History of Laguna Beach

Tongva. Aliso Creek served as a territorial boundary between Gabrieleno and Juaneno groups, named by Spanish missionaries who first encountered them in the 1500s. The area of Laguna Canyon was named on an 1841 Mexican land grant map as Cañada de las Lagunas (English:Glen of the Lagoons). After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the area of Alta California was ceded to the United States. The treaty provided that Mexican land grants be honored and Rancho San Joaquin, which included north Laguna Beach, was granted to José Antonio Andres Sepúlveda. Following a drought in 1864, Sepúlveda sold the property to James Irvine. The majority of Laguna Beach was one of the few parcels of coastal land in Southern California that was never included in any Mexican land grant.

Settlers arrived after the American Civil War encouraged by the Homestead Act and Timber Culture Act which granted up to 160 acres of land to a homesteader who would plant at least 40 acres of trees. In Laguna Beach, settlers planted groves of eucalyptus trees. In 1871, the first permanent homestead in the area was created by the George and Sarah Thurston family of Utah on 152 acres of Aliso Creek Canyon. In 1876, the brothers William and Nathaniel Brooks settled on land in Bluebird Canyon at present-day Diamond Street. They subdivided their land and a small community named Arch Beach grew there with a post office and general store. The year of the Brooks' arrival is often cited as the official settling of the city of Laguna Beach.

A community in Laguna Canyon and around the main beach grew during the 1880s. The city officially founded a post office in 1887 under the name Lagona (sic), but the postmaster in 1904, Nicholas Isch, successfully petitioned for a name correction to Laguna Beach. By then Laguna Beach had already developed into a tourist destination. Hubbard