Watts, California

Watts, California, was a city of the sixth class that existed in Los Angeles County, California, between 1907 and 1926, when it was consolidated with the City of Los Angeles and became one of the neighborhoods in the southern part of that city.

The area now known as Watts is situated on the 1843 Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant. As on all ranchos, the principal vocation was at that time grazing and beef production. There were household settlers in the area as early as 1882, and in 1904 the population was counted as 65 people; a year later it was 1,651. C.V. Bartow of Long Beach was noted as one of the founders of Watts. Watts was said to have got its name from a widow who lived on ten acres that was later occupied by a Pacific Electric power house and for whom the train stop was named. She later moved to Arlington, California.

A subdivision with the name Watts was platted, possibly by the Golden State Realty Company, between 1903 and 1905, when the settlement had a population of about 150 people. In 1905 lots were being sold by the Golden State Realty Company for prices ranging from $100 to $200: The terms were advertised at a dollar as down payment and a dollar a month thereafter, with the company claiming there would be "no interest and no taxes." The Watts Lumber Company had a plan of "easy payments" which "enabled those desiring houses in the little settlement to secure their material and to build and occupy their houses at once."

Watts became a city in 1907, after three petitions objecting to the proposed borders were presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Seven ranchers said that they had no intention of subdividing and that all unimproved land should be omitted from the proposed city. Another petition declared that most of the property owners in Watts did not pay taxes inasmuch as they were buying the 25-foot lots for speculation, that the residents were "migratory" and that most of them were transitory "Mexican railroad laborers." A third petition for exemption was submitted by residents of the Palomar stop, who dressed up their plea with quotations from Greek philosophers to Hamlet. Those petitioners announced that they had recently changed the name of their settlement from "Watts Park" because they did not want any affiliation with Watts.

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