Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts) 1839, pre-1768
The Land
"Marshland and unstable sand dunes made up most of the property that Abbot Kinney owned. A century earlier [1805], Indians from the offshore islands had regularly visited the area to collect decorative marine shells. The Los Angeles River had once flowed through on its way to the sea, but had long since meandered south to a new outlet.
"It was part of the former La Ballona Rancho, a land grant deeded to the Machado and Talamantes families by the Mexican government in 1839. Some of it had been used for cattle grazing but the land was too often flooded to provide good forage."