~ History of the Area - Tillman Plant Location

About 1768 King Charles III of Spain got word through French espionage that Czarina Catherine of Russia had ordered colonization in the Pacific already being exploited by Russian fur traders. This was someplace near an area of a Spanish outpost, visited by Cortes over 200 years before and called by the soldiers "California". Charles did not know where or what California was, but whatever it was, he didn't want the Russians to take it from him.
A young, tough, bright, bored, governor-with-nothing-to-govern, Gaspar de Portola, was in Loreto, Baja California. He was ordered to find an overland route to Monterey, last seen by a Spaniard 165 years before, and establish a colony there. He jumped at the chance and in the summer of 1769 he, Fr. Serra, and a small contingent began walking North. He ordered three other contingents from La Paz and Rosaria to meet him in San Diego. All told, 219 soldiers, priests, and Indians started; fewer than half of them lived to reach San Diego. One ship made it with only two crew members alive: In July Portola assembled a small company of "skeletons who had been spared", and with Fr. Crespi as diarist (Fr. Serra, injured, stayed in San Diego), set off to guess their way to Monterey. The expedition is an epic story but of interest here is that on August 5, 1769 Portola and his company staggered down the Sepulveda Pass to TWRP.
They were cordially received by about 200 Gabrielenos and camped nearby, probably in the oaks at Ventura and Balboa Blvds.

In seven years, De Anza, California's first real estate agent brought colonists to TWRP-JG and in just 10 more years it was the center of the cattle ranch of Francisco Reyes, a Black man who was the first mayor of Los Angeles In 1797 Fr. Lasuen began to establish a mission. TWRP-JG was the original choice for its location, but as it was to be an agricultural endeavor, the more stable water supply of the North Valley dictated the location of the San Fernando Mission there. On the East Coast George Washington was President.
Unlike most of the Valley, the TWRP-JG site was never part of the San Fernando Mission land. Rather, the entire Sepulveda Flood Control basin, plus a bit more, comprised the Los Encinos ranch, a land grant antedating the Mission. The ranch's headquarters were, and are, located at Balboa and Ventura Blvds. While it passed through several owners, the ranch's 4,460 acres remained patent until 1915 when it was subdivided. From the time of the United States' Revolution until World War I the Los Encinos ranch was at the center of incredible ranching and agricultural activity. At one time the Mission grazed 21,000 head of cattle and the Ranch 32,000 sheep. Since it was at the junction of the East-West road from Los Angeles' center (Ventura Blvd.) and the North-South road from Santa Monica and West Los Angeles (Sepulveda Blvd.) and with ample water and fertile soil, the ranch hosted Indian marauders, camel drovers, gold seekers, bandits, and Spanish, Mexican and American soldiers and travelers, to mention but a few. By the 20th century, vegetable farming, citrus, and chickens had replaced grain and livestock. With the arrival of Owens Valley water in 1913 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, both providing the raw materials for urbanization, the subdivision of the Valley began. In 1915 the Los Encinos Ranch was subdivided, most of the land away from the River into residences, the land along the side of the River including TWRP-JG, being subject to yearly flooding, remained farm land.
In 1936 the country was in the middle of a great economic depression and Congress, in a make-work mood, put the Army Corps of Engineers into flood control throughout the country. The creeks and River in the Valley served only as storm channels, their locations varying from year to year as flooding cut through the soft Valley soil. 1938 was an extremely wet winter, ending with 11 inches of rain the first five days of March. Over S40,000,000 in damage was done and 49 lives were lost in the flood. (This is now referred to by engineers as a "50 year" flood.) In 1939 the Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the Sepulveda Dam and concretizing the creeks and River. The Los Encinos Ranch subdivisions along the side of the River were seized by the Army by the process of eminent domain to become the flood control basin. The dam was completed in 1941 at a cost of $6,700,000. The land in the basin was leased for farming purposes but after World War II it was permanently leased to the City of Los Angeles for $1.00 a year which used some of it for recreational purposes.

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