attacking them with their clubs. One citizen was killed. In the aftermath, the authorities attempted to impose martial law in the wake of growing protests. Seventy-three people were arrested in connection with the riots. The city council introduced new measures to control public speaking. The ''Times'' called onlookers and taco vendors "cultural subversives." The open shop campaign continued from strength to strength, although not without meeting opposition from workers. By 1923, the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

had made considerable progress in organizing the

longshoremen A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the numbe ...

in San Pedro and led approximately 3,000 men to walk off the job. With the support of the ''Los Angeles Times'', a special "Red Squad" was formed within the

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-lar ...

and arrested so many strikers that the city's jails were soon filled. Some 1,200 dock workers were corralled in a special stockade in

Griffith Park Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park includes popular attractions such as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the ...

. The ''Times'' wrote approvingly that "stockades and forced labor were a good remedy for IWW terrorism." Public meetings were outlawed in San Pedro,

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...

was arrested at Liberty Hill in San Pedro for reading the

United States Bill of Rights The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections ra ...

on the private property of a strike supporter (the arresting officer told him "we'll have none of 'that Constitution stuff'") and blanket arrests were made at union gatherings. The strike ended after members of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Cat ...

and the

American Legion The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is a non-profit organization of U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is made up of state, U.S. territory, and overseas departments, and these are in turn made up of ...

raided the IWW Hall and attacked the men, women and children meeting there. The strike was defeated. Los Angeles developed another industry in the early 20th century when movie producers from the East Coast relocated there. These new employers were likewise afraid of unions and other social movements: During

's campaign for governor of California under the banner of his "End Poverty In California" (EPIC) movement,

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

turned MGM's

Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...

studio into the unofficial headquarters of the organized campaign against EPIC. MGM produced fake

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...

interviews with whiskered actors with Russian accents voicing their enthusiasm for EPIC, along with footage focusing on

central casting Central Casting is an American casting company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Georgia, and Louisiana that specializes in the casting of extras, body doubles, and stand-ins. In popular usage the term "central casting" has come to deno ...

hobos huddled on the borders of California waiting to enter and live off the bounty of its taxpayers once Sinclair was elected. Sinclair, however, lost the election. Los Angeles also acquired another industry in the years just before World War II: the garment industry. At first devoted to regional merchandise such as sportswear, the industry eventually grew to be the second largest center of garment production in the United States.

Progressives

The immigrants arriving in the city to find jobs sometimes brought the revolutionary zeal and idealism of their homelands. These included anarchists such as Russian

Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...

and

Ricardo Flores Magón Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón (, known as Ricardo Flores Magón; September 16, 1874 – November 21, 1922) was a noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. His brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers o ...

and his brother

Enrique Enrique () is the Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich of Germanic origin. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), Heinrich (German), Hendrik, Henk (D ...

of the '' Partido Liberal Mexicano''. They later were joined by the socialist candidate for mayor

Job Harriman Job Harriman (January 15, 1861 – October 26, 1925) was an ordained minister who later became an agnostic and a socialist. In 1900, he ran for vice president of the United States along with Eugene Debs on the ticket of the Socialist Party of ...

, Chinese revolutionaries, the novelist

, "Wobblies" (members of the

, the IWW), and Socialist and Communist labor organizers such as the Japanese-American

Karl Yoneda Karl Gozo Yoneda ( ja, 米田剛三, July 15, 1906 – May 8, 1999) was a Japanese American activist, union organizer, World War II veteran and author. He played a substantial role in the founding of the International Longshore and Warehouse ...

and the Russian-born New Yorker Meyer Baylin. The socialists were the first to set up a soapbox in the Plaza, which served as the location of union rallies and protests and riots as the police attempted to break up meetings. Unions began to make progress in organizing these workers as the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

arrived in the 1930s. An influential strike was the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike of 1933, one of the first strikes in which Mexican immigrant workers played a prominent role for union recognition. The unions made even greater gains in the war years, as Los Angeles grew further. Today, the ethnic makeup of the city and the dominance of progressive political views among its voters have made Los Angeles a strong union town. However, many garment workers in Central L.A., most of whom are Mexican immigrants, still work in

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...

conditions.

Battle of the Los Angeles River

The

flowed clear and fresh all year, supporting 45 Tongva villages in the area. The source of the river was the

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characte ...

under the

, supplied with water from the surrounding mountains. The rising of the underground bedrock at the Glendale Narrows (near today's

) squeezed the water to the surface at that point. Then, through much of the year, the river emerged from the valley to flow across the floodplain to the sea. The area also provided other streams, lakes, and artesian wells. Early settlers were more than a little discouraged by the region's diverse and unpredictable weather. They watched helplessly as long droughts weakened and starved their livestock, only to be drowned and carried off by ferocious storms. During the years of little rain, people built too close to the riverbed, only to see their homes and barns later swept to sea during a flood. The location of the Los Angeles Plaza had to be moved twice because of previously having been built too close to the riverbed. Worse, floods changed the river's course. When the settlers arrived, the river joined

Ballona Creek Ballona Creek (pronunciation: “Bah-yo-nuh” or “Buy-yo-nah” ) is an channelized stream in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, that was once a “year-round river lined with sycamores and willows.” Ballona Creek ...

to discharge in

Santa Monica Bay Santa Monica Bay is a bight of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn between Point Dume, ...

