Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BEVERLY WILSHIRE
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When the Spanish expedition led by Don José Gaspar de Portolá arrived in the Beverly Hills area, he
discovered that the Tongva Indians were already there. They had been there for at least hundreds and
perhaps thousands of years. These Native Americans were attracted to this fertile area for the same
reasons the Europeans would invade their land and push them out: Water was abundant here.
Three canyons in the area, Coldwater, Benedict, and Franklin, funneled rainwater from the
surrounding hills to where the various streams met near the intersection of what is now Beverly
Drive and Sunset Boulevard. The area was sacred to the Indians and they called it the Gathering of
the Waters. The Spanish translation, El Rodeo de las Aguas, would later lend its name to one of the
most exclusive shopping destinations in the world.
The first European intruders discovered meadows of wild oats, cucumbers, and buckwheat, as
well as the abundant game drawn to the dependable supply of moisture. Fields of wild roses and
grapes would eventually lead to flourishing industries for California.
As the Spanish settlers gradually took firm control of the area, they erected one of their 21
missions nearby in San Gabriel. Tongva Indians were paid to work the fields and ranches of this
mission and their association would cause the Spanish, and history, to refer to them as Gabriellitos.
As the Indians moved nearer the mission, they abandoned their former villages and, over time, their
former culture eroded.
The Europeans not only brought a major change to the natives' lives, they also brought diseases
that wiped out many of the Indians who lacked any immunity to these new maladies. Smallpox killed
two-thirds of the local population in 1844, and land grants sealed the fate of those who survived.
In 1838, the Mexican governor of Alta California gave a land grant to an Afro-Latina, María
Rita Valdez Villa, the widow of a Spanish soldier. She called it El Rodeo de las Aguas, after its In-
dian namesake, and employed many cowboys to tend to her large herds of cattle and horses. Time
and Mother Nature, in the form of a severe drought, forced a change in ownership several times.
Wildcat oil wells were unsuccessful and the land reverted to cattle and sheep ranching. A theme
park in the late nineteenth century also flopped when the national economy collapsed.
In 1906, Burton Green and his partners bought the defunct theme park land and renamed it
Beverly Hills after Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. They designed and built wide curving roads that
hugged the hillside and then proceeded to sell lots.
As the city grew, there was an obvious need for lodging for visitors and tourists. The Beverly
Hills Hotel was built in 1912. Attracted by the glamorous lifestyle that Beverly Hills represented,
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