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The Portuguese Bend region is the largest area of natural vegetation remaining on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Los Angeles County, California. [1] [2] Though once slated for development including the projected route of Crenshaw Boulevard, the area is geologically unstable and is unsuitable for building.
The peninsula was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans. In other areas of the Los Angeles Basin archeological sites date back 8,000 years. Their first contact with Europeans was in 1542 with João Cabrilho (Juan Cabrillo), the explorer who also was the first to write of them. Chowigna and Suangna were two Tongva settlements of many in the peninsula area, which was also a departure point for their rancherias on the Channel Islands.[ citation needed ]
In 1846 Jose Dolores Sepulveda and José Loreto received a Mexican land grant from Alta California Governor Pío Pico for a parcel from the huge original 1784 Spanish land grant Rancho San Pedro of Manuel Dominguez. It was named Rancho de los Palos Verdes, or "ranch of the green sticks", which was used primarily as a cattle ranch.
By 1882 ownership of the land had passed from the Sepulveda through various mortgage holders to Jotham Bixby of Rancho Los Cerritos, who leased the land to Japanese farmers. Early in the 20th century most of Bixby's land was sold to a consortium of New York investors who created The Palos Verdes Project and began marketing land on the peninsula for small horse ranches and residential communities.
The name Portuguese Bend comes from the whaling activities of Portuguese whalemen from the Azores. [3] An Azorean shore whaling captain named José Machado brought shore whaling to this bend in the coastline north of San Pedro Bay after the closure of the San Pedro Bay whaling station on Deadman's Island in or about 1862. He brought with him a crew of Azorean whalemen. In 1864, Captain Clark moved his operations to San Simeon Bay. In 1869, the station was operated by the John Brown Whaling Company (Los Angeles Star, March 13, 1869). [4] In 1874, Captain Frank Anderson (né Anasio) brought a crew from Port Harford in San Luis Obispo County. His operation at Portuguese Bend lasted from 1874 to 1877. During three winters (December–April) he obtained 2,166 barrels of oil from trying out the blubber flensed from gray whales he had caught on their annual migration along the California coast. He abandoned the station thereafter, establishing another further north at Pigeon Point. [5] An 1888 U.S. Fish Commission Report stated that whales had been caught from Portuguese Bend as late as 1884, suggesting another party utilized the area for whaling up until that date. [6] [7] The Old Whaling Station there was designated a California Historic Landmark (No. 381) on Jan. 3, 1944. [8]
Frank A. Vanderlip, Sr. (1864–1937) was known as the "Father of Palos Verdes". He purchased the 16,000 acre Rancho de los Palos Verdes from Jotham Bixby in 1913. In 1916, he built the Vanderlip estates near the Portuguese Bend area of Palos Verdes, California. His daughter-in-law Elin Vanderlip maintained residence at the estate until her death in 2009 and her husband's ashes are spread on the grounds. The Vanderlips championed many of the landmarks in Rancho Palos Verdes, notably Wayfarers Chapel (The church was designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) in the late 1940s and was built between 1949 and 1951.), Marineland of the Pacific, Portuguese Bend Riding Club (featured in the movie Chinatown), Marymount College, Palos Verdes and Chadwick School. In 1949 Kelvin Cox Vanderlip, Sr. built the Portuguese Bend Beach Club (a gated beach house community The houses were built on lots leased for 25 years and were the typical 1940s weekend places where people went to have a quiet time at the beach. Back then there was a clubhouse, restaurant, paddle tennis courts, 50-foot swimming pool, a sandy beach, and a 485-foot long pier where boats could tie up.
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During the late Pleistocene, the Palos Verdes hills were an offshore island. The island later became a peninsula, when the region between the island and the mainland filled with alluvial deposits from the mountain ranges near the Los Angeles basin. The Palos Verdes Hills are part of an uplifted block, with a northwest trend, bounded on the northeast by the Palos Verdes fault zone. Most of the movement along this fault is dip-slip, resulting in an uplift of about 1 km of the Palos Verdes Hills relative to the Los Angeles basin.
