Los Angeles herald., 1890-06-10
THE WEST BOUNDARY.
THE COUNCIL TROUBLED BY ITS
HAZY CONDITION..
Ordered Copied and Filed-A Brief Re-
sumo of the Various Boundaries.

The present council, like many of its
predecessors, is beginning to get very
much exercised in mind over the hazy
condition of the city boundary. Several
weeks ago the city assessor sent word to
the council that he was unable to learn
whether certain property was inside or
outside the west boundary, and sug-
gested that steps be taken to
find out what the boundary is.
AS preliminary effort in this direc-
ton, the council decided to have the
map of the Hancock survey recorded
This was made in 1858, and is the ear
liest official survey of the city boundary.
1t was never recorded, but was merely
filed with the city clerk; nevertheless it
was fOr many years the official map of
the city, and many surveys have since
been made with this as a basis. The
only copy of the map extant is badly
battered and fy-specked, and is not as
accurate as such document should be,
so that the city engineer, who was or
dered by the board of public works to
make copy, is said to feel little deli
cate about undertaking the job.
According to Grove & Wilkinson, the
abstract searchers, the attempt to
establish any definite line as the boun-
Diary of the city is going to result in
serious difficulty, although the compli-
Gated and irregular state of things that
prevails at present urgently calls for
action of some kind. The worst confu-
sion exists on the west boundary On
all sides of the city there are three or
four different lines which have more or
less claim to be considered the simon
pure official article, and on the west
boundary, at its northern half, there are
seven. The variation is several hun
dred feet. AS much of the property in
that part of the city is defined by the
boundary, the work of establishing any
particular line as official will result in
trouble for some people.
A brief review of the various efforts
which have been made to establish a
definite boundary may serve to show
how the confusion has come about. The
original Hancock survey has already
been described. The city as laid out
was not quite square, being 430 chains
east and west, by 422 north and south
In 1864 George Hanson, the surveyor of
the county, undertook to correct the
Hancock survey, and his line varies
from the original in different places
from 100 to 800 feet.
In 1866 the first patent was confirmed
by the state surveyor-general. 1t had
been decided upon some ten years pre-
vious. 1t called for lines which were to
be one league from the center of the
plaza, running east, west, north and
south. The survey that was made was
not quite in accordance with the
directions, however, being short of a
league, POI feet, on the west, from $50 to
300 feet on the east, and from $50 to 200
feet on the south. In 1868 LIE Couvreur
made new survey under the direction
of the city. He corrected the western
line, running new boundary 200 to 300
feet west of the patent line.
The next boundary on the west was
established by w. 2. Reynolds, who, in
subdividing his property in that vicin-
ity, put in a line 200 to 800 feet east of
LIE Couvreur's. He placed the north
west corner Of the city about 900 feet
northwest of where it was placed by the
patent, and ran line for the north
boundary not directly east, but consid-
erably south of east
When the Canal and Reservoir Com
pany received their deed to lands in the
northwest corner Of the city new line
was established twenty to fifty feet west
OF the Reynolds line on the west and
$50 feet north of the north line. This
boundary was from Ward street on the
west to Figueroa on the north Then
when the company came to subdivide its
property it endeavored to work back to
the boundary from existing streets, with
| 20
boundary lots ran in zig-zag fashion.
producing new and serious complica-
tions.
In 1887 and 1888 fresh surveys were
made Of the boundary on the west by
the city surveyor, the center of existing
streets and the pegs of previous SURVEYS
being used as data. The result was a
line which did not run very straight.
The charter line on the west should
have been "a chains and 70 links from
the southeast corner of township /
south, Is west, but instead was laid out
at 80 links and 70 chains from the given
point.
The difficulty all along has been in
the fact that each OF these several lines
was at the time declared official, and
streets and lots were surveyed from
them. According to Mr.. Grove, from
whom the above data were secured, il
the Hancock survey is now adopted as
the only official line, the result will be
to float over number of streets in that
vicinity, and possibly involve serious
lawsuits.
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