History
During the Pre-Columbian era, Tongva people existed as hunters and gatherers in small villages throughout the Ballona Creek watershed and other parts of the Los Angeles basin. Native American culture faded with the arrival of Spanish explorers. Around 1820, a mestizo rancher named Augustine Machado began grazing his cattle on the Ballona wetlands and claimed a fourteen-thousand acre Mexican land grant that stretched from modern-day Culver City to Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica. Ballona Creek and Lagoon are named for the Ballona or Paseo de las Carretas land grant, dated November 27, 1839. The Machado and Talamantes families, co-grantees of the rancho, heralded from Baiona in northern Spain. After the land grant claims were lost, the area then experienced rapid growth, with open land being transformed into agricultural use.
Read more about this topic: Ballona Creek
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (17491832)
“American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.”
—Harold Rosenberg (19061978)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (19021983)