South Bay History: How the Los Angeles & San Pedro, Southern California's first rail line, began
Imagining the Los Angeles of 1870 takes some mental gymnastics. The city then had a population of 5,728, and transportation consisted of horse-draw...
Imagining the Los Angeles of 1870 takes some mental gymnastics. The city then had a population of 5,728, and transportation consisted of horse-drawn vehicles operating on dirt roads. It was far from the sprawling metropolis it would become even 30 short years later, when its population topped 100,000. Even with that in mind, I still found it surprising to find out that the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, connecting the harbor in San Pedro to downtown L.A., became Southern California's first railroad when it opened in 1869.