There was supposedly a jingle that helped people to remember the sequence of streets downtown: "From Main we Spring to Broadway,
then over the Hill to Olive! Wouldn't it be Grand if we could Hope to
pick a Flower that grows on Figueroa?"
All these streets were drawn on the first American map of
Los Angeles in 1849. Their original English names have stuck - with three
exceptions: Broadway was originally Fort; Grand was changed from Charity;
and at first Figueroa was Grasshopper and then Pearl.
The story of today's Figueroa Street has always been complex and deserves an in-depth explanation. Not long after its predecessor, Grasshopper Street, was established on the survey, an "original" Figueroa Street was planned a little further west.
Figueroa fits in a little-known category as one of the first new streets
established in 1855. Today, the historic, original segment exists between
Pico Boulevard and Exposition Boulevard. Much of the research in this post is owed to the incredible sleuthing within map and other archival collections by librarian-historian Neal Harlow reflected in his 1976 book, Maps and Surveys of the Pueblo Lands of Los Angeles.
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Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research, NHMLAC
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Who Was José Figueroa?
The street named for José Secundino Figueroa y Parra
correlates to the Spanish, Mexican and indigenous history in California.
Figueroa was Spanish and Native and distinguished in his military role
in the war to gain Mexican independence from Spain. He served as Governor of Alta California beginning in 1833 at the time when the Mexican government set about to secularize the Franciscan mission system. He died in office in 1835, shortly after he authored the first full-length book ever published in California, Manifiesto a la Republica Mejicana. Aside from being a historical first, the book is a record of his efforts to regulate the allocation of land in the interests of Native Americans, particularly amidst new colonizing groups who arrived in 1834.
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| Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research |
Interestingly, historic Figueroa Street leads down to where it first ended, at today's Exposition Park, where at the Natural History Museum one of only a handful of known surviving copies of the Manifiesto is preserved.
An American City in Need of Selling Land
Figueroa Street is also significant because of its direct link to the City's earliest ambitions to grow the city in both its acreage and operational revenue, and this blog post emphasizes this specific linkage.
The origin story of the street began when the Los Angeles
municipality, newly incorporated in April, 1850, strategized to raise revenue by
selling city lots. Preparation began in
the summer of 1849 by securing a very first American survey, the Plan de la
ciudad de Los Angeles, commonly known as the Ord Survey, paid with private money
lent by councilman John Temple, who arrived when Los Angeles was a Mexican pueblo. The survey concentrated on all the cultivated
lands within the four square leagues allotted in the original Spanish pueblo.
In the fall of 1850 a proposal was made to hold a public
auction to sell town lots and agricultural tracts. The sale took place on November 7th but fell
short of the goal. John Temple was only
able to recoup about 80% of his loan.
Then in August, 1852, a “donation system” or a “Free Land
Ordinance” allowed a person to petition the mayor for desired land whereby for
a $10 fee a landholder was given one year to improve the land before receiving
title. Eight certificates were issued
and many more the following year on 35-acre lots outside of the city limits,
because the Common Council had set its sight on claiming not four but sixteen square
leagues of municipal land.
In May, 1854, the Ordinance was repealed due to the lack of
a complete survey for the entire 35-acre lots. A year earlier Henry Hancock,
assisted by George Hansen, submitted a proposal to remedy the lack of a
survey. The proposal included a sketch
map of the donation lots. (This extant
map from April, 1853, housed in the Los Angeles City Archives represents the
earliest cartographic record for the donation system.)
In 1855 Hansen made a plat of the liberal boundaries of Los
Angeles that extended to the neighboring ranchos. (The plat map did not survive, and its
existence is based on a composite map containing an 1871 affidavit by Hansen –
see below). To underscore the point, the
early maps from 1853 and 1855 extended beyond the original four square leagues defined
in the original Spanish pueblo.
The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the U.S. War
with Mexico stipulated all claimants to land (individuals and entities) to
provide proof before the U.S. Land Commission.
The first Common Council of Los Angeles boldly sought title to land
totaling sixteen square leagues. The
Commission regularly heard California claims in San Francisco, but they held a
session in Los Angeles during the fall of 1852, and in that October the City
presented its petition.
Confident that they would eventually prevail, the City proceeded
with the issuance of 35-acre donation lots.
But the City did not succeed, and on February 5, 1856, the Land
Commission confirmed the original four square leagues. With the setback, Hansen’s plat map from two
years earlier became reformed in 1857 to reflect the confirmed city limits. (The 1857 map did not survive, and its
existence is based on a composite map containing an 1871 affidavit by Hansen –
see below).