. A fierce storm in 1835 diverted its course to Long Beach, where it stays today. Early citizens could not even maintain a footbridge over the river from one side of the city to the other. After the American takeover, the city council authorized spending of $20,000 for a contractor to build a substantial wooden bridge across the river. The first storm to come along dislodged the bridge, used it as a battering ram to break through the embankment, and scattered its timbers all the way to the sea. Some of the most concentrated rainfall in the history of the United States has occurred in the

San Gabriel Mountains The San Gabriel Mountains ( es, Sierra de San Gabriel) are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies betw ...

north of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. On April 5, 1926, a rain gauge in the San Gabriels collected one inch in one minute. In January 1969, more water fell on the San Gabriels in nine days than New York City sees in a year. In February 1978, almost a foot of rain fell in 24 hours, and, in one blast, an inch and a half in five minutes. This storm caused massive

debris flow Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...

s throughout the region, one of them unearthing the corpses in the

Verdugo Hills Cemetery The Verdugo Hills of Peace Pioneer Cemetery, or Verdugo Hills Cemetery, located in Tujunga, Los Angeles, California, opened in 1922 and closed in 1976. History The Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources describes the four-acre cemetery: By th ...

and depositing them in the town below. Another wiped out the small town of Hidden Springs in a tributary of the

Big Tujunga Creek Big Tujunga Creek is a major stream in Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. From its headwaters high in the San Gabriel Mountains, it flows generally southwest for ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolutio ...

, killing 13 people. The greatest daily rainfall recorded in California was 26.12 inches on January 23, 1943, at Hoegees near Mt. Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains. Fifteen other stations reported over 20 inches in two days from the same storm. Forty-five others reported 70% of the average annual rainfall in two days. Quibbling between city and county governments delayed any response to the flooding until a massive storm in 1938 flooded Los Angeles and Orange counties. The federal government stepped in. To transfer floodwater to the sea as quickly as possible, the Army Corps of Engineers paved the beds of the river and its tributaries. The corps also built several dams and catchment basins in the canyons along the San Gabriel Mountains to reduce the debris flows. It was an enormous project, taking years to complete. Today, the Los Angeles River functions mainly as a flood control. A drop of rain falling in the San Gabriel Mountains will reach the sea faster than an auto can drive. During today's rainstorms, the volume of the Los Angeles River at Long Beach can be as large as the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

at St. Louis. The drilling of wells and pumping of water from the San Fernando Valley aquifer dried up the river by the 1920s. By 1980, the aquifer was supplying drinking water for 800,000 people. In that year, it was discovered that the aquifer had been contaminated. Many wells were shut down, as the area qualified as a Superfund site.

Water from a distance

For its first 120 years, the Los Angeles River supplied the town with ample water for homes and farms. It was estimated that the annual flow could have support a town of 250,000 people—if the water had been managed right. But Angelenos were among the more profligate users of water in the world. In the semi-arid climate, they were forever watering their lawns, gardens, orchards, and vineyards. Later, they needed more to support the growth of commerce and manufacturing. By the beginning of the 20th century, the town realized it quickly would outgrow its river and would need new sources of water. Legitimate concerns about water supply were exploited to gain backing for a huge engineering and legal effort to bring more water to the city and allow more development. The city fathers had their eyes on the Owens River, about 250 miles (400 km) northeast of Los Angeles in

Inyo County Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County ...

, near the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

state line. It was a permanent stream of fresh water fed by the melted snows of the eastern

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primar ...

. It flowed through the

Owens River Valley Owens Valley ( Numic: ''Payahǖǖnadǖ'', meaning "place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Inyo ...

before emptying into the shallow, saline Owens Lake, where it evaporated. Downtown-LA-1900

Sometime between 1899 and 1903, Harrison Gray Otis and his son-in-law successor,

Harry Chandler Harry Chandler (May 17, 1864 – September 23, 1944) was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S. Early life Harry Chandler was born in Landaff, New Hampshire, the eldest of fou ...

, engaged in successful efforts at buying cheap land on the northern outskirts of Los Angeles in the

. At the same time, they enlisted the help of

William Mulholland William Mulholland (September 11, 1855 – July 22, 1935) was an Irish American self-taught civil engineer who was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into the largest city in ...

, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Water Department (later the

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...

or LADWP), and J.B. Lippencott, of the United States Reclamation Service. Lippencott performed water surveys in the Owens Valley for the Service while secretly receiving a salary from the City of Los Angeles. He succeeded in persuading Owens Valley farmers and mutual water companies to pool their interests and surrender the water rights to 200,000 acres (800 km²) of land to Fred Eaton, Lippencott's agent and a former mayor of Los Angeles. Lippencott then resigned from the Reclamation Service, took a job with the Los Angeles Water Department as assistant to Mulholland, and turned over the Reclamation Service maps, field surveys and stream measurements to the city. Those studies served as the basis for designing the longest aqueduct in the world. By July 1905, the ''Times'' began to warn the voters of Los Angeles that the county would soon dry up unless they voted bonds for building the aqueduct. Artificial drought conditions were created when water was run into the sewers to decrease the supply in the reservoirs and residents were forbidden to water their lawns and gardens. On election day, the people of Los Angeles voted for $22.5 million worth of bonds to build an aqueduct from the Owens River and to defray other expenses of the project. With this money, and with an

Act of Congress An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called private laws), or to the general public ( public laws). For a bill to become an act, the text must pass through both house ...

allowing cities to own property outside their boundaries, the city acquired the land that Eaton had acquired from the Owens Valley farmers and started to build the aqueduct. On the occasion of the opening of the

Los Angeles Aqueduct The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Owens Valley aqueduct) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Owens Valle ...

on November 5, 1913, Mulholland's entire speech was five words: "There it is. Take it."

Boom town: 1913–1941

Hollywood

Hollywood has been synonymous worldwide with the film industry for over a hundred years. It was incorporated as the City of Hollywood in 1903, but merged into LA in 1910. In the 1900s movie makers from New York found the sunny, temperate weather more suitable for year-round location shooting. It boomed into the cinematic heart of the United States, and has been the home and workplace of actors, directors and singers that range from small and independent to world-famous, leading to the development of related television and music industries. Los angeles 1917

Notable events

Swimming pool desegregation An end to racial segregation in municipal swimming pools was ordered in summer 1931 by a superior court judge after Ethel Prioleau sued the city, complaining that she as a Negro was not allowed to use the pool in nearby Exposition Park but had to travel 3.6 miles to the designated "negro swimming pool." Summer Olympics Los Angeles hosted the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

. The

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a me ...

, which had opened in May, 1923 with a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile tha ...

of 76,000, was enlarged to accommodate over 100,000 spectators for Olympic events. Olympic Boulevard, a major thoroughfare, honors the occasion. It is still in use by the

USC Trojans football team The USC Trojans football program represents University of Southern California in the sport of American football. The Trojans compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Pac-12 Co ...

. Griffith Park Fire A devastating brush fire on October 3, 1933, killed 29 and injured another 150 workers who were clearing brush in

Annexations and consolidations

The City of Los Angeles mostly remained within its original 28 square-mile (73 km²) land grant until the 1890s. The original city limits are visible even today in the layout of streets that changes from a north–south pattern outside of the original land grant to a pattern that is shifted roughly 15 degrees east of the

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek let ...

in and closely around the area now known as

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

. The first large additions to the city were the districts of Highland Park and Garvanza to the north, and the

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...

area. In 1906, the approval of the

Port of Los Angeles The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "America's Port", ...

and a change in state law allowed the city to annex the ''Shoestring'', or

Harbor Gateway The Harbor Gateway is a in the Los Angeles Harbor Region, in the southern part of the city. The neighborhood is narrow and long, running along a north-south axis. Its unusual shape has given it the alternative name of "the Shoestring Strip". Th ...

, a narrow and crooked strip of land leading from Los Angeles south towards the port. The port cities of San Pedro and Wilmington were added in 1909 and the city of Hollywood was added in 1910, bringing the city up to 90 square miles (233 km²) and giving it a vertical "barbell" shape. Also added that year was Colegrove, a suburb west northwest of the city near Hollywood; Cahuenga, a township northwest of the former city limits; and a part of

Los Feliz LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significanc ...

was annexed to the city. LA Xmas,1928

The opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct provided the city with four times as much water as it required, and the offer of water service became a powerful lure for neighboring communities. The city, saddled with a large bond and excess water, locked in customers through annexation by refusing to supply other communities. Harry Chandler, a major investor in

real estate, used his ''Los Angeles Times'' to promote development near the aqueduct's outlet. By referendum of the residents, 170 square miles (440 km²) of the San Fernando Valley, along with the Palms district, were added to the city in 1915, almost tripling its area, mostly towards the northwest. Over the next 17 years. dozens of additional annexations brought the city's area to 450 square miles (1,165 km²) in 1932. (Numerous small annexations brought the total area of the city up to 469 square miles (1,215 km²) as of 2004.) Most of the annexed communities were unincorporated towns but 10 incorporated cities were consolidated with Los Angeles: Wilmington (1909), San Pedro (1909), Hollywood (1910), Sawtelle (1922), Hyde Park (1923), Eagle Rock (1923),

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

(1925),

Watts Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power. Watts may also refer to: People * Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters *Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful'' * Watts family, six cha ...

(1926), Barnes City (1927), and Tujunga (1932).

