North of the Pueblo of Los Angeles and adjoining the Los Angeles River
on the west is the Rancho Los Felis, 6,647 acres.
The rancho was granted in 1843 to Maria Ygnacia Verdugo but it is
evident that she had been occupying the land for some time previous to
that date as on February 17th, 1841, the City of Los Angeles, by the
President of its Common Council, granted to her the “right to use the
water from the river of Our Lady of Angels for cultivating the lands of
Los Felis.” At that time there was so much water in the Los Angeles
River in excess of what the pueblo inhabitants could use that the city
felt free to dispose of part of it in this manner.
In 1853 Dona Verdugo, signing by mark, granted to her daughters parts of
the rancho. These deeds recited that they were made for “the welfare and
progress of my daughters.” But the daughters failed to progress and soon
sold their respective parts for $1 per acre.
Antonio F. Coronel, famous pioneer of Los Angeles, purchased the rancho
and subsequently he deeded it to James Lick, equally famous pioneer of
San Francisco, by this “more or less” definite description: “Commencing
at a point on Los Angeles River; thence Southerly 3,150 varas, more or
less; thence Westerly 6,200 varas, more or less, to a napalera (prickly
pear patch); thence Northerly 5,000 varas, more or less, to a calera
(lime kiln) and thence Easterly following along the right bank of the
Los Angeles River to the place of beginning 7,100 varas, more or less,
containing more or less one and a half square leagues of land.”
In 1882, 4,071 acres were purchased by Colonel Griffith Jenkins Griffith
and in 1884 Colonel Griffith sold back to the City of Los Angeles for
$25,000 the valuable water rights donated 43 years previously.
In the western and southern parts of the rancho development followed
rapidly. The Lick Tract, now part of Hollywood, was platted, then
Ivanhoe and the Edendale district. But most of the mountain and slope
land of the Los Felis Rancho was undeveloped except by hand of nature
until 1898 when Colonel Griffith deeded 3,015 acres of unsurpassed land
to the City of Los Angeles, one of the finest gifts ever presented to a
city—Griffith Park.