Down for Life

Watts is a mostly residential district in South Los Angeles, California. The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant. As on all ranchos, the principal vocation was grazing and beef production. With the influx of European American settlers into Southern... California in the 1870s, La Tajuata land was sold off and subdivided for smaller farms and homes, including a 220-acre parcel purchased by Charles H. Watts in 1886 for alfalfa and livestock farming. In those days each Tajuata farm had an artesian well. The arrival of the railroad spurred the development of the area, and in 1907 Watts was incorporated as a separate city, taking its name from the first railroad station, Watts Station that had been built in 1904 on 10 acres of land donated by the Watts family. The city voted to annex itself to Los Angeles in 1926. Along with more European Americans, Mexican and Mexican American railroad workers settled in the community. African-Americans came in later and many of the men were Pullman car porters and other railroad workers. Schoolroom photos from 1909 and 1911 show only two or three black faces among the 30 or so children pictured.
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