Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) History
When the state of California was still a Mexican province, the land which is
now occupied by the Los Angeles International Airport was part
of a large Mexican land grant known as the Rancho Sausal Redondo.
This rancho, which took its name from a clump of willows, stretched
along the coast from what is now Playa del Rey to Redondo Beach
and extended inland to Inglewood. It was granted to Antonio Ygnacio
Avila by Juan Alvarado, then governor of Alta California, in 1837.
Where the city of Inglewood is today there was another, smaller, Mexican
rancho called the Rancho Ajuaje de la Centinela, which means the "Sentinel of Waters." This rancho was granted in 1844 to Ygnacio Machado by the governor of Mexico,
Manuel Micheltorena. In 1845 Machado traded the rancho to Bruno Avila, brother of Antonio Ygnacio
Avila, for a small tract in the pueblo of Los Angeles. Thus the Avila
brothers came to possess over 25,000 acres stretching from the sea almost
to the Los Angeles City limits eastwards.
After California was taken over by the United States, the Rancho Ajuaje
de la Centinela changed hands a number of times, eventually being acquired
in 1860 by Sir Robert Burnett, a Scottish lord. After Antonio Ygnacio
Avila died in 1858 the Rancho Sausal Redondo passed to a series of heirs
before also becoming the property of Sir Robert in 1868 when it was sold
to him through probate court to pay debts accrued by the Avila estate. Burnett combined the two ranchos under the name of Rancho Centinela.
In 1873 illness forced Burnett to return to Scotland, and he leased the
rancho to Daniel Freeman with an option to buy. Freeman, a wealthy Canadian lawyer who had moved to California to benefit his
wife's health, purchased a part of Rancho Centinela in 1882 and acquired
title to the rest of the property in 1885. He raised sheep on the land
until the drought of 1874-1876 forced him to turn to dry farming. The experiment was a success and by 1880 the ranch was producing a million bushels
of barley a year. Andrew B. Bennett, a native of Los Angeles, leased
2,000 acres of the Daniel Freeman ranch in 1894, and this property became
known as the Bennett Rancho.
Many of the parcels of the old Rancho Centinela were sold to various
companies, and in 1912 a large portion of land in the southwest corner
of the Centinela Valley was bought by James Martin and the Los Angeles
Extension Company, which Martin controlled. The land continued to be
leased to tenant farmers, and by 1922 Andrew Bennett had expanded his
leasehold to 3,000 acres and was growing wheat, barley, and lima beans
where Los Angeles International Airport would one day be built.
During the 1920s the Bennett Rancho began to attract
pioneer aviators who used a small portion of this property as a makeshift
landing strip. The airplanes of that era landed and departed on roughground
but soon attracted people on weekends who came "out to the country" to see the early flying machines in action. In 1927 a group of local citizens
led by Inglewood Municipal Judge Frank D. Parent; Harry Culver, a real
estate promoter; and George Cleaver, an oil land developer, began to
push for the establishment of a major airport on this section of the
Bennett Rancho.
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