In 1784 the Spanish crown handed Juan José Domínguez, a retired soldier off the Portolá expedition, a grazing concession of some seventy-five thousand acres. It was the first Spanish land grant in California, and it contained the entire harbor: everything from the Los Angeles River west to the sea, the Palos Verdes hills, and the ground the port stands on now. The Tongva who lived there were not consulted. They were taken to the missions.
Manuel Domínguez, grand-nephew of the first grantee, built this adobe in 1826. On October 8 and 9, 1846, the war arrived at it. José Antonio Carrillo, with about fifty Californio lancers and one old swivel gun, met roughly three hundred United States Marines and sailors under Captain William Mervine marching up from San Pedro. Carrillo ran horses across the dry hills to inflate his numbers, fired, fell back, and did it again. The Americans turned around and returned to their ships. Californio casualties: none. The fighting in California ended three months later at Campo de Cahuenga.
The grant shrank as sovereignty changed hands. Seventy-five thousand acres under Spain, forty-eight thousand confirmed by Mexico in 1828, forty-three thousand one hundred nineteen patented by the United States in 1858.
In January 1910 the ranch hosted the first aviation meet held in America.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour