Map of the City of Los Angeles, 1857

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A very early map of downtown Los Angeles .It is a composite wall map incorporating the famous 1849 Ord Survey (Robinson's first Los Angeles map) and the Hancock and Hansen survey maps of 1853 and 1859. This is the first appearance of the manuscript Ord Survey as a printed map and is therefore of considerable importance. The Ord Survey shows the original pueblo buildings, the farms around them, a small group of lots, water courses and hills. In contrast, the later Hancock and Hansen Surveys divide the lands outside the original town center into much larger rectangular lots of equal size, imposing a grid pattern on the earlier meandering lots that is both visually striking and a portent of the phenomenal growth of settlement to come.