Boyle Heights: A Community of Change
The Boyle Heights community is the oldest section of Los Angeles and has beautiful Craftsman homes, a wonderful park with a lake, and colorful murals. Boyle Heights began about 150 years ago, way back before California had entered the Union of the United States of America.
Prior to the 1850s Boyle Heights was once a land that was only populated by Mexicans and the San Gabrielino Native Americans. These individuals worked the land originally purchased by William H. Workman and other members of what was called the Workman Party. The Workman Party was a group of Americans that moved to the Los Angeles area in 1841 and lived on the west side of the river in an area that is now downtown Los Angeles. Members of this group decided to cultivate the rich fertile land east of the river into vineyards while continuing to live on the west side of the river. This land east of the river is now called Boyle Heights.
Boyle Heights was named in 1876 after Andrew A. Boyle who after being invited for a visit to the area by his friend William Workman purchased a large portion of the area in 1858 because of its beautiful simplicity, hillsides, and ruggedness. This land of Boyle Heights is mapped out from the Los Angeles River in the west to what is now Indiana Street to the east and from Valley Boulevard in the north to Washington Street in the south. What was so important about Boyle was that Boyle was the first white man to live east of the Los Angeles River. He built his house among Mexicans and some Native Americans on what today is the intersection of Boyle and Third Street. The reason he was the first is because the Los Angelinos at the time preferred to live on flat lands such as in downtown Los Angeles and the fact that there were no bridges that crossed the Los Angeles River.
From the 1920s to the 1950s it was Los Angeles' most heterogeneous neighborhood, serving as home to large concentrations of Jews, Mexicans, and Japanese Americans, as well as Russian Molokans, African Americans, and people of Armenian, Italian, and Chinese descent.
Position:
Community History/Statistics
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