Civic corruption and police brutality

The downtown business interests, always eager to attract business and investment to Los Angeles, were also eager to distance their town from the

criminal underworld Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

that defined the stories of Chicago and New York. In spite of their concerns, massive corruption in

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

and the

(LAPD)—and the fight against it—were dominant themes in the city's story from early 20th-century to the 1950s. In the 1920s, for example, it was common practice for the city's mayor, councilmen, and attorneys to take contributions from madams, bootleggers, and gamblers. The top aide of the mayor was involved with a protection racket. Thugs with eastern-Mafia connections were involved in often violent conflicts over bootlegging and horse-racing turf. The mayor's brother was selling jobs in the

. In 1933, the new mayor Frank Shaw started giving contracts without competitive bids and paying city employees to favor crony contractors. The city's Vice Squad functioned citywide as the enforcer and collector of the city's organized crime, with revenues going to the pockets of city officials right up to the mayor. In 1937, the owner of downtown's

Clifton's Cafeteria Clifton's Cafeteria, once part of a chain of eight Clifton's restaurants, was the oldest surviving cafeteria-style eatery in Los Angeles and the largest public cafeteria in the world when it closed in 2018. Founded in 1931 by Clifford Clinton, t ...

Clifford Clinton Clifford E. Clinton (August 3, 1900 – November 20, 1969) was a California restaurateur who founded Meals for Millions, one of two parent organizations of Freedom from Hunger, in 1946. In 1905, Clifford Clinton traveled to China (for the firs ...

led a citizen's campaign to clean up city hall. He and other reformers served on a Grand Jury investigating the charges of corruption. In a minority report, the reformers wrote:

A portion of the underworld profits have been used in financing campaigns fnbsp;... city and county officials in vital positions ...
hile Hile ( ne, हिले) is a hill town located in the Eastern Part of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasa ...
the district attorney's office, sheriff's office, and Los Angeles Police Department work in complete harmony and never interfere with ... important figures in the underworld.

The police Intelligence Squad spied on anyone even suspected of criticizing the police. They included journalist Carey McWilliams, the District Attorney, Judge Fletcher Bowron, and two of the county supervisors. The persistent courage of Clinton, Superior Court Judge and later Mayor, Fletcher Bowron, and former police detective Harry Raymond turned the tide. The police became so nervous that the Intelligence Squad blew up Raymond's car and nearly killed him. The public was so enraged by the bombing that it quickly voted Shaw out of office, one of the first big-city recalls in the country's history. The head of the intelligence squad was convicted and sentenced to two years to life. Police Chief James Davis and 23 other officers were forced to resign. Fletcher Bowron replaced Shaw as mayor in 1938 to preside over one of the more dynamic periods in the history of the city. His "Los Angeles Urban Reform Revival" brought major changes to the government of Los Angeles. In 1950, he appointed William H. Parker as chief of police. Parker pushed for more independence from political pressures that enabled him to create a more professionalized police force. The public supported him and voted in charter changes that isolated the police department from the rest of government. Through the 1960s, the LAPD was promoted as one of the more efficient departments in the world. But Parker's administration increasingly was charged with

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to ...

—resulting from his recruiting of officers from the South with strong anti-black and anti-Mexican attitudes. Reaction to police brutality resulted in the Watts riots of 1965 and in the Los Angeles riots of 1992, after the

Rodney King Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965June 17, 2012) was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers during his arrest after a pursuit for driving whi ...

beating. Charges of police brutality dogged the department through the end of the 20th century. In the late 1990s, as a result of the Rampart scandal involving misconduct of 70 officers, the federal government was forced to intervene and assumed jurisdiction of the department with a consent decree. Police reform has since been a major issue confronted by the city's mayors. Social critic Mike Davis argued that attempts to "revitalize" downtown Los Angeles decreases public space and further alienates poor and minority populations. This enforced geographical separation of diverse populations goes back to the city's earliest days.

LAX: Los Angeles International Airport

Mines Field Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the ...

opened as the private airport in 1930, and the city purchased it to be the municipal airfield in 1937. The name became Los Angeles Airport in 1941 and Los Angeles International Airport in 1949. In the 1930s, the main airline airports were

Hollywood Burbank Airport Hollywood Burbank Airport, legally and formerly marketed as Bob Hope Airport after entertainer Bob Hope , is a public airport northwest of downtown Burbank, in Los Angeles County, California, United States.. Federal Aviation Administration. ef ...

(then known as Union Air Terminal, and later Lockheed) in Burbank and the

Grand Central Airport Grand Central Airport is a small privately owned airfield which is open to public air traffic. It is located in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa. Prior permission to land at Grand Central is not required for l ...

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia *Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre * Glendale, Queensland, ...

. In 1940, the airlines were all at Burbank except for Mexicana's three departures a week from Glendale; in late 1946 most airline flights moved to LAX, but Burbank always retained a few. Since then, there has been relentless expansion and the spinoff of hotels and warehouses nearby.

World War II: 1941–1945

During

, Los Angeles grew as a center for production of aircraft, ships, war supplies, and ammunition. Aerospace employers headquartered in the

Los Angeles metropolitan area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino C ...