Surficial deposits of the Palos Verdes Hills consists of stratigraphic layers, in order from oldest to youngest:
The ground surface in the central and southern parts of the district is low and hummocky, reflecting the location of numerous late Quaternary landslides. These hills form an elongated topographic dome that rises from sea level to altitudes of more than 430 meters.
The Palos Verdes Landslide has been conducive to ground failure for approximately 250,000 years. [9] The landslide spans 260 acres (1.1 km2) with an average thickness of 135 feet (41 m). The ground failure occurs on an overall smooth surface approximately 100 feet (30 m) below the surface. The ground failure over the years has been due to seaward-dipping strata, rock weakness and continual coastal erosion. Prehistoric landslides are believed to be so extensive that they destroyed the formation of higher wave-cut benches. The active slide consists of landslide rubble such as bedded blocks, which are rare among most landslides. The bedded blocks measure ten feet (3.0 meters) in diameter and they appear in landslide rubble. This shows ground disturbance which could eventually cause the land to slide.
Though the Portuguese Bend area had a history of landslides going back 250,000 years and had been officially mapped as a landslide complex before the 1950s, current slippage in the Portuguese Bend area began in 1956, coincident with the construction of a road (the Crenshaw Boulevard extension, south of Crest Road) along the top of the ancient landslide complex. [10] During this construction, excavated sediment was dumped onto the upper slopes of the complex along with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water which lubricated a layer of bentonite clay formed by the subsurface weathering of volcanic rock called tuff. This layer of bentonite slants down to the Pacific Ocean enabling down-slope movement which continues to the present. A 1958 video newsreel was shot of the effects of the movement on the homes in the area. A successful suit was filed by area homeowners in 1961, winning $10 million in compensation against Los Angeles County, the party responsible for the road construction. [11] Another possible contributing cause of the sliding was the construction of hundreds of homes on and above the unstable rock and soil in the early 1950s prior to the slide. Each home had its own sewage treatment facility (cesspool or septic system) and home owners established lawns and gardens on their properties. Some homes were damaged, but others remain intact. Homes which remain occupied now have water and sewage lines available to them. The new lines were constructed above ground, so the slide can move freely below them. [12]
The first movement indication occurred on Friday, August 17, 1956. Cracking occurred in the foundation of a recently built structure. The cracks were repaired, but new cracking occurred just days later. Ten days after the first indication of movement, cracking propagated to Palos Verdes Drive South. By September 4, an offset of 4 inches (10 cm) was observed on the road. By mid-September, more pronounced cracking was observed. Distortion became noticeable on the Portuguese Bend pier on October 4 of that year. A survey station was installed to monitor ground movement. The station recorded movement of 3 to 4 inches (7.6 to 10.2 centimetres) per day. By the end of October, movement slowed to ≈¾ inch (2 cm) per day. The amount it moves is unknown today. Drilling projects over the next several months determined the location of the slip surface, and the location of standing groundwater.
The major part of the landslide consists of severely broken rubble. Individual rock fragments appear to be from the middle and upper units of the Altamira Shale, consisting of tuffaceous and silty shale. Fractured blocks of diatomaceous shale are found on the south slope of Blakesley Hill. Individual fragments of chert and cherty shale are found throughout the slide, though they are more abundant west of Portuguese Canyon. At the toe of the slide, between Inspiration Point and Portuguese Point, are weathered boulders of basalt.
Drainage within the Portuguese Bend district is characterized by a prevailing southward flow. Several canyons cross the district and act as the primary drainage features, including the Altamira and Portuguese Canyons. These canyons trend southward through the slide complex. Drainage is controlled locally by landslide-related features, such as resistant landslide blocks or channels cut in softer zones.
