This 44-acre site, bounded by Cesar Chavez avenue and Alameda, Arcadia, and Spring Streets, encompasses the city’s oldest dwellings and gives a thought-provoking glimpse into L.A.’s humble beginnings. Imagine, L.A. was once a small community.

The community was founded in 1781 by 44 settlers of mixed heritage from northern Mexico, although the mud huts have long hone. However, once the Stars and Stripes was raised after the 1846 Mexican-American war, more and more immigrants started relocating to L.A. By the turn of the century, and with the encouragement of fare-war incentives from competing railways, the city was booming. The old pueblo area deteriorated as the city developed and more affluent residents spread southward.

Self-guided or conducted walking tours point out early commercial buildings and residences, L.A.’s oldest church, the first water system and first firehouse, and commemorative statues and murals. Well-known Mexican artist David Alfaro Squeiros 18 by 80 foot Tropical America mural, painted in 1932, is on the south wall of the Italian Hall. Whitewashed over, Mother Nature and arts preservationists have partially uncovered it.