Hughes Aircraft Company The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other ...

Northrop Corporation Northrop Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman. The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Sp ...

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated a ...

, Vultee Aircraft (later merged into

Convair Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee, was an American aircraft manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, i ...

in 1943), and

Lockheed Corporation The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ot ...

, were able to provide the nation's demand for the war effort in producing

strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...

s and

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

like B-17s, B-25s, A-36s, and

P-51 Mustangs The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...

needed to bomb the war machine of the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

. As a result, the Los Angeles area grew faster than any other major metropolitan area in the U.S. and experienced more of the traumas of war while doing so. By 1943, the population of

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

was larger than 37 states, and was home to one in every 40 U.S. citizens, as millions across the U.S. came to Southern California to find employment in the defense industries. The

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

community in Los Angeles was greatly impacted since Japan's

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

pulled the U.S. into World War II, and America feared that the

fifth column A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...

was widespread among the community. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

, authorizing military commanders to exclude "any or all persons" from certain areas in the name of national defense. The

Western Defense Command Western Defense Command (WDC) was established on 17 March 1941 as the command formation of the United States Army responsible for coordinating the defense of the Pacific Coast region of the United States during World War II. A second major respo ...

began ordering Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast to present themselves for "evacuation" from the newly created military zones. This included many Los Angeles families, of which 80,000 were relocated to the Japanese-American internment camps throughout the duration of the war. The war also lured a large number of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

from the rural impoverished Southern states to the Los Angeles area in the second chapter of the Great Migration, due to manpower industrial shortages and

Executive Order 8802 Executive Order 8802 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense industry. It also set up the Fair Employment Practice Committee. It was the first federal ac ...

, which prohibited discrimination in wartime defense industries. Lonnie Bunch, a longtime historian with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

, wrote, "Between 1942-1945, some 340,000 Blacks settled in California, 200,000 of whom migrated to Los Angeles." Most of these migrants to Los Angeles came from South Central states like

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, and

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

. African Americans particularly benefited from defense jobs created in Los Angeles County during the war, especially

Terminal Island Terminal Island, historically known as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, is a largely artificial island located in Los Angeles County, California, between the neighborhoods of Wilmington and San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles, and the city of Long ...

, where it was one of the first places of integrated, defense-related work on the West Coast. Though

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...

did not exist in Los Angeles as it had in the South, black migrants continued to face racial discrimination in most aspects of life, especially widespread housing segregation and

redlining In the United States, redlining is a discriminatory practice in which services ( financial and otherwise) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment; these neighborhoods have sign ...

due to overcrowding and perceived lower property value during and after the war, in which they were restricted from advanced opportunities in affluent white areas and confined to an exclusive-black majority area of

South Central Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...

. As with a few other wartime industrial cities in the U.S., Los Angeles experienced a racial-related conflict stemming from the Zoot Suit Riots in June 1943, in which American servicemen and local Whites attacked young

Mexican-Americans Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican ...

in zoot suits. Many military personnel regarded the zoot suits as unpatriotic and flamboyant in time of war, as they had a lot of fabric, coupled with widespread racism against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as unintelligent and inferior. The Los Angeles Police Department stood by as the rioting happened, arresting hundreds of Hispanic residents instead of the attackers. Riots against Latinos in Los Angeles also erupted in a similar fashion in other cities in California, Texas, and Arizona as well as northern cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Near Wilshire Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue in 1945

Near Wilshire Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue in 1945

While Los Angeles County never faced enemy bombing and invasion, it nevertheless became an integral part of the American Theater on the night of February 24–25, 1942, during the false

, which occurred a day after the Japanese naval bombardment of Ellwood in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning " Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West ...

, 80 miles from Los Angeles. Reacting to a report that enemy planes had been spotted over Los Angeles, anti-aircraft gunners in the area fired on the approaching aircraft what was later known to be a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

weather balloon. Lasted for two hours, five people died in the "Battle of Los Angeles", from car crashes in the confusing darkness to people having heart attacks due to loud anti-aircraft gun bursts. In spite of this, the Japanese had plans to actually bomb Los Angeles with giant

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

s in anticipation of the proposed large-scale invasion of the continental United States. Those raids never came about, but the Japanese had the planes and wherewithal to accomplish such a raid throughout the war.

Postwar: Baby boomers

After the war, hundreds of land developers bought land cheap, subdivided it, built on it, and got rich. Real-estate development replaced oil and agriculture as Southern California's principal industry. In July 1955,

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

opened the world's first theme park called

Disneyland Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envisio ...

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

. Nine years later,

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

opened its first theme park with the public

studio tour The Studio Tour (also known as The Backlot Tour) is a ride attraction at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Universal City, California near Los Angeles. Studio Tour is the theme park's signature attraction. It travels through a worki ...

tram at Universal City. This later touched off a theme park war between

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a t ...

that continue on to the present day. In 1958, Major League Baseball's

Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Broo ...

and

Giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

left New York City and came to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The population of California expanded dramatically, to nearly 20 million by 1970. This was the coming-of-age of the

baby boom A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds of defined national and cultural populations. People born during these periods are ofte ...

