Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, a city of the United States, the capital of Los Angeles county, California, is situated in the lowland between the Sierra Madre and the Pacific, about 17 miles from the coast, on the west bank of a stream of its own name. It lies 483 miles by rail south-south-east of San Francisco on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and is connected by branch lines with Wilmington, Santa Monica (both on the coast), and Santa Ana. As the centre of a fine orange and grape growing country, and a resort for invalids, Los Angeles is a place of some importance; and since the opening of the railways it has been in full prosperity, the old adobe buildings rapidly giving place to more substantial structures. Founded in 1781 by the Spaniards, it received the name “Town of the Queen of the Angels” (Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles) as a tribute to the beauty and pleasantness of the spot. It was the capital of the Mexican state of California from 1836 to 1846, in which latter year it was captured by United States forces. The population has increased from 5728 in 1870 to 11,311 in 1880.