Biography of los angeles california

The history of Los Angeles began in when 44 settlers from central Modern Spain (modern Mexico) established a permanent settlement in what is now Downtown Los Angeles, as instructed by Spanish Governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve, and authorized by Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli.

After sovereignty changed from Mexico to the United States in , amazing changes came from the completion of the Santa Fe railroad line from Chicago to Los Angeles in "Overlanders" flooded in, mostly white Protestants from the Midwest and Upland South.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Los Angeles had a strong economic ground in farming, oil, tourism, genuine estate and movies.

It grew rapidly with many suburban areas inside and outside the urban area limits. Its motion picture industry made the city world-famous, and World War II brought brand-new industry, especially high-tech aircraft construction.

Politically the city was moderately conservative, with a weak labor union sector.

Since the s, 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 and Asia, own transformed the demographic base since the s. Old industries possess declined, including farming, oil, military and aircraft, but tourism, fun and high-tech remain strong. Over time, droughts and wildfires own increased in frequency and develop less seasonal and more year-round, further straining the city's liquid security.^[7][8][9]

Indigenous history

By 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—who spoke a Uto-Aztecan language called Tongva. The Tongva people called the Los Angeles region Yaa in that tongue.^[10]

By the s CE, there were , to , native people in California and 5, in the Los Angeles basin.

The land occupied and used by the Tongva covered about 4, square miles (10,&#;km²). It included the enormous floodplain drained by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers and the southern Channel Islands, including the Santa Barbara, San Clemente, Santa Catalina, and San Nicolas Islands.

They were part of a urbane group of trading partners that included the Chumash to the west, the Cahuilla and Mojave to the east, and the Juaneños and Luiseños to the south. Their trade extended to the Colorado River and included slavery.^[11]

The lives of the Tongva were governed by a position of religious and cultural practices that included belief in imaginative supernatural forces.

They worshipped Chinigchinix, 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 made from jimson weed and salt water.

Their language was called Kizh or Kij, and they practiced cremation.^[12][13][14]

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 of the Los Angeles River.^[15] Its residents provided the colonists with seafood, fish, bowls, pelts, and baskets.

For settle, they dug ditches, hauled fluid, and provided domestic help. They often intermarried with the Mexican colonists.^[16]

Spanish era

Further information: Pueblo de Los Angeles

In and , the first Europeans to visit the region were Captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Captain Sebastián Vizcaíno.

The first permanent non-native presence began when the Portolá expedition arrived on August 2, ^[17]

Plans for the pueblo

Although Los Angeles was a town that was founded by Mexican families from Sonora, it was the Spanish governor of California who named the settlement.

In , Governor Felipe de Neve toured Alta California and decided to prove civic pueblos for the sustain of the military presidios. The new pueblos reduced the secular power of the missions by reducing the military's dependence on them. At the same second, 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 promulgated by King Philip II in Those laws were responsible for laying the foundations of the largest cities in the region at the time, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tucson, San Antonio, Sonoma, Monterey, Santa Fe, and Laredo.^[18]

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).^[19]

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, on the great plain of Santa Clara on 29 November ^[20]

Pobladores

Main article: Los Angeles Pobladores

The Pobladores ("settlers") is the mention 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 , Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa and Commandant General Teodoro de Croix 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 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, Rosario, and Durango, Rivera y Moncada recruited only 12 settlers and 45 soldiers. Like the settlers of most towns in New Spain, they had a mix of Indian and Spanish backgrounds. The Quechan Revolt killed 95 settlers and soldiers, including Rivera y Moncada.^[21]

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 unused town drew instant disapproval from the mission priests.^[22]

Zúñiga's party arrived at the mission on 18 July Some had smallpox, so all were quarantined a quick distance away from the mission.

Members of the other party ^[who?] arrived at different times by August. They made their way to Los Angeles and probably received their land before September.^[22]

The official date for the founding of the city is September 4, ^[23] The families had arrived from New Spain earlier in , in two groups, and some of them had most likely been active on their assigned plots of land since the early summer.^[24]

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 , 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.^[25]

Spanish pueblo

The town grew as soldiers and other settlers came into town and stayed.

