"Paso de la Tijera" appears in c1860 maps where a path crosses a stream, at today's intersection of Crenshaw Blvd. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.[2] Some sources say the term means "Pass of the Scissors" and was used by Spanish settlers to describe a pass through the Baldwin Hills which resembled an open pair of scissors, though another (Marinacci) says that "tijera" almost always means "drainage ditch" in old land descriptions.[3]
The one square
league land grant was made in 1843 by Micheltorena to Vicente Sanchez. Vicente Sanchez (1785–1846) was
alcalde of Los Angeles in 1831–1832 and 1845.
After Vicente Sanchez's death in 1846, his widow Maria Victoria Higuera and grandson
Tomás Sánchez inherited the rancho.[8][9]
Tomas Sanchez lived on the property belonging to his wife, Maria Sepulveda Sanchez, who owned part of
Rancho San Rafael. In 1875, Tomas Sanchez sold Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera to
Francis Pliney Fisk (F.P.F) Temple, Arthur J. Hutchinson, Henry Ledyard and
Daniel Freeman. However, Temple experienced financial difficulties and in 1875
Elias J. (Lucky) Baldwin acquired the rancho, giving his name to the hills that dominated the western section of the rancho and thereafter known as the Baldwin Hills. Baldwin used the ranch primarily as a sheep pasture but it was not profitable. When Baldwin died 1909, his daughter
Anita M. Baldwin realized that there was oil on the estate, and by 1916 drilling had begun.[14][15]
Historic sites of the Rancho
Sanchez Adobe de Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. The adobes, with thick walls and high, redwood-beamed ceilings, were once the center of the rancho. In the 1920s, an addition was built linking the structures and the building was converted into a larger clubhouse by the Sunset Golf Course.[15] The oldest part of the structure may have been built in the 1790s, which would make it the oldest surviving structures in the city of Los Angeles.[16] It was declared a Los Angeles historic-cultural monument in 1990.[17]
^Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
^Marinacci, Barbara and Rudy Marinacci, California's Spanish Place Names: What They Mean and the History They Reveal. Angel City Press, 2005
ISBN1883318696