Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176 pp., 1860s
"The old Spanish sports-such as bullfighting, bearbaiting, and cockfighting-were outlawed in 1860 . . .
"The most visibly athletic and gregarious of the new arrivals were the Germans, who encouraged A.F. Tilden to establish the city's first gymnasium in 1860 (after) the Teutonia Verein in 1859, a singing and social club based at the Round House [an amusement center called the "Garden of Paradise."]
"By 1869, . . . 5,600 residents . . . a Dr. Kurtz and eleven others organized the Los Angeles Turnverein.
"It took a series of disasters in the 1860s to tilt the social and economic balance in favor of the Americans. A major flood in 1861 was followed by two years of drought and an epidemic of smallpox. These events, combined with aa sharp decline in business and problems of establishing title to their lands, forced many rancheros into bankruptcy. By 1870 the Americans had taken over large tracts of land, and most of the old town houses around the Plaza either stood empty or had been converted to other uses."