. By 1950, Los Angeles was an industrial and financial giant created by war production and migration. Los Angeles assembled more cars than any city other than Detroit, made more tires than any city but Akron, Ohio, made more furniture than Grand Rapids, Michigan, and stitched more clothes than any city except New York. In addition, it was the national capital for the production of motion pictures, Army and Navy training films, radio programs and, within a few years, television shows. Construction boomed as tract houses were built in ever expanding suburban communities financed by the GI Bill for veterans and the

Federal Housing Administration The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a United States government agency founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created in part by ...

. Popular music of the period bore titles such as "California Girls", "

California Dreamin' "California Dreamin'" is a song written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips and first recorded by Barry McGuire. The best-known version is by the Mamas & the Papas, who sang backup on the original version and released it as a single in 1 ...

", "San Francisco", " Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and "

Hotel California "Hotel California" is the title track from the Eagles' album of the same name and was released as a single in February 1977. Writing credits for the song are shared by Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics). Joe Walsh came ...

". These reflected the Californian promise of easy living in a paradisiacal climate. The surfing culture burgeoned. Los Angeles continued to spread, particularly with the development of the San Fernando Valley and the building of the freeways launched in the 1940s. When the local street car system went out of business due to the gas/automobile industry, Los Angeles became a city shaped around the automobile, with all the social, health and political problems that this dependence produces. The famed

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

of Los Angeles became a notable feature of the town, and the pace of the growth accelerated in the first decades of the 20th century. The

, sometimes called "America's Suburb", became a favorite site of developers, and the city began growing past its roots

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

toward the ocean and towards the east. The immense problem with

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different type ...

(

smog Smog, or smoke fog, is a type of intense air pollution. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century, and is a portmanteau of the words '' smoke'' and ''fog'' to refer to smoky fog due to its opacity, and odor. The word was then int ...

) that had developed by the early 1970s also caused a backlash: Schools were closed routinely in urban areas for "smog days" when the ozone levels became too unhealthy, and the hills surrounding urban areas were seldom visible even within a mile, Californians were ready for changes. Over the next three decades, California enacted some of the strictest anti-smog regulations in the United States and has been a leader in encouraging nonpolluting strategies for various industries, including automobiles. For example,

carpool lane A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers, i ...

s normally allow only vehicles with two/three or more occupants (whether the base number is two or three depends on what freeway you are on), but

electric car An electric car, battery electric car, or all-electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using only energy stored in batteries. Compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric cars are quiet ...

s can use the lanes with only a single occupant. As a result, smog is significantly reduced from its peak, although local Air Quality Management Districts still monitor the air and generally encourage people to avoid polluting activities on hot days when smog is expected to be at its worst.

1950–2000

Beginning November 6, 1961, Los Angeles suffered three days of destructive brush fires. The Bel-Air—Brentwood and Santa Ynez fires destroyed 484 expensive homes and 21 other buildings along with 15,810 acres (64 km²) of brush in the Bel-Air, Brentwood, and

Topanga Canyon Topanga () (Tongva: ''Topaa'nga'') is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains, the community exists in Topanga Canyon and the surrounding hills. The narrow s ...

neighborhoods. Most of the homes destroyed had wooden shake roofs, which not only led to their own loss but also sent firebrands up to three miles (5 km) away. Despite this, few changes were made to the building codes to prevent future losses. The repeal of a law limiting building height and the controversial redevelopment of Bunker Hill, which destroyed a picturesque though decrepit neighborhood, ushered in the construction of a new generation of skyscrapers. Bunker Hill's 62-floor ''First Interstate Building'' (later named Aon Center) was the highest in Los Angeles when it was completed in 1973. It was surpassed by the ''Library Tower'' (now called the

U.S. Bank Tower U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the second ...

) a few blocks to the north in 1990, a 310 m (1,018 ft) building that is the tallest west of the Mississippi. Outside of Downtown, the Wilshire Corridor is lined with tall buildings, particularly near Westwood. Century City, developed on the former

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

back lot, has become another center of high-rise construction on the Westside. During the latter decades of the 20th century, the city saw a massive increase of street gangs. At the same time,

crack cocaine Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be smoked. Crack offers a short, intense high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment'' calls ...

became widely available and dominated by gangs in the 1980s. Although gangs were disproportionately confined to lower-income inner-city sections, fear knew no boundaries citywide. Since the early 1990s, the city saw a decrease in crime and gang violence with rising prices in housing, revitalization,

urban development Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of peop ...

