South Gate

South Gate is the seventeenth largest city in Los Angeles County, California, with 7.4sqmi. South Gate is located 7mi southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. It is part of the Gateway Cities region of southeastern Los Angeles County.As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 94,396.The city was incorporated on January 20, 1923, and it became known as the "Azalea City" when it adopted the flower as its symbol in 1965.In 1990, South Gate was one of ten U.S. communities to receive the All-America City Award from the National Civic League.Native AmericansThe South Gate area was inhabited by the Gabrielino/Tongva Indians before development by Spanish ranchers.ExplorationIn the summer of 1769, a group of Spanish explorers set out from the coast of San Diego to explore the uncharted territory between San Diego and the Bay of Monterey. With them was Father Juan Crespi, considered by historians to be one of the great diarists of the New World explorations. His daily entries were remarkably revealing of the country through which the caravan passed. The explorers proceeded in the general direction of the San Gabriel Valley, across the Los Angeles River, which Crespi named "Porciuncula" on August 2, 1769.Land grantsAmong the early Spanish settlers was one of California’s first families, the Lugos. The Lugo land grant encompassed a great part of what is now the City of South Gate.While Francisco Lugo was stationed at Mission San Antonio de Padua near Salinas, California, his first California son, Antonio Maria Lugo was born in 1775. That son became Don Antonio Maria Lugo, Spanish aristocrat and soldier, who settled on 30000acre of land that encompasses what is now the City of South Gate. In 1810, the King of Spain formally granted the land to Lugo as a reward for his and his father's military service. Rancho San Antonio extended from the low range of hills which separated it from the San Gabriel Valley to the old Dominguez Ranch at its south, and from the eastern boundary of the pueblo of Los Angeles to the San Gabriel River. Lugo also became the mayor of Los Angeles, from 1816 to 1819,