Ozro W. Childs - Southern California

Southern California

They walked from San Pedro into the small Pueblo de Los Angeles, and decided to set up a tinsmithing and hardware store. An existing merchant sold them his entire stock on credit. After a few years, Childs was able to buy out his partner, and eventually left the trade with $40,000 in his pocket. Not long afterward, he obtained the contract to build an extension of the Zanja Madre, a canal system to bring water to the fields south of the pueblo. He was paid in land in that area – all now within present day Downtown Los Angeles - from Sixth to Ninth, and Main to Figueroa Street.

This property was the foundation of his fortune. He built a substantial house at 10th and Main, then a half-mile from town center, and on his property took up planting. In his day, Ozro Childs was Los Angeles’s most prominent plantsman, with a Plant nursery.

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