Rancho San Pedro

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The Rancho San Pedro land grant was validated by the Mexican government at 48,000 acres (195 km²) in 1828, and a US land grant validating 25,000 acres (100 km²) was issued in 1858 by the state of California.

Juan Jose Dominguez, 1736 - 1809, a Spanish soldier, arrived in San Diego, California in 1769 with Fernando Rivera y Moncada and served with the Gaspar de Portolà expedition, and along with Juniperro Serra, traveled to San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel and Monterey. In 1784, Juan Jose was granted seventeen Spanish leagues (75,000 acres, 305 km²) from the Spanish Empire, signed by King Carlos III.

The original Spanish land grant included what today consists of the Pacific coast cities of Los Angeles harbor, San Pedro, the Palos Verdes peninsula, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Manhattan Beach, and east to the Los Angeles River including; the cities of Lomita, Gardenia, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson, Compton, and western portions of Long Beach and Paramount.

The portion of the Rancho San Pedro land grant that later became the cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, as well as portions of Torrance and San Pedro, known as Rancho de los Palos Verdes, was contested for many years between the Dominquez and Sepulveda families through various appeals to Spanish Governors and law suits from 1817-1882, and was eventually partitioned into seventeen parcels in 1882.

In 1846, the Battle of Dominguez Rancho was fought on the rancho site during the Mexican-American war.

Manuel Dominguez, a descendent of Juan Jose, developed the rancho.