Sycamore
trees and the primitive villages along the valley, and the main passage
through the hills to the valley beyond was located immediately east of
the Gabrielinos' village. It was known as the Cahuenga Pass.
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| Cahuenga Pass 1897 |
During the early years, Cahuenga Pass was covered with a species of
cactus known as nopal, and grown as food for chineak, and insect used in
the manufacture of dyes. This area of the nopal was known by the
Spaniards as Nopalera. After Los Angles was established as pueblo in
1781, the pass became a branch of El Camino Real del Rey, the principal
passageway up the coast. The route through Cahuenga Pass was at first
just a crude winding trail over which cattle and sheep were driven to
and from San Fernando.
Eventually it became a wagon road, and then a paved highway. Finally in 1954 the Hollywood freeway was completed.
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| Cahuenga Pass 1920 | | |
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| Cahuenga Bl |
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| Cahuenga Pass Late 40s |
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| Hollywood Freeway Construction at Cahuenga Pass |
Canvas
covered freight wagons from Los Angeles used the pass on the way to
Owens Lake and Panamint Mines in Inyo County. They left the pueblo in
the morning and crossed the hills behind Hollywood during the first
day's travel, then spent the night by a river near what is now Universal
City.
The following morning the mules were doubled up to cross the river.
The next night was spent at the San Fernando Mission, which was a hard
day's travel in the deep sand of the San Fernando Valley. It wasn't
until the 1870s that the first oasis wayside inn was built on the long
road north, a two-story wooden toll station known at the Pass Hotel or
Eight Mile House.
Kit Carson was among the carriers who used the Cahuenga Pass to
deliver the overland mail from the United States to Monterey. The first
mail arrived in Los Angeles in May 1848. Ten years later John
Butterfield had the mail carrying contract. His famous sages took 23
days from St. Louis to San Francisco through the Cahuenga Pass.
The pass was the site of a number of minor skirmishes that
nonetheless were significant in California history. War was declared in
1846 between the United States and Mexico, whose weak government
controlled California. General Andres Pico surrendered t the United
States within one year, signing the treaty of Cahuengo in 1847 at the
Casa Adobe de Cahuenga, Senora Maria Jesus de Feliz's small, tile roofed
adobe house at the north end of Cahuenga Pass on the present site of
Universal City. The treaty of Peace was signed between the two countries
the following year, and California became a U.S. Territory.
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| La Brea Tar Pits 1910 |
Rancho La Brea
The
Spanish and Mexican governments offered settlers large tracts of
unoccupied land at no charge in an effort to encourage colonization of
the land acquired throughout the 1870s. A successful petitioner could
obtain as many as 44,000 acres. Exact boundaries were considered
unimportant and few owners knew where their land began or where it
ended. Maps accompanying the petitions were simple sketches showing any
important natural landmark that might serve to identify the land.
The westerly half of what is now Hollywood was part of Rancho La
Brea, Spanish for the Tar Ranch. The rancho was named for the swamps of
tar first noted by portola's 1769 Spanish expedition. The Gabriello
Indians probably burned the tar for fuel. Later, settlers hauled it in
oxcarts from the swamps and used it for waterproofing of the roofs of
adobe houses. Rancho La Brea was granted to Antonio Jose Rocha and
Nemisio Dominguez, but neither resident of the Los Angeles pueblo ever
lived on the rancho was James Thompson, later a Los Angeles County
Sheriff.
After numerous title transfers, the rancho eventually ended up in the
hands of John and Henry Hancock, and John's portion became a large part
of West Hollywood. A refinery, which Henry built to prepare the tar for
local marketing and for shipment to San Francisco, operated until 1887,
producing five tons of asphalt daily for nearly 17 years. Workers at the
beds commonly came across bones teeth of saber-toothed cats, wolves and
sloths. It wasn't until the early 1890's that the tar pit beds became
archeologically important. Henry's son, G. Allan Hancock, gave Los
Angeles County the exclusive right to excavate and, in 1915, he donated
to the county the 23 acres upon which the fossil beds lay. Thousands of
specimens-many dating back thousands of years to the late Pleistocene
period-have been retrieved from the paleological gold mine known today
as the La Brea Tar Pits.
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| La Brea Tar Pits Today |
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