Windsor Village Association
History of Windsor Village
This history is taken from the Historic Resources Survey Report written by Architectural Resources Group (ARG) and the Windsor Village Association, © 2010.
Early History of Windsor Village
The large expanse of land that is now occupied by the City of Los Angeles was once inhabited by Native Americans of the Tongva (or Gabrielino) tribe. The Tongva people regularly navigated the Pacific Ocean and inhabited the islands of Santa Catalina, San Nicholas, San Clemente, and Santa Barbara as well as much of the Los Angeles basin and parts of what is now Orange County. A relatively peaceful culture, the Tongva subsisted on what the land had to offer for thousands of years before the arrival of European visitors. It is estimated that approximately five thousand Tongva resided in the region when the Spanish began the mass colonization of native peoples under the mission system in the eighteenth century.
​​
The Mission San Gabriel, which is located near the present-day city of Montebello, was the fourth of the California missions, a system established by Spanish friars with the intention of converting the Indians to Christianity and stripping them of their cultural traditions. The Tongva were largely subject to the Mission San Gabriel, which was in the proximity of their native territory, and their subsequent mistreatment and exposure to European diseases quickly decimated the population. Those that survived were used as laborers in the construction of the Spanish missions and pueblos; it has been noted that “nearly everything grown or manufactured at the pueblos resulted from the labor of Indians.”
The mission system deteriorated in the early nineteenth century as the Spanish began to lose ground to Mexico. Mexico declared its independence in 1821, and the Secularization Act of 1833 signaled the end of the mission era. The mission land once under the jurisdiction of the Spanish was deeded to individuals by the Mexican governors and slowly the missions were disbanded. With its temperate climate and fertile soil, the new settlers found the land perfect for raising cattle and crops; the basin was soon dotted with the ranches of Californios. Even in ​​those days a road meandered east to west in the approximate path of what is now Wilshire Boulevard from the Pueblo of Los Angeles (near downtown) to the sea. This dirt road, then called the La Brea Road because it passed the tar pits, passed through nine ranchos on its way east from the Pacific: Topanga Malibu Sequit, Boca de Santa Monica, San Vicente y Santa Monica, La Ballena, San Jose de Buenos Aires, Rincon de los Bueyes, Rodeo de las Aguas, La Brea, and Las Cienegas.
​​
The land on which Windsor Village is located was part of the Rancho Las Cienegas. Comparably small at approximately 4,500 acres, the Las Cienegas was patented to Juan Abila in 1871 and appears to have extended roughly from today’s Wilshire Boulevard south to Baldwin Hills. Reports from this time indicate that the rancho was almost entirely a swamp and that it took subsequent draining and grading to become valuable land for residential development purposes, which it did after the turn of the twentieth century.