The Naming of Figueroa Street
Figueroa Street was conceived on the survey maps produced
after the Ord Survey and created by Hancock and Hansen along with work contributed
by Adolphus Waldemar and William Moore in the 1850s and into the 1860s and
1870s. The maps first projected the wishful, expanded
boundaries but then reigned in within the reduced, confirmed limits. Detailed on those maps of the 1850s and
repeated in the 1860s and 1870s were streets for American presidents and a select
group of five Mexican-era governors – José MarÃa EcheandÃa, José Figueroa, Juan
Bautista Alvarado, Manuel Micheltorena, and PÃo de Jesús Pico.
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[Map of Confirmed Limits of Los Angeles, by George Hansen, ca. 1860-1870]
(Courtesy Seaver Center GC-1310-2766) |
Why is Figueroa Street the longest street in the city? It appeared on early maps as the longest
street. Whether detailed on a map
showing the ambitious sixteen square leagues or inside the four square
leagues, Figueroa Street was drawn as the lengthiest and most centrally
placed. Its prominence surpassed that of
the streets for the other four Mexican governors as well as the original seven
streets for American presidents.
The tidy order of the streets for the presidents is clearly
seen, but a close study of the placement of Echandia (current spelling),
Figueroa, Alvarado and Micheltorena Streets reveal that they are in the
chronological order of each governor’s time in office.[1] The street of the final governor from the
Mexican period, PÃo Pico, was placed perpendicular to the others and preceded
the American presidents.
Historical maps indicate that the streets for the presidents
and governors first appeared in 1855.
Coincidentally, or not, an anonymous 1855 English translation was released in San Francisco of the first full-length book published in
California 20 years earlier by Governor Figueroa. Was this the impetus for the street
naming? The question remains unanswered,
but the surveyor and Austrian national, George Hansen, had ties to San
Francisco, and he was characterized as erudite and a scholar and philosopher.
As early as 1853, Santa Barbara city maps included the names
of Spanish and Mexican governors:
Arellaga, Figueroa, Micheltorena, Solá, and Victoria. They do not run in any particular order, but
the early naming raises a question whether this mapping activity may have
influenced the work of Los Angeles surveyors in 1855.[2] See more below on the streets history of Santa Barbara.
City Mapping Activities in 1871
Two significant map events occurred in 1871. The City purchased
a map from George Hansen containing a detailed and notarized affidavit dated
January, 1871. The map provided
circumstances as to why there were duplicate block numbers north of Pico as
well as south of Pico, but the composite map helps explain key surveying activities
in Los Angeles from 1849, 1855 and 1857.[3] Today this important map is housed at the Los
Angeles City Archives, and it provides the basis for the historical origin of
Figueroa Street.
In late October of the same year, the City decided to
contract surveyor Lothar Seebold to produce two copies of the Ord Survey. When the copies were completed in 1872, the
original Survey was most likely discarded.
Public Works Activities in 1876
In all the years since Los Angeles was incorporated and even
admitted as a city in the Union, the City continued to await the
official Land Patent from the U.S. Land Office until the award for the four
square leagues came in 1875. (The
25-year wait was not unusual – claimants including individuals waited an
average of 17 years, and there were instances of claims finalized after 35 to
40 years.) In the case of the City of
Los Angeles, it actually secured an earlier patent of 1866 that went back into
litigation – and was upheld in January, 1882!
A lot of attention was paid to Pearl and Figueroa Streets in
1876. Recorded for January 27, 1876 were
the following: 1) grade of Pearl Street
from Fifth Street to Pico Street; 2) defining lines of Figueroa Street from
Washington to Pico; 3) continuation of Pearl Street from Twelfth to South line
of Pico Street. Also earlier, on March
18, 1875, Figueroa Street was graded along the “street known as Figueroa Street.”[4]
It appears that the entire length of (original) Figueroa Street between
Baxter and Exposition Boulevard (present day name) was re-established again as
Figueroa Street in 1876 maybe for administrative reasons.[5]
How Was Figueroa Street Used in the 19th Century?
Real life eventually did not measure up to the cartographic
vision for the streets. A portion of
the original Figueroa Street (above Pico) was built over; while today Figueroa remains very
prominent among the five streets for the governors, Echandia is exceptionally
minor; streets for the presidents were not realized beyond Washington, Adams and Jefferson.
But how was the original Figueroa Street actually regarded
by the residents? The two earliest
directories that this author could find to shed some light are dated 1875: Southern California Directory and the Los
Angeles City Directory.
Above Pico Street
A small detail was found in pioneer Leonard J. Rose’s
description of public transportation development in the city after 1874: when the first streetcar line ran from Pico
House down Main to junction at Spring, then to First, then west to Fort
(Broadway), south to Sixth, then west to the car barns on Figueroa.[6]
Notably absent in the 1875 directories are residential
addresses of those living on (original) Figueroa Street anywhere above Pico
Street. For substantiation, newspaper
articles in the early 1890s reported the confusion that Figueroa Street was
disregarded and homes and structures built through where the street should
be. Some demanded that the street be
recognized fearing their property would be boxed in if the street became
vacated.[7]
By 1894 two contested stretches (between 6th and 9th
streets; between 10th and Pico streets) were vacated. In 1897, a longer segment leading northward from
6th Street up to Bellevue was vacated.
