Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, Preface
[page ii] Preface
The publication of this book is in no degree an accident, but rather the partial fulfillment of a long-cherished plan to sometimes put in permanent and fitting form the annals of some of the more historic and romantic cities and towns of Southern California. This ambition dates back to the winter season of 1888-9, when the writer arrived in the "Golden State," became impressed with the transcendent richness of its past history and its abundant promise of future growth and history making. What might have been regarded, at the time, a fancy, or inspiration, has, with the rapid passing of two decades, developed into a vivid reality. Obscure hamlets have become prosperous cities; where then were open stock ranges and broad fields of grain, have sprung up marts of trade and commerce, environed by progressive and prosperous communities. Enough time has elapsed for these cities and communities to have acquired a history, still not enough for any considerable portion of that history to be lost. A few years hence, conditions in this latter respect will have entirely changed.
The region of country of which this story treats lies within the original confines of four Spanish-Mexican land grants bordering the bay of Santa Monica and has hitherto received scant attention from historical writers. When the good works of Hubert Howe Bancroft and Judge Theodore H. Hittell were written the wonderful developments of the past twenty years had not transpired and the work of more recent writers has been of so superficial a nature as not to be of special historical value.