On September 4, 1781, Mexican settlers celebrated...
the founding of El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles (The Town of the Queen of the Angels). Located between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, El Pueblo, as it was called, remained independent of the United States until the Mexican War in 1846, when the city was taken in a bloodless effort by U.S. forces. On April 4, 1850, the city was incorporated as Los Angeles and designated the county seat of Los Angeles County. During the California gold rush, Los Angeles prospered through sales of agricultural goods to hungry miners. The stories of these early settlers are contained in California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives, 1849-1900, a collection of 190 works documenting the formative era of California's history. Search on Los Angeles in this collection to find memoirs such as Katherine Abbott Sanborn's that includes advice for tourists planning a rail trip to Southern California:
For the stranger Los Angeles is the place to go to see a new play, or marvel at the display of fruits seen at a citrus fair--forts made of thousands of oranges, and railroad stations and crowns of lemons, etc.--and admire a carnival of flowers, or for a day's shopping; but there are better spots in which to remain. I found the night air extremely unpleasant last winter, and after hearing from a veracious druggist, to whom I applied for a gargle, that there was an epidemic of grip in the city, and that many died of pneumonia and that a small majority of the invalids got well, I packed my trunk hastily and started for Pasadena.Katherine Abbott Sanborn, A Truthful Woman in Southern California, 1893.
California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives, 1849-1900The city grew considerably with the arrival of the railroad in the mid-1870s allowing both the easy export of agricultural products and an influx of immigrants. During the 1880s, the population of Los Angeles more than quadrupled, increasing from 11,183 in 1880 to 50,395 by 1890. As the city continued to grow in the new century, planners sacrificed several thousand acres of farmland for highways and housing. Los Angeles, once the nation's wealthiest agricultural county, now derives its wealth from tourism, banking, insurance, and the motion-picture industry.