In 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 degree angle to the four compass points.^[26] The pobladores were given title to their land two years later. By , there were 29 buildings that surrounded the Plaza, flat-roofed, one-story adobe buildings with thatched roofs made of tule.^[27] By , Los Angeles had grown into a self-sustaining farming community, the largest in Southern California.

The Spanish land grant to the city lands of Los Angeles was roughly a square of five miles (&#;km) on each side, for an area of four square Spanish leagues, with the boundaries corresponding to present-day Fountain Avenue, Indiana Street, Exposition Boulevard and Hoover Street.

Each settler received four rectangles of land, suertes, for farming, two irrigated plots and two dry ones.^[18][28] When the settlers arrived, the Los Angeles floodplain was heavily wooded with willows and oaks.

The Los Angeles River flowed all year. Wildlife was plentiful, including deer and black bears, and even an occasional grizzly bear. There were abundant wetlands and swamps. Steelhead trout and salmon 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 recognizable as a producer of satisfactory wine grapes. The raising of cattle and the commerce in tallow and hides came later.^[29]

Because of the great economic potential for Los Angeles, the require for Indian labor grew rapidly.

Yaanga began attracting Indians from the Channel Islands and as far away as San Diego and San Luis Obispo. The village began to look favor a refugee camp. Unlike the missions, the pobladores paid Indians for their labor. In exchange for their work as farm workers, vaqueros, ditch diggers, liquid 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 victory of the town and the attraction of other Indians to the city.^[16]

During the s, San Gabriel Mission became the protest 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 juvenile Indian healer, Toypurina, 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.^[30]

In , Governor Pedro Fages 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.^[31]

In , Sergeant Pablo Cota led an expedition from the Simi Valley through the Conejo-Calabasas region and into the San Fernando Valley.

His party visited the rancho of Francisco Reyes.

InMexico declared its independence from Spain, and all of California fell under Mexican control. The timing was fortuitous, as rich deposits of gold were discovered in the Sacramento Valley inigniting the Gold Rush. This sparked a flurry of land speculation, and civic boosters were soon tempting winter-weary Easterners with promises of lush orange groves and boundless sunshine. But oranges and people demand water, and L.

They launch the local Indians hard at work as vaqueros and kind 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 look after neither for the missions nor for the missionaries.^[32]

Not only economic ties but also marriage drew many Indians into the animation of the pueblo.

In , 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.^[33]

The construction on the Plaza of La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles took place between and , 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 mile (18&#;km) ride to Sunday Mass at Mission San Gabriel.

In , the population of Los Angeles had increased to more than five hundred persons, of which ninety-one were heads of families.^[34]

In , the route of El Camino Viejo was established from Los Angeles, over the mountains to the north and up the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to the east side of San Francisco Bay.

Mexican era

Mexico's self-rule from Spain on September 28, , was celebrated with amazing festivity throughout Alta California. No longer subjects of the king, people were now ciudadanos, citizens with rights under the rule.

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.^[24]

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 , there were just people in the pueblo. By , the population nearly tripled to 1,^[35]

Secularization of the missions

During the rest of the s, 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 Jonathan Temple and John Rice opened the first general store in the pueblo, soon followed by J.

D. Leandry.^[36] Trade and commerce further increased with the secularization of the California missions by the Mexican Congress in Extensive mission lands suddenly became accessible to government officials, ranchers, and land speculators.

The governor made more than land grants during this period, including a grant of over 33,acres in to Francisco Sepúlveda which was later developed as the westside of Los Angeles.^[37]

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 area titles, often by being drawn into debt or alcohol.^[38]

In , Governor Pico was married to Maria Ignacio Alvarado in the Plaza church.

It was attended by the entire population of the pueblo, people, plus hundreds from elsewhere in Alta California. In , the Mexican Congress declared Los Angeles a capital, making it the official capital of Alta California. It was now the region's leading urban area.