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The geographical location and geological history of the peninsula make the remaining habitat extremely valuable for ecological and other scientific reasons. The peninsula, which was an island with the Palos Verdes Hills in recent geological time, has close floral and faunal similarities to the Channel Islands. This feature makes the Portuguese Bend Landslide area a natural research laboratory for the study of island biogeography and evolutionary ecology.
The vegetation found in the area is coastal sage scrub. This plant community supports a surprising number and variety of species. There are at least three races of birds resident on the peninsula that are found nowhere else except the Channel Islands. These are the insular forms of the orange-crowned warbler, Pacific-slope flycatcher, and Allen's hummingbird. The same phenomenon has been documented for plant species. A species of live-forever, Dudleya virens , which is native to the Channel Islands and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, is found near Point Vicente Lighthouse.
The area also serves as habitat to many migrating birds moving through the region in fall and spring. The Peninsula is a headland that juts into the Pacific Ocean several miles further than the surrounding coastline. Migrating terrestrial and shore birds, flying over the open ocean on their north–south migration along the Pacific Flyway, spot this headland and stop to rest and feed. Many of these birds will stay and spend the winter in the area. Thus, the geographic position makes this habitat much more important than might otherwise be expected.
In general, the area has been lightly disturbed, and much natural vegetation remains. Intense disturbances, in the form of heavy off-road vehicle and pedestrian use, have been limited. Grazing also took place at one time.
The fictional Santa Rosita Beach State Park, with its signature crisscrossed palm trees comprising "the Big W" amidst lush surroundings and featured in the 1963 comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, was a landscaped set built in 1962 in the backyard of the Harden Gatehouse on Palos Verdes Dr. S, in Rancho Palos Verdes. As of 2016, all of the "Big W" palms were gone.
The South Bay is a region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in the southwest corner of Los Angeles County. The name stems from its geographic location stretching along the southern shore of Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay contains sixteen cities plus portions of the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated portions of the county. The area is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and generally by the City of Los Angeles on the north and east.
Palos Verdes Estates is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and neighboring Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates. The city was master-planned by the noted American landscape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The city is located along the Southern California coastline of the Pacific Ocean.
Rancho Palos Verdes is a coastal city located in south Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated on September 7, 1973, the city has a population of 42,287 as reported in the 2020 United States Census. Rancho Palos Verdes sits atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, neighboring three other cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, namely Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates. It is known for its extensive hiking trails, school district, and high property values.
Rolling Hills is a city on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Rolling Hills is a gated community with private roads with three entry gates. Homes are single-story 19th century California ranch or Spanish haciendas exemplified by architect Wallace Neff. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills maintains a rural and equestrian character, with no traffic lights, multi-acre lots with ample space between homes, and wide equestrian paths along streets and property lines.
Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. On the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates is mostly residential. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills Estates has many horse paths. The population was 8,067 at the 2010 census, up from 7,676 at the 2000 census. In 2018, the population rose to 8,141, and the 2020 census counted 8,280 residents.
San Pedro is a neighborhood located within the South Bay and Harbor region of the City of Los Angeles, California, United States. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located within San Pedro. The district has grown from being dominated by the fishing industry, to a working-class community within the city of Los Angeles, to an increasingly dense community.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is a peninsula and sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the South Bay region, the peninsula contains a group of cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, including Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, as well as the unincorporated community of Westfield/Academy Hill. The South Bay city of Torrance borders the peninsula on the north, the Pacific Ocean is on the west and south, and the Port of Los Angeles is east. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the Palos Verdes Peninsula is 65,008.
Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD) is a school district headquartered in Palos Verdes Estates, California with facilities in all four cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Rancho de los Palos Verdes was a 31,629-acre (128.00 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to José Loreto and Juan Capistrano Sepulveda. The name means "ranch of the green trees". The grant encompassed the present-day cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, as well as portions of San Pedro and Torrance.