, and heavy police vigilance in many parts of the city. With its reputation, it had led to Los Angeles being referred as "The Gang Capital of America". Flag of Los Angeles County, California (1967-2004)

Flag of Los Angeles County, California (1967-2004)

subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Intercontin ...

system, developed and built through the 1980s as a major goal of mayor Tom Bradley, stretches from North Hollywood to Union Station and connects to light rail lines that extend to the neighboring cities of

, Norwalk, and Pasadena, among others. Also, a

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

system, Metrolink, has been added that stretches from nearby Ventura and

, Orange County, and Riverside. The funding of the

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), commonly branded as Metro, LA Metro, and L.A. Metro, is the state agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the transportation system in Los Angele ...

project is funded by a half cent tax increase added in the mid-1980s, which yields $400 million every month. Although the regional transit system is growing, subway expansion was halted in the 1990s over methane gas concerns, political conflict, and construction and financing problems during Red Line Subway project, which culminated in a massive sinkhole on

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...

. As a result, the original subway plans have been delayed for decades as light rail systems, dedicated busways, and limited-stop "Rapid" bus routes have become the preferred means of mass transit in LA's expanding series of gridlocked, congested corridors. The 1995

murder of Stephanie Kuhen The murder of Stephanie Kuhen (October 4, 1991 – September 17, 1995) in Los Angeles, California created significant media attention in the United States and led to crackdowns on Los Angeles street gangs.Pelisek, Christine.Avenues of Death" '' L ...

in Los Angeles led to condemnation from President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

and a crackdown on Los Angeles-area gangs.

Racially restrictive housing covenants

Racially restrictive housing covenants were a major part of Los Angeles housing development and selling of real estate. Racially restrictive covenants were court private agreements included in title deeds that prohibited the selling of property to certain races. The first racially restrictive covenant in Los Angeles dates to 1902 and used the term non-Caucasians to restrict people of color from dwelling in that home. Other language used in covenants excluded specific ethnic groups and sometimes only allowed "non-Whites" to occupy a property if they were domestic workers. There was a tendency to exclude

Mexican Americans Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

, despite they were legally "White" due to Spanish ancestry, Mexican immigrants tend to be indigenous people or

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...

. Racially restrictive covenants were implemented by housing developers, real estate agencies, and homeowners associations for the purpose of creating racial and class segregated neighborhoods. Racially restrictive covenants were also implemented in housing developments to secure homogeneous and economically stable neighborhoods. The Janss Investment Company built the community of Westwood. They included racial restrictions in all of their properties that specifically excluded "any person who is not of the White or the Caucasian race". Examples of communities in Los Angeles that were built with racial restrictions in deeds are

Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks is the second-largest city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is in the northwestern part of Greater Los Angeles, approximately from the city of Los Angeles and from Downtown. It is named after the many oak tree ...

, Palos Verdes,

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

, Bel Air, Westchester,

Panorama City Panorama City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the San Fernando Valley. It has a generally young age range as well as the highest population density in the Valley. Ethnically, more than half of its population was born a ...

, Westside Village, and Toluca Woods among others. In 1892, the federal courts ruled that neither state nor city governments could discriminate but upheld the right to enter into racial and class restrictive covenants. In the period between 1900 and 1920 Los Angeles experienced a boom in housing development during which racially restrictive covenants became widespread. By 1939, almost 47% of Los Angeles County residential neighborhoods included racially restrictive covenants. Restricting people of color from many neighborhoods across Los Angeles resulted in the formation of multiracial neighborhoods. These neighborhoods were notably poor and composed of Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jews, and Italians. Among multiracial neighborhoods in Los Angeles are

Belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa * Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco * Belvedere, Harare, Z ...

, and

. In the 1930s, Okies from the Central United States settled in the Northern ends of Downtown Los Angeles, mainly they were White, but a large percentage were

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...

(Native Americans) from

. Racially restrictive covenants were finally overturned in two landmark cases. Shelley V. Kraemer in 1948 prohibited racially restrictive covenants and invalidated their use in court. The 1956 Barrows V. Jackson case the Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive covenants were unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. It stated that "The enforcement of a covenant forbidding use and occupancy of real estate by non-Caucasians, by an action at law in a state court to recover damages from a co-covenantor for a breach of the covenant, is barred by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution." In 1964, California voters approved Proposition 14 which attempted to validate housing discrimination. However, the proposition was repealed and deemed unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court. While many home deeds in Los Angeles still contain restrictive covenant clauses, they are not legally enforceable.

Economic and demographic changes

The last of the automobile factories shut down in the 1990s; the tire factories and steel mills left earlier. Most of the agricultural and dairy operations that were still prospering in the 1950s have moved to outlying counties while the furniture industry has relocated to Mexico and other low-wage nations. Aerospace production has dropped significantly since the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

or moved to states with better tax conditions, and movie producers sometimes find cheaper places to produce films, television programs and commercials. However, the film, television and music industries are still based in LA, which is home to large numbers of well-paid stars, executives and technicians. Many studios still operate in Los Angeles, such as

CBS Television City Television City, alternatively CBS Television City, is an American television studio complex located in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles at 7800 Beverly Boulevard, at the corner of Fairfax Avenue. Designed by architect William Pereira and Ch ...

at the corner of

Fairfax Avenue Fairfax Avenue is a street in the north central area of the city of Los Angeles, California. It runs from La Cienega Boulevard in Culver City at its southern end to Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on its northern end. From La Cienega Boulevard (be ...