The same period also saw the arrival of many foreigners from the United States and Europe. They played a key role in the U.S. takeover. Early California settler John Bidwell included several historical figures in his recollection of people he knew in March

It then had probably two hundred and fifty people, of whom I recall Don Abel Stearns, John Temple, Captain Alexander Bell, William Wolfskill, Lemuel Carpenter,^[39][40][41]David W.

Alexander; also of Mexicans, Pio Pico (governor), Don Juan Bandini, and others.^[42][43]

Upon arriving in Los Angeles in , Jean-Louis Vignes bought acres (&#;km²) of land located between the original Pueblo and the banks of the Los Angeles River.

Los Angeles, urban area, seat of Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. It is the second most populous metropolis and metropolitan area in the U.S. Home of the American entertainment industry, the city is also known for its pleasant weather, urban sprawl, traffic, beaches, and ethnic and racial diversity.

He planted a vineyard and prepared to make wine.^[44] He named his property El Aliso after the centuries-old tree initiate near the entrance. The grapes available at the time, of the Mission variety, were brought to Alta California by the Franciscan Brothers at the termination of the 18th century.

They grew well and yielded enormous quantities of wine, but Jean-Louis Vignes was not satisfied with the results.

In , 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.^[45] By , he made regular shipments to Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco.

By , El Aliso, was the most extensive vineyard in California. Vignes owned over 40, vines and produced , bottles, or 1, barrels, per year.^[46]

In , the Indian village of Yaanga was relocated near the future corner of Commercial and Alameda Streets.

In , it was relocated again to present-day Boyle Heights. 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 rivalry for jobs as more Mexicans moved into the area and took over the labor gravity.

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.^[47]

U.S.

Conquest of California

In May , the Mexican–American War started, soon principal to the American conquest of California. Because of Mexico's inability to defend its northern territories, California was exposed to invasion.

On August 13, , Commodore Robert F. Stockton, accompanied by John C. Frémont, seized the town; Governor Pico had fled to Mexico. From Stockton and Frémont until late , all of California had a military governor. After three weeks of occupation, Stockton left, leaving Lieutenant Archibald H.

Gillespie in bill. Subsequent dissatisfaction with Gillespie and his troops led to an uprising.

A force of locals drove the Americans out, finish the first phase of the Battle of Los Angeles.^[24] Further small skirmishes took place.

Stockton regrouped in San Diego and marched north with six hundred troops while Frémont marched south from Monterey with troops. After a few skirmishes outside the city, the two forces entered Los Angeles, this time without bloodshed. Andrés Pico was in charge; he signed the Treaty of Cahuenga, also known as the Capitulation of Cahuenga, on 13 January , ending the California phase of the Mexican–American War.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on 2 February , ended the war and ceded California to the U.S.^[24]

Early American era

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."^[48] Under colonial law, territory 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 governed that land could not be sold that was not on a city map. In , Lieutenant Edward Ord surveyed Los Angeles to confirm and increase the streets of the municipality. His survey put the capital into the real-estate business, creating its first real-estate boom and filling its treasury.^[49] Street names were changed from Spanish to English.

Further surveys and lane plans replaced the original blueprint for the pueblo with a new civic center south of the Plaza and a unused 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.^[18]

In , 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 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.^[50]

With the temporary absence of a legal system, the city quickly was submerged in lawlessness.

Many of the Recent 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."^[51]

Some of the residents resisted the new powers by resorting to banditry against the gringos. In , Juan Flores threatened Southern California with a full-scale revolt.

He was hanged in Los Angeles in front of 3, spectators. Tiburcio Vasquez, a legend in his hold time among the Mexican-born population for his daring feats against the Anglos, was captured in present-day Santa Clarita, California, on May 14, He was create guilty of two counts of murder by a San Jose jury in , and was hanged there in

Los Angeles had several active "Vigilance Committees" during that era.