Don Manuel Domínguez e Ybáñez (1803–1882) was a Californio ranchero, politician, and a signer of the California Constitution in 1849. He served as two terms as Alcalde of Los Angeles (mayor). He was one of the largest landowners in Southern California, having inherited Rancho San Pedro in 1825, one of the largest ranchos in California. He was one of the founders of the cities of Carson and Compton and of the fishing village of San Pedro. Today, California State University, Dominguez Hills and the communities of Rancho Dominguez, East Rancho Dominguez, and West Rancho Dominguez bear his family's name.
Rancho San Pedro was one of the first California land grants and the first to win a patent from the United States. The Spanish Crown granted the 75,000 acres (300 km2) of land to soldier Juan José Domínguez in 1784, with his descendants validating their legal claim with the Mexican government at 48,000 acres (190 km2) in 1828, and later maintaining their legal claim through a United States patent validating 43,119 acres (174.50 km2) in 1858. The original Spanish land grant included what today consists of the Pacific coast cities of Los Angeles harbor, San Pedro, the Palos Verdes peninsula, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Manhattan Beach, and east to the Los Angeles River, including the cities of Lomita, Gardena, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson, Compton, and western portions of Long Beach and Paramount.
Frank Arthur Vanderlip Sr. was an American banker and journalist. He was president of the National City Bank of New York from 1909 to 1919, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1897 to 1901. Vanderlip is known for his part in founding the Federal Reserve System and for founding the first Montessori school in the United States, the Scarborough School and the group of communities in Palos Verdes, California.
The Palos Verdes Hills are a low mountain range on the southwestern coast of Los Angeles County, California. They sit atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy (PVPLC) is a non-profit organization that is based on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwestern Los Angeles County, California.
The Bixby family is an American family that was heavily involved in the development of California ranches and real estate in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through various companies, they controlled at one time or another large swathes of California real estate, much of it derived from Mexican land grants. Over several generations, their holdings included Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos, and parts of Rancho San Justo and Rancho Palos Verdes, totaling well over 100,000 acres. Parts of the towns of Long Beach, Bellflower, Paramount, Signal Hill, Lakewood, and Los Alamitos emerged from former Bixby-held lands. Within Long Beach, the neighborhoods Bixby Hill, Bixby Knolls, and Bixby Village are named after the family, as well as Bixby Park in the Alamitos Beach neighborhood.
Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles is a public golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California with a 7,242-yard (6,622 m) course designed by Pete Dye and Donald J. Trump Signature Design. It is owned by The Trump Organization.
Paseo del Mar is a street in the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles, California, specifically stretching from Palos Verdes Estates, through Rancho Palos Verdes, to San Pedro that goes along the Pacific Ocean. The street continues to the west as Palos Verdes Drive and ends in the east just past Gaffey Street near The Sunken City.
The Bixby land companies were a group of California-based land companies founded by various members of the Bixby and Flint families from Maine. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the firms of Flint, Bixby & Company, J. Bixby & Company, J. W. Bixby & Company, the Alamitos Land Company, and the Bixby Land Company controlled large swathes of California real estate, much of it derived from Mexican land grants. At various times their holdings included Rancho Los Cerritos, Rancho Los Alamitos, half of Rancho San Justo, and part of Rancho Palos Verdes together with other property in San Benito, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties. Parts of the towns of Long Beach, Bellflower, Paramount, Signal Hill, Lakewood, and Los Alamitos emerged from former Bixby-held lands.
Narcissa Cox Vanderlip, née Mabel Narcissa Cox (1879-1966) was an American suffragist.
The Old Whaling Station or Old Whaling Station Portuguese Bend was a whaling station in California, built in 1869. The Old Whaling Station was designated a California Historic Landmark (No.381) on Jan. 3, 1944. The Old Whaling Station at Portuguese Bend was located in what is now Portuguese Bend in Rancho Palos Verdes, California in Los Angeles County.