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History of
Los Alamitos
The Puvu
Indians, a branch of the Shoshones, lived in what is now the
Southern California basin. There are indications they had
lived here some 3,000 years or more. When the expedition of
Spaniards, led by Gaspar De Portola, arrived to explore and
colonize Upper California in 1769, they found the land
marked by many Indian villages, or "rancherias,"
containing from 500 to 1500 huts, in which is now Los
Angeles and Orange Counties.
The Portola
expedition consisted of colonists to settle in selected
pueblos or towns, missionaries to convert the natives and
prepare them to become "civilized" enough to
assume control of the land which the missions held in trust
for the Indians, and soldiers to establish military strong
points or "presidios" to protect both groups, as
well as to keep foreign interest such as Russia or England
from invading lands claimed by Spain.
The noble
intention of holding the land in trust for the Indians ended
in 1784 when Governor Fages, an original member of the
expedition, made vast grants of lands to two of his former
soldier companions. These were Sergeants Dominguez and
Nieto. The Nieto Grant consisted of all the lands lying
between the Santa Ana and San Gabriel Rivers, extending from
the ocean to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
This huge mass is now occupied by most of the cities in Los
Angeles County and northern Orange County.
Upon the
death of Don Manuel Nieto, the Grant was divided into five
large ranchos and divided among his children. The two
ranchos most familiar to us are Los Cerritos (The Little
Hills), located in northwest Long Beach next to the Virginia
Country Club, and Los Alamitos (The Little Cottonwoods),
with its ranch house atop the hill at the south end of Palo
Verde Avenue, also in Long Beach.
Los
Alamitos contained six square leagues, or 85,000 acres of
range land. Granted to son Juan Jose Nieto, he soon sold the
property to then Governor Figueroa for $500. Upon the death
of the governor, the land was bought by Abel Stearns in 1842
for $5,934. The price included not only the land, but all
the cattle grazing upon it. He successfully raised cattle
until the extended drought of 1863-64 killed more than
30,000 head of stock, and he lost the rancho through
foreclosure to Michael Reese, a money lender in San
Francisco.
Reese let
the land lie fallow until 1878, when John Bixby leased the
rancho to raise grain and sheep. In 1881 I.W. Hellman and
the J. Bixby Company joined in buying the Los Alamitos
Rancho which by then had been reduced to 28,087 acres by
sales of parcels during the years. Five thousand acres were
set aside for a township to be established in the near
future. It was a township which developed after John Bixby
had died.
In 1896
ex-Senator William Clark of Montana purchased 8,139 acres of
rancho land for raising sugar beets. He planned the township
of Los Alamitos, building the first sugar refinery in
Southern California here, as well as constructing housing
and recreation buildings for workers, and guaranteed to buy
all the sugar beets that could be raised in the surrounding
70 square miles of territory during the next five years.
Practically all the land between what is now Lakewood and
the Santa Ana River became one vast field of sugar beets.
The
township of Los Alamitos had already begun, the first school
being built in 1881 at what is now Katella and Los Alamitos
Boulevard. Most of the workers in the fields were Mexican,
but many immigrants from Belgium, France and Germany came
here to work and establish their own farms and businesses.
When nematodes (burrowing insects that fed on the roots of
the plants) destroyed the sugar beet industry, the sugar
refinery was closed down and eventually leased in 1921 to a
Dr. Ross, who used it to process wild horse meat into dog
food. The 1929 depression, followed by damage caused by the
1933 earthquake, ruined this enterprise. Dr. Ross died a
pauper, and eventually the mill was torn down.
While the
sugar mill was prospering, Los Alamitos had become a
throw-back to the typical wild west town. Reagan Street was
the principal thoroughfare until Los Alamitos Boulevard was
black topped in 1921-22. There were two hotels in town, and
reportedly an average of two shootings or stabbings every
weekend. Katella was a country road that led to the entrance
of a farm on the edge of Coyote Creek. It was named after
the two daughters of the farmer, "Kate" and
"Ella," who, well into their eighties, were
proudly present when "their" road was named and
dedicated.
Following
Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), the U. S. Navy moved its
training field for aircraft from Terminal Island to Los
Alamitos, where a 1,300 acre tract was commissioned. Here,
Navy and Marine fliers were trained, as well as fliers from
Australia, New Zealand, England, Free France, Poland and
Norway. Its presence revitalized the sleepy country town of
Los Alamitos, bringing new settlers and businesses to the
area. When the war ended, the air base was used as a reserve
training field for military fliers, being operated under
control of the Navy. It was reactivated during the Korean
and Viet Nam conflicts, following which the Navy turned it
over to the California National Guard, which uses it as a
reserve training center for all branches of the military, as
well as for its own personnel.
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