Between and , 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."^[52] The homicide rate between and averaged per , (13 murders per year), which was 10 to 20 times the annual murder rates for New York City during the same period.^[53]

The fear of Mexican violence and the racially motivated violence inflicted on them further marginalized the Mexicans, greatly reducing their economic and political opportunities.^[54]

John Gately Downey, the seventh governor of California was sworn into office on January 14, , thereby becoming the first governor from Southern California.

Governor Downey was born and raised in Castlesampson, County Roscommon, Ireland, and came to Los Angeles in He was responsible for keeping California in the Union during the Civil War.

Plight of the Indians

Los Angeles was incorporated as a U.S.

city on April 4, 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 deprived Indians of any protection under the commandment, considering them as non-persons.

As a result, it was unfeasible to bring an Anglo 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."^[55]

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 contest for jobs as more Mexicans moved into the area and took over the labor pressure.

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.^[47]

When Fresh England author and Indian-rights activist Helen Hunt Jackson toured the Indian villages of Southern California in , 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 novel Ramona, 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, Cahuilla, Soboba, Temecula, Pechanga, and Warner Springs.^[56]

Remarkably, the Tongva also survived.

in , the Los Angeles Times reported that there were 2, of them still living in Southern California. Some were organizing to safeguard burial and cultural sites. Others were trying to obtain federal recognition as a tribe.^[57]

Industrial extension and growth

See also: Victorian Downtown Los Angeles

In the s, Los Angeles was still little more than a village of 5, By , there were over , occupants of the capital.

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 was the first incorporated bank in Los Angeles, founded in by John G.

Downey and Isaias W. Hellman. Wealthy Easterners who came as tourists recognized the growth opportunities and invested heavily in the region.^[58] During the s and s, the central business district (CBD) grew along Main and Spring streets towards Second Highway and beyond.

In Downtown Los Angeles, there was an archaeological excavation in on the site of Union Station which took place during the demolition of the parking structure as successfully as a massive excavation of the basement. Artifact deposits were typically trash pits and privies from the brothels and boarding houses that formerly existed in that area.

In addition, there was also a sheet resist of artifacts from Old Chinatown, the nearby residential area. This area of Downtown Los Angeles was known as the crib District which was heavily occupied by brothels and saloons.^[59]

By the s, families began moving out of Aliso Street near Chinatown to more upscale neighborhoods which transformed residences into boarding houses or parlor houses otherwise acknowledged as brothels occupied by prostitutes.

A archaeological excavation at Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles uncovered a red light district that closed down in as well as a residential neighborhood and commercial area. Disease was very present in parlor houses at this time. The most commonly found artifacts at the brothel were foodways like like cups and dishes as adequately as beaded lampshades and globe lamps.

These could have been staged to create ambiance. Archaeologists have a hard time distinguishing if items such as liquor bottles, stemmed glasses, tumblers, cosmetics, drugs and medication were personal or work related. Most likely artifacts that were liquor associated were most likely used for work since it constituted for 66% of artifacts at the brothel while at residences, bottles and glassware was at just 30%.^[60] Pharmaceutical and medical items were more often used in the brothels than in saloons, part of the artifacts analyzed by Catherine Holder Spude shows common medical remedies used in brothels for pain relief, love Lydia Pinkham's vegetable compound, with a % of alcohol, or Mrs.

Winslow's soothing syrup, containing morphia. Catherine Holder Spude's archeological data collection explains the archeological typology of the often segregation of gender tasks in saloons and brothels. Based on artifacts and tools often used for the labor field inside the business, female attire, hairpins, jewelry, cosmetic containers, and others, were often found in the rooms that were leased for the use of brothels.

There were also tools found in the saloons including pocketknives, collar stays, razors, suspender buckles, and buttons, emphasizing the role of males inside the saloons. Similarly, historical records and other kinds of written evidence show the transition and elimination of independent madam brothels for the expansion of men owning and operating in the local red-light district, an example, is the case of Tom Savage, son of Irish immigrants, who moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles in and worked his way up in the red-light district industry.

Tom Savage's business strategies display the integration of saloon and brothel businesses by implementing leasing houses near the bar, stating a clear and direct relation between prostitution and alcohol consumption.^[61]

Los Angeles grew into a major tourist spot in the tardy 's with the establishment of new transportation networks, and hotels.

