El Sereno (Spanish, "The Serene One") is a Los Angeles neighborhood in the Eastside Los Angeles region of Los Angeles County, California.
History
Tongva
The Tongva village of Otsungna was situated in today's El Sereno on the banks of a stream that was later named Arroyo Rosa de Castilla, which ran east of present-day Guardia and Farnsworth avenues. A trail connected Otsungna to the village of Yangna on the Los Angeles River, then on to the village of Sibagna, near the eventual site of the Mission San Gabriel. The route later became Mission Road.
Spanish Period (1769—1821) The El Sereno area was first visited by Europeans in 1769, when the Spanish overland Portola Expedition passed just south of present-day El Sereno. In 1771, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was founded, including the area that became El Sereno area of its lands was used for cattle grazing, and an adobe was constructed there in 1776.
In 1784, three years after the pueblo was founded, Spanish Governor Pedro Fages granted all the lands between the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco to Jose Maria Verdugo. The Rancho San Rafael as it was known, covered approximately . The El Sereno area was not included in either the pueblo or Rancho San Rafael. El Sereno was later part of the Mexican Rancho Rosa Castilla land grant. Around 1810, a New Spain government's adobe toll house was built next to the road from the Mission to the Pueblo (present day Valley Boulevard/Alhambra Avenue), near present-day Warwick Avenue and Martin Street, just north of Alhambra Avenue.
Mexican rancho period (1831 to 1847)
After Mexican independence from Spain (1821), the Rancho Rosa de Castilla – named after a stream that ran through the area – was granted to Juan Ballesteros in 1831. This stream was called the Arroyo Rosa de Castilla because of the roses growing on its banks. It included what is now El Sereno. Lincoln Heights and City Terrace, as well as parts of South Pasadena, Alhambra and Monterey Park. After the secularization of the missions in 1833, the ranch passed to Francisco (Chico) Lopez.
American ranch period (1848 to 1901)
Ownership
Rancho Rosa de Castilla was acquired around 1850 by Anaclet Lestrade, a priest of Our Lady of the Angels Church on the Los Angeles Plaza. In 1852, Jean-Baptiste (Juan Bautista) Batz and his wife, Catalina Hegui Batz, acquired the adobe ranch house from Lestrade. Batz engaged in farming and sheep ranching until his death on December 6, 1859. Under the Homestead Act, his widow received title to the upon which the adobe stood in 1876. She purchased land from surrounding owners, and the ranch eventually grew to . It included the later communities of Ramona Acres (City of Alhambra), Sierra Vista (El Sereno), Sierra Park (El Sereno), West Alhambra (Alhambra and El Sereno) and Bairdstown (EI Sereno) west to EI Sereno Avenue (now Eastern Avenue). After Catalina died on February 22, 1882, the land portion of the estate was then divided between six of her eight children. The southernmost passed to the third-oldest son, Jose Domingo Batz.
Jacob Colvin Newton purchased a 160-acre L-shaped ranch stretching from the present Eastern and EI Sereno avenues on the west to Guardia Avenue on the east about 1870. In the late 1880s, he bought the northern portion of the Batz Ranch from Francisca Batz Echeveste, a daughter of Catalina Batz. On the ranch was a modest cottage on the north side of what is now Huntington Drive at Van Horne Avenue. Newton grew hay and bred racing horses to run on his track just south of Roses Road (now Huntington Drive) and east of Farmdale Road (now Eastern Avenue).
Around 1870, the residence of Jesse Yarnell sat on a hill in what is now Rose Hill, at the western boundary of present EI Sereno. A ranchhouse on the south side of Valley Boulevard, near the junction of present-day Eastern Avenue, was owned by the Hirigoyen family, which raised chickens, ducks, and pigs. A ranch west of what is now Eastern Avenue was owned by the Smith family. Their home and well were extant about 1885, just south of what is now Huntington Drive at Paola Avenue. The Smith eEstate was partitioned in 1885. The Cornwall family built a house about 1885 on part of the former Smith property, near present-day Eastern Avenue and Harmony Lane. Most of this ranch was later bought by Evan Evans.