From Wetlands to West LA

The Legacy of Rancho La Ballona

The heart and history of West Los Angeles is not what you think. Forget Muscle Beach, the 405 and Culver City Studios. Not so long ago, It was swamps and grassy grazing lands.

The history of Rancho La Ballona is a fascinating journey from indigenous lands to sprawling urban neighborhoods. Spanning 13,920 acres, this Mexican land grant from 1819 touched parts of Culver City, Venice, Palms, Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista and Westchester.

Before European contact, the Tongva people thrived in the region’s lush Wetlands, fed by Ballona Creek and used fishing and gathering. In 1819, Californios Agustín and Ignacio Machado, along with Felipe and Tomás Talamantes, received the land grant for cattle ranching, naming it after the creek (likely from "bayona," meaning bay).

Alta California was once a part of the Spanish Crown, and was passed to Mexico in 1821 after gaining independence. Most of Los Angeles was doled out this way.

But the Talamantes and Machado families were not exactly Spanish or Mexican. They were Californios, born in the region, Californios were often of mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and mestizo heritage and were part of the region’s vibrant and unique culture.

After California’s transition to U.S. rule in 1850, the Machados successfully defended their land claim under the 1851 Land Act. However, by the late 19th century, financial pressures and droughts forced the rancho’s subdivision. Anglo-American settlers transformed the land from ranching to farming, with early settlements like Palms emerging by 1886.The rancho’s 2,000 acres of wetlands—rich with marshes and tidal flats—once teemed with wildlife but faced drastic reduction.

Starting in the late 1800s, settlers drained the wetlands for agriculture, and 20th-century projects like Marina del Rey’s construction in the 1960s further shrank them to about 600 acres.

Today, the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve is all that's left. Still beautiful and thriving, but a mere fraction of west LA's swampy History.

By the mid-20th century Culver City was building studios, Venice was wrapping up Oil Production and Marina del Rey was being drained of it's wetlands and pumped full of beatiful condos.

Playa del Rey, Playa Vista and Westchester, still straddle this wild ecosystem. One of the last places in the city of LA you'll regularly hear... FROGS.

I hike through here all the time and when they croak I'll find myself daydreaming. Picturing the Machados amidst Playa Vistas perfect condos, their cattle grazing beneath the hillside homes of Westchester.

West LA's vast Real Estate market started out as swamps, indigenous land and ranches. It was Doled out by Kings and Mexican Governors more than fifty years after America declared it's independence.

California, and Especially LA has always been a wild, diverse and desirable lace. And has and likely always will be... Incredibly valuable and just straight up... beautiful.