Los Angeles, America’s second largest city and the West Coast’s biggest economic powerhouse, was originally settled by indigenous tribes, including the Chumash and Tongva sportsman gatherers, by.

This includes the Mount Lowe Resort and Railway which was a popular location at the time for both its location in Los Angeles and many attractions. With the Industrial growth in Los Angeles in the late s there was also an increase in cheap labor to help with tourism.

Cheap labor was fulfilled by many immigrants and minority workers who faced struggles with low wages, poor living conditions, and even discrimination.

Due to the archaeological work done on the site from to excavations of the site found material remains that help to reconstruct the daily lives of the workers.

These excavations were done in the workers quarters where they found ceramics, glassware, and food remains.

Los Angeles[ a ] often referred to by its initials L. With an estimated 3, residents within the city limits as of [update][ 8 ] it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only Brand-new York City ; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of Greater Los Angeleswhich includes the Los Angeles and Riverside—San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over

These food remains reveal their dietary habits as well as consumption habits. The material remains give light to realities of laborers who acquire been overlooked in a lot of historical record.^[62]

Much of Los Angeles County was farmland, with an emphasis on cattle, dairy products, vegetables and citrus fruits.

After , most of the farmland was converted into housing tracts.^[63]

Early transportation and railroads

See also: Arcade Depot and River Station (Los Angeles)

The city's first railroad, the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, was inaugurated in October by John G.

Downey and Phineas Banning. It ran 21 miles (34&#;km) between San Pedro and Los Angeles.^[64]

The town continued to grow at a moderate pace. Railroads finally arrived to connect with the Primary Pacific and San Francisco in The impact was small.

Much greater was the impact of the Santa Fe system (through its subsidiary California Southern Railroad) in The Santa Fe and Southern Pacific lines provided immediate 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.^[65]

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 Banning had already laid road and shipped in locomotives to connect the port to the city.

Harrison Gray Otis, founder and owner of the Los Angeles Times, 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 fight with Collis P. Huntington, president of the Southern Pacific Corporation and one of California's "Big Four" investors in the Core Pacific and Southern Pacific. (The "Big Four" are sometimes numbered among the "robber barons" of the Gilded Age).

Southern Pacific had initially supported the San Pedro port, and when in a potential rival emerged in a Santa Monica wharf linked to downtown by the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, Southern Pacific bought the railroad and demolished the wharf.^[66] However, by the s Southern Pacific favored a location for the Port of Los Angeles in Santa Monica because of their supervise of the land there, and opened the Long Wharf in The Wharf extended 4, 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 Defend . Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to choose the location, and in they chose San Pedro.^[67]

During the late s the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad was conducted by Chinese workers.

The Southern Pacific Railroad connected Los Angeles to San Francisco. It played an important role in the economic and industrial growth in both the state of California and the city of Los Angeles. An Archaeological excavation took place in which they found artifacts at campsites of the Chinese workers.

The sites yielded items such as ceramics, tools, personal items, and fragments of everyday objects used by the workers. The excavation also found architectural features which included the remains of living quarters, bunkhouses, and cookhouses. These artifacts and architectural features provide a unique understanding into the lives of the Chinese laborers.^[68]

In the Newhall railroad tunnel located 27 miles (43&#;km) north of Los Angeles between the town of San Fernando and Lyons Station Stagecoach Discontinue (now Newhall) was completed, providing the final link from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the railroad.

The 6,foot-long railroad tunnel (2,&#;m) took a year and a half to conclude. More than 1, mostly Chinese laborers took part in the tunnel construction, which began at the south end of the mountain on March 22, Many of them had prior encounter working on Southern Pacific's located tunnels in the Tehachapi Overtake.

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 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, The bores from each end were only a half inch out of line with dimensions of 22 feet (&#;m) high, feet (&#;m) wide at the bottom and over 18 feet (&#;m) at the shoulders.

Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second-largest in the Merged States. The city's population is approximately 3. The Greater Los Angeles Area is home to nearly 13 million people from all over the globe, including the largest Latino and Asian populations in the United States. The citizens of Los Angeles speak more than two hundred different languages.

Track was laid in place soon after the tunnel dig was completed and the first train passed through on August 12, On September 4, Charles Crocker notified Southern Pacific that the track had been completed on the path between San Francisco and Los Angeles.^[69]

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 and was finished in Otis Chandler and his allies secured a change in state law in that allowed Los Angeles to absorb San Pedro and Wilmington, using a long, narrow passage 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.^[70]

Streetcar service in Los Angeles began with horsecars (–), cable cars (–) and electric streetcars starting in – In , 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 '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 1, miles (1,&#;km) of tracks connected Los Angeles with Hollywood, Pasadena, San Pedro, Long Beach, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, even as far as Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, and Newport Beach.

The Guardian concluded that at their peak, the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway (itself with miles of track)^[71] "made the region's public transportation the best in the land, if not the world".^[72]

Old Chinatown

First built in the s, Vintage Chinatown in Los Angeles was once located on the site of what now is Union Station.

Old Chinatown was centered on Alameda Street which was also where the former Red Light district of Los Angeles was. In , an archaeological excavation of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument led by John Romani uncovered several artifacts of Chinese, Euro- American, and Native American origin.

There were historic features that were also found which dated to early Euro-American and Chinese American establishments. One of these establishments Romani and his team uncovered a brick structure that was built in the s with the alignment of the avenue possibly being dated to the Spanish period.

This area is now known as Ferguson Streetway in Old Chinatown. At this site, there was a 90&#;cm deep artifact rich deposit containing Chinese ceramics, Asian coins, opium pipe fragments, and game pieces were found as well as Native American pottery, ground stone, and antler flakers.^[73] Apart from this, data collection on census reports from and shows the growth of the Chinese American population in Los Angeles, going from to 3, population; more than 2, people in a range of 60 years.^[74] In Old Chinatown, prostitution was a way of life for Chinese women.

In , historical records show that only about 20% of the Asian population in Los Angeles was women. In Chinatown, there were only 34 females with 22 of them being at the oldest, 20 years old. Most of these women worked as prostitutes in Old Chinatown which was located on Alameda Street, the site of Los Angeles’ former Red Light District.

In a lot of cases, these women immigrated from China for the purpose of prostitution with their broke and desperate families selling them into an indentured servitude.^[75]

Although there had been some anti-Chinese deed in the preceding decades, editorial attacks in the local urge beginning just before was followed by increased attacks.

The Los Angeles Chinese massacre of , a racial massacre targeting Chinese immigrants occurred on October 24, when approximately 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 dispute between rival tongs. Nineteen Chinese immigrants were killed, fifteen of whom were later hanged 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 prior to the massacre.^[76]

Oil discovery

Oil was discovered by Edward L.

Doheny in , neighboring the present location of Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Metropolis Oil Field was the first of many fields in the basin to be exploited, and in and , respectively, the Beverly Hills Oil Field and Salt Lake Oil Field were discovered a few miles west of the original find.^[77] Los Angeles became a center of oil production in the initial 20th century, and by , the region was producing one-quarter of the world's total supply; it is still a significant producer, with the Wilmington Oil Field having the fourth-largest reserves of any field in California.^[77]

Early labor movements

At the same occasion 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 in 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 , the American Federation of Labor decided to challenge the open shop. In , the city fathers placed a ban on free speech from public streets and intimate 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 of the Times in ^{[failed verification]} Two months later, the Llewellyn Iron Works near the plaza was bombed.

A conference hastily was called of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacturers Association. The L.A.

History of Los Angeles - Wikipedia: Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of million people (). Greater Los Angeles, which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over million residents.

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."^[78]

The authorities indicted John F.

and James B. McNamara, both associated with the Iron Workers Union, for the bombing; Clarence Darrow, famed Chicago defense lawyer, represented them. At the identical time the McNamara brothers were awaiting trial, Los Angeles was preparing for a city election.