But Bellevue through Lilac Terrace was vacated earlier in 1886. Lilac Terrace up to Baxter was vacated in
1897. An overlooked segment of
(original) Figueroa between 9th and 10th streets continues today as an alley
named Cottage Place. The well-known Hotel
Figueroa has a rear door exiting onto Cottage Place.
Therefore the northern portion of (original) Figueroa Street
above Pico Street withered away, and one street to the east, Pearl Street (first
established by the Ord Survey as Calle de las Chapules or Grasshopper) took on the name,
Figueroa, in 1897.
Below Pico Street
While the original Figueroa Street running north of Pico did
not survive, the segment south of Pico thrived (and still exists today). The 1875 Los Angeles City Directory show that
the vicinity of Figueroa intersecting with Pico, Washington, Adams and
Jefferson was dotted with 26 residences.
The residents were predominantly skilled: several lawyers, a real estate broker, a staircase
builder, carpenters, nurserymen, a Superintendent of Mines, bookkeeper, a clerk,
several farmers and a couple of laborers.
A prominent person listed in 1875 was Horace Bell, who lived
on the original leg of Figueroa just below Pico. He probably settled here early following his
return from the Civil War. His wife
Georgia was described as the first American woman to reside south of 8th Street
and west of Grand Avenue.
Prior to 1875, lots were held by many individuals, but it is
unknown if anyone actually lived on a lot and made improvements. Other early landholders include surveyors Henry
Hancock and William Moore both of whom received lots as partial payment in
their contracts surveying for the City.
Some of the lots below Pico may have been procured by
individuals during a period between 1852 and 1854 when the donation system was
available.
Lots were auctioned “at the end of the 50’s and in the 60’s
for $2.50 to $7.50 an acre to overcome financial stringency.”[8] Attorney Cameron E. Thom (who served as City Mayor in
the 1880s) invested in two lots bound by Figueroa, Pico, Grand and Washington
for the price of $153 in 1855.
In his memoir Harris Newmark recalled his friend Colonel
John O. Wheeler forgot about an investment of 50 to 60 acres near Figueroa and
Adams until the active real estate boom of the mid-1880s.[9]
An early mention of an investment on south Figueroa is from a
Los Angeles Star newspaper notice of April 27, 1867, informing that Joseph Shaw
has title to land fronting Washington and Figueroa streets, and bounded by
property owned by other individuals, Flashner and Hass.
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From the Los Angeles Star newspaper (Huge thanks to M. Tapio-Kines for bringing attention this article)
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Figueroa Street Naming in Other Cities
The Southern California Directory of 1875 reveals the existence
of Figueroa streets in San Buenaventura (Ventura) and Santa Barbara, and those
streets still remain today.
Additionally historic Figueroa Street in Ventura turns into
a pedestrian pathway called Figueroa Street Mall that leads to Mission San
Buenaventura.
As stated earlier, a total of five street names for
governors were established as early as 1853 in Santa Barbara. Naming for Governor Figueroa along with
Mexican governors, Micheltorena and Victoria, and Spanish governor de Solá, were
listed in the 1875 directory (while Arellaga was not found in any 1875 entries). Carrillo Street was contemporaneously named in the 1850s for
the local Judge Joaquin Carrillo and not for Governor Carlos Antonio Carrillo.
José Figueroa's eponymous fixture in Santa Barbara is particularly
significant since the Mission Santa Barbara is his resting place.
Figueroa Street is a Los Angeles Landmark
Last December a group of historians responded to a proposal for renaming a three-mile length of the street to Kobe Bryant Boulevard, between Olympic and Exposition Boulevards. The Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece authored by those leading the charge - Darryl Holter, William Estrada and John Echeveste.[10] As of this writing, the proposal has not been heard by the City Council.
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Published December 6, 2020 (Image from blogger's collection)
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Update 11.9.2024: view this online discussion moderated by LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes' John Echeveste with historians William Estrada and Darryl Holter (along with yours truly) that took place in December of 2020: Preserving Our City's History Through Our Streets.
Previous Los Angeles Revisited posts dedicated to Figueroa Street:
The Hotel Figueroa and Figueroa Street Name Origins
Before the Convention Center, the Staples Center and LA Live and Football
The Pulchritude of Pearl Street
A map housed in the Los Angeles City Archives that was purchased in 1871 shows
a naming pattern for Mexican governors that may have included a 6th
governor, Pablo Vicente de Solá, who was the last Spanish governor of Alta California. For the purposes of this paper, the mention
of the streets for the governors will be kept to five: EcheandÃa, Figueroa,
Alvarado, Micheltorena and Pico.
