An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California

In this work the publishers have endeavored to give a faithful history of Los Angeles County from the earliest times to the present, and believe that it contains an account of all the important events, and many of less note. They have taken unusual pains and incurred many unexpectedly heavy expenses in the search for material and its compilation into a symmetrical form; and the work is certainly more correct than standard general histories. Ten to twenty percent of the latter kind of literature may be erroneous and still appear straight and veritable; while if even only one statement in a hundred in local history is found to be erroneous, it will cause some persons to use extravagant language concerning it.

 

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I - PHYSICAL FEATURES
CHAPTER II - ABORIGINES
CHAPTER III - EARLY VOYAGES AND SPANISH OCCUPATION
CHAPTER IV - THE MISSIONS
CHAPTER V - THE MISSIONS, CONTINUED
CHAPTER VI - SECULARIZATION OF THE MISSIONS 44
CHAPTER VII - CITY OF LOS ANGELES 46
CHAPTER VIII - THE MEXICAN WAR
CHAPTER IX - THE COUNTY 87
CHAPTER X - STATE DIVISION 94
CHAPTER XI - ANNALS - 1849-1889 97
CHAPTER XII - PIONEERS 114
CHAPTER XIII - RAILROADS 134
CHAPTER XIV - THE PRESS 140
CHAPTER XV - BENCH AND BAR
CHAPTER XVI - THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 197
CHAPTER XVII - CRIMES AND CRIMINALS 245
CHAPTER XVIII - LOS ANGELES CITY
CHAPTER XIX - PASADENA 313
CHAPTER XX - POMONA 319
CHAPTER XXI - SAN PERDRO, ETC 332
CHAPTER XXII - OTHER TOWNS
CHAPTER XXIII - MISCELLANEOUS

 

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A history of Los Angeles County includes not only a narration of the acts of mankind and nature which have occurred within its boundaries, but also a relation of those events which, happening elsewhere, have here had results. A complete history would naturally go back to the time when the dry land first rose above the waters, but as there has never been a geological survey of the county, this part of its history remains to be written. Enough is known, however, to say that the Sierra Madre, that chain of mountains which crosses the county in au easterly and westerly direction, are as old as, and in fact are a part of, the Sierra Nevada. And that after these mountains were raised to their present altitude, the gods of air, water and fire have created the topographical face that is now beheld. The whale, whose skeleton was found on the summit of the Santa Monica Mountains, tells of a time when he lived in the waters above. Then came the recedence of the water and the elevation of the land. In the asphaltum springs, west of Los Angeles, the finding of a saber-shaped tooth of a tiger, long extinct, tells of the ferocious animals which once lived here. The discoveries of the remains of mastodons at Tejunga, Los Angeles, Puente and San Juan By-the-Sea, at a depth of from five to twenty feet below the surface of the ground, are the records of a period when the valleys were deeper than they now are, and had a vegetation of sufficientgrowth to have sustained these animals.