Job Harriman, running on the socialist 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, , four days before the final election, the McNamaras entered a plea of guilty in return for prison terms. Harriman lost badly.

On Christmas Day, , police attempted to break up an IWW rally of 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."^[79]

The open shop campaign continued from strength to strength, although not without encounter opposition from workers.

By , the Industrial Workers of the World had made considerable progress in organizing the longshoremen in San Pedro and led approximately 3, men to walk off the job. With the endorse of the Los Angeles Times, a special LAPD Red Squad arrested so many strikers that the city's jails were soon filled.

Some 1, dock workers were corralled in a extraordinary stockade in Griffith Park. 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 was arrested at Liberty Hill in San Pedro for reading the United States Bill of Rights on the private property of a strike supporter (the arresting officer told him "we'll hold none of 'that Constitution stuff'") and blanket arrests were made at union gatherings.

The strike ended after members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion 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 fresh employers were likewise afraid of unions and other social movements: During Upton Sinclair's campaign for governor of California under the banner of his "End Poverty In California" (EPIC) movement, Louis B. Mayer turned MGM's Culver City studio into the unofficial headquarters of the organized campaign against EPIC.

MGM produced false newsreel interviews with whiskered actors with Russian accents voicing their enthusiasm for EPIC, along with footage focusing on hobos huddled on the borders of California waiting to enter and dwell off the bounty of its taxpayers once Sinclair was elected.

Sinclair, however, lost the election.

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 and Ricardo Flores Magón and his brother Enrique of the Partido Liberal Mexicano.

They later were joined by the socialist candidate for mayor Job Harriman, Chinese revolutionaries, the novelist Upton Sinclair, "Wobblies" (members of the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW), and Socialist and Communist labor organizers such as the Japanese-American Karl Yoneda and the Russian-born Modern Yorker Meyer Baylin.

The socialists were the first to place 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.^[18]

Unions began to make progress in organizing these workers as the New Deal arrived in the s.

An influential strike was the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike of , 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.^[80]

Flooding and water supply

The Los Angeles River flowed clear and fresh all year, supporting 45 Tongva villages in the area.

The source of the river was the aquifer under the San Fernando Valley, supplied with water from the surrounding mountains. The rising of the underground bedrock at the Glendale Narrows (near today's Griffith Park) 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 20 miles (32&#;km) to the sea.

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The area also provided other streams, lakes, and artesian wells.^[29]

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 cover to the riverbed.^[18] Worse, floods changed the river's course.

When the settlers arrived, the river joined Ballona Creek to discharge in Santa Monica Bay. A fierce storm in 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 metropolis to the other.

After the American takeover, the city council authorized spending of $20, 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.^[29]

Some of the most concentrated rainfall in the history of the United States has occurred in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

On April 5, , a rain gauge in the San Gabriels collected one inch in one minute. In January , more water fell on the San Gabriels in nine days than New York City sees in a year. In February , 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 flows throughout the region, one of them unearthing the corpses in the Verdugo Hills Cemetery and depositing them in the town below. Another wiped out the small town of Hidden Springs in a tributary of the Big Tujunga Creek, killing 13 people.^[81]

The greatest daily rainfall recorded in California was &#;inches on January 23, , at Hoegees near Mt.

Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains. Fifteen other stations reported over 20&#;inches in two days from the equal storm. Forty-five others reported 70% of the average annual rainfall in two days.^[82]

Quibbling between metropolis and county governments delayed any response to the flooding until a massive storm in flooded Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The federal government stepped in. To transfer floodwater to the sea as quickly as achievable, 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 massive project, taking years to complete.^[81]

Today, the Los Angeles River functions mainly as a flood manage. A drop of rain falling in the San Gabriel Mountains will reach the sea faster than an auto can journey.

During today's rainstorms, the volume of the Los Angeles River at Long Beach can be as large as the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

The drilling of wells and pumping of water from the San Fernando Valley aquifer dried up the river by the s.

By , the aquifer was supplying drinking water for , 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.

