Los Angeles Plaza

The pueblo was laid out beside Yaanga, the largest Tongva village in the basin, whose people called themselves Yaangavit. The forty-four pobladores who walked in from Sinaloa and Sonora in September 1781 were mostly of African and Indigenous descent, which the founders' plaque here did not say until it was replaced in 1981. The plaza has moved twice — flooding pushed it up from the river, and it shifted again to this ground after the church was dedicated in 1822. Yaanga was razed by order of the city council in 1847.

What the plaque says

This site was part of the lands originally granted to El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles in 1781 by the King of Spain, Carlos III, under the Spanish Law of the Indies. The first plaza of the pueblo had been located to the southeast, closer to the Rio Porciuncula (Los Angeles River). When the river flooded, the pueblo was moved to higher ground. Shortly after the dedication of the Plaza Church in December 1822, the plaza's location was changed again to the present site.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 7.5 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 8.0 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Santa Monica Pier — 15 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.

More markers nearby

• Lugo Adobe (Site of) — steps away
• Old Plaza Firehouse — steps away
• Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles — steps away
• Avila Adobe — steps away