and

Beverly Boulevard Beverly Boulevard is one of the main east–west thoroughfares in Los Angeles, in the U.S. state of California. It begins off Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills and ends on the Lucas Avenue overpass near downtown Los Angeles to become 1 ...

and

in Century City. The manufacture of clothing began on a large scale in the early 20th century. The fashion industry emerged in the 1920s with an emphasis on sportswear and leisure clothing, and expanded after 1945 to second place behind New York. Toyota opened its first overseas office in Hollywood in 1957, and sold 257 cars in the U.S. It moved operations to Torrance in 1982 because of easy access to port facilities and the LAX airport. In 2013 it sold 2.2 million vehicles in the U.S. In 2014, it announced it would move 3000 of its employees to Plano, Texas, near Dallas, to be closer to its American factories. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach make up the largest harbor complex in the U.S., handling 44% of all goods imported by cargo container. In 2007, the equivalent of 7.85 million 40-foot shipping containers poured through the ports, with most then moving along the region's highways to massive rail yards and warehouses before heading to the nation's interior. International trade has generated hundreds of thousands of jobs in Southern California. Moving goods is now one of the larger industries in the region, one that helps provide low-cost imports to consumers across the country. The ports are among the region's more valuable economic engines. The overall metropolitan L.A. economy was healthy, and in one five-year boom period (1985 to 1990), it attracted 400,000 working immigrants (mostly from Asia and Mexico) and about 575,000 workers from elsewhere in the U.S. The jobs offered depended largely on educational qualifications. Half of the immigrants from abroad owed their employment to the immigrant economy with Asian entrepreneurs employing Latino workers. Large-scale economic changes have brought major social changes with them. While unemployment dropped in Los Angeles in the 1990s, the newly created jobs tended to be low-wage jobs filled by recent immigrants; the number of poor families increased from 36% to 43% of the population of Los Angeles County during this time. At the same time, the number of immigrants from Mexico, Central America and Latin America has made Los Angeles a " majority minority" city that will soon (perhaps in the 2020s) be majority Latino, the first time since California statehood in 1850 before Anglo-American settlers came to the city. The unemployment rate dropped from 6.9% to 6.8% in 2002, jumped during the recession of 2008, and hovered around 11-12% in 2011. The desire for residential housing in the downtown area has led to gentrification. Historic commercial buildings have been renovated as condos (while maintaining the original outside design), and many new apartment and condominium towers and complexes are being built. Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing gap between the

rich Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling **Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...

and the

poor Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse

, making Los Angeles one of the more socioeconomically divided city in the United States. By the end of the 20th century, some of the annexed areas began to feel cut off from the political process of the megalopolis, leading to a particularly strong secession movement in the San Fernando Valley and weaker ones in San Pedro and Hollywood. The referendums to split the city were rejected by voters in November 2002. Many communities in Los Angeles have changed their ethnic character over this period of time. For many decades, the population was predominantly White and mostly American-born until the late 20th century. South L.A. was mostly White until the 1950s, but then became predominantly black until the 1990s, and is now mainly Latino. While the Latino community within the City of Los Angeles was once centered on the Eastside, it now extends throughout the city. The San Fernando Valley, which represented a bastion of

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

in the 1960s and provided the votes that allowed

Sam Yorty Samuel William Yorty (October 1, 1909 – June 5, 1998) was an American radio host, attorney, and politician from Los Angeles, California. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives and the California State Assembly, ...

to defeat the first election run by Tom Bradley, is now as ethnically diverse as the rest of the city on the other side of the

Hollywood Hills The Hollywood Hills are a residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Geography The Hollywood Hills straddle the Cahuenga Pass within the Santa Monica Mountains. The neighborhood touches Studio City, Un ...

Population history

The population of Los Angeles reached more than 100,000 with the 1900 census, more than a million in 1930, more than two million in 1960, and more than 3 million in 1990. Los Angeles surpassed

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

to become the nation's second largest city between 1980 and 1982, with a population estimated to be 3.022 million in 1982. The population of Los Angeles in 2020 was 3,898,747. ''Sources
Historical Census Populations of Counties and Incorporated Cities in California, 1850–2010
'

References

Bibliography

* Schiesl, Martin J. "Progressive Reform in Los Angeles under Mayor Alexander, 1909-1913." ''California Historical Quarterly'' 54.1 (1975): 37-56
online
* Some of the best history appears in the appropriate chapters of the multi-volume History of California by Kevin Starr, including ** ''Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915'' (1973) ** ''Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era'' (1985) ** ''Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s'' (1990)

External links

*Spanish and Mexican History Source: University of Southern California Project: ''Los Angeles: Past, Present, and Future'', 1996. Adopted by the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.
''Los Angeles in the 1900s'', a collection of newspaper articles and illustrations from 1900 through 1909

LA as Subject (KCET.org)

1947 project
about a range of Los Angeles history
Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs
UCLA Library Digital Collections {{Authority control History of Los Angeles