For its first years, the Los Angeles River supplied the town with ample rain for homes and farms.

It was estimated that the annual flow could have support a town of , people—if the water had been managed right. But Angelenos were among the more profligate users of liquid 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 development 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.^[29]

Legitimate concerns about moisture supply were exploited to acquire backing for a huge engineering and legal effort to deliver more water to the town and allow more development.

The city fathers had their eyes on the Owens River, about miles (&#;km) northeast of Los Angeles in Inyo County, neighboring the Nevada state line. It was a permanent stream of fresh water fed by the melted snows of the eastern Sierra Nevada. It flowed through the Owens River Valley before emptying into the shallow, saline Owens Lake, where it evaporated.

Sometime between and , Harrison Gray Otis and his son-in-law successor, Harry Chandler, engaged in successful efforts at buying budget land on the northern outskirts of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. At the same time, they enlisted the help of William Mulholland, principal engineer of the Los Angeles Water Department (later the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power or LADWP), and J.B.

Lippencott, of the United States Reclamation Service.

Lippencott performed liquid 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 , acres (&#;km²) of country to Fred Eaton, Lippencott's intermediary 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 , the Times began to warn the voters of Los Angeles that the county would soon desiccate up unless they voted bonds for building the aqueduct. Synthetic 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.^{[citation needed]}

On election day, the people of Los Angeles voted for $ million worth of bonds to create an aqueduct from the Owens River and to defray other expenses of the project.

With this money, and with an Act of Congress 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 on November 5, , Mulholland's entire speech was five words: "There it is.

Take it."

20th century

Further information: Los Angeles in the s

Hollywood

Hollywood has been synonymous worldwide with the film industry for over a hundred years. It was incorporated as the City of Hollywood in , but united into LA in In the s movie makers from Brand-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.^[83]

Notable events

Swimming pool desegregation An end to racial segregation in municipal swimming pools was ordered in summer by a superior court judge after Ethel Prioleau sued the city, complaining that she as a Negro was not allowed to utilize the pool in nearby Exposition Park but had to commute miles to the designated "negro swimming pool."^[84]

Summer Olympics Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which had opened in May, with a seating capacity of 76,, was enlarged to accommodate over , spectators for Olympic events. Olympic Boulevard, a major thoroughfare, honors the occasion. It is still in use by the USC Trojans football team.

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

Annexations and consolidations

The City of Los Angeles mostly remained within its unique 28&#;sq&#;mi (73&#;km²) land grant until the s.

The original capital limits are visible even today in the layout of streets that changes from a north–south pattern outside of the unique land grant to a pattern that is shifted roughly 15 degrees east of the longitude in and closely around the area now known as Downtown.

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

In , the approval of the Port of Los Angeles and a change in state regulation allowed the city to annex the Shoestring, or Harbor Gateway, 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 and the city of Hollywood was added in , bringing the city up to 90 square miles (&#;km²) and giving it a vertical "barbell" shape. Also added that year was Colegrove, a suburb west northwest of the city neighboring Hollywood; Cahuenga, a township northwest of the former city limits; and a part of Los Feliz was annexed to the city.

The opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct provided the city with four times as much water as it required, and the offer of liquid service became a powerful lure for neighboring communities. The capital, 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 San Fernando Valley real estate, used his Los Angeles Times to promote development near the aqueduct's outlet. By referendum of the residents, square miles (&#;km²) of the San Fernando Valley, along with the Palms district, were added to the urban area in , almost tripling its area, mostly towards the northwest.

Over the next 17 years. dozens of additional annexations brought the city's area to square miles (1,&#;km²) in (Numerous miniature annexations brought the total area of the city up to square miles (1,&#;km²) as of )

Most of the annexed communities were unincorporated towns but 10 incorporated cities were consolidated with Los Angeles: Wilmington (), San Pedro (), Hollywood (), Sawtelle (), Hyde Park (), Eagle Rock (), Venice (), Watts (), Barnes City (), and Tujunga ().^[85][86]

Civic corruption and police brutality