24266 Calle Aragon, Laguna Woods, CA 92637
(949) 206-0150
info@lagunawoodshistory.org

Exhibit

 ONCE UPON LAGUNA WOODS

EXHIBIT LEGEND

  • 1. Natural History
  • 2. Prehistoric Peoples
  • 3. Viceroyalty of New Spain
  • 4. Portolá Expedition
  • 5. Mexico to the United States
  • 6. Rancho Niguel to Moulton Ranch
  • 7. Ross Cortese’s Rossmoor Corp.
  • 8. Gerontology
  • 9. Leisure World – Laguna Hills
  • 10. City of Laguna Woods
  • 11. Laguna Woods Village
  • 12. Cosmopolitans

Small Exhibit Case

  1. Natural History

In 1964, resident Hildegarde Howard Wylde made the initial paleontological natural history findings in Laguna Woods Village.  Mrs. Wylde was chief curator emeritus for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and she concluded fossils uncovered by construction excavation for Avenida Majorca were 13 million years old from when an ocean covered Orange County.  Those included turtles, fishes, birds, and 20 species of shark. One marine mammal resembled today’s hippopotamus. 

  • 2. Prehistoric Peoples

About 16,000 years ago, the Acjachemen people settled on the land where Laguna Woods Village is today.  These Indigenous people had hundreds of villages on the west side of the Santa Ana Mountains from the San Gabriel River in north Orange County to the Santa Margarita River in north San Diego County.  With similar languages, the Tongva people also had a few villages in the area.  Called hunter/gathers, these tribes are not credited for how they tended nature to increase food production.

“Meet Laguna Woods Resident, Chris Lobo, a 9th generation Juaneño (Acjachemen Nation), the original people on Laguna Woods land. Chris’s Uncle, Clarence H. Lobo, served as Chief of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, (now Acjachemen Nation) for 39 years.”

Large Exhibit Case

  • 3. Viceroyalty of New Spain

In 1542, Juan Rodgríguez Cabrillo claimed Alta California in the name of King Charles I of Spain thereby enslaving Indigenous people such as the Acjachemen and Tongva in Laguna Woods.  Cabrillo’s maritime exploration added Las Californias (upper & lower) to the Spanish Empire’s Viceroyalty of New Spain that conquered southern and western North America, Central America, and northern South America.  Considered slaves by Spanish law, our local Indigenous people never knew for two centuries.

  • 4. Portolá Expedition

In 1769, Gaspar de Portolá led the terrestrial exploration of Alta California by creating the Royal or King’s Road, El Camino Real, that connected twenty-one missions and the two presidios (military bases) in Monterrey and San Diego.  Spain hadn’t explored these claims for 227 years.  Mission San Juan Capistrano enslaved the Acjachemen as Juaneños.  Mission San Gabriel enslaved the Tongva as Gabrieleños.  Spain’s colonial success depended on free labor justified as converting natives to Christianity

  • 5. Mexico to the United States

The Mexican War of Independence, from 1810 to 1821, was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico’s independence from the Spanish Empire.  From 1846 to 1848, the United States invaded Mexico in the Mexican-American War applying the imperialistic belief in Manifest Destiny for the U.S.A. to expand westward across North America.  After paying reparations of $15M to Mexico, the U.S.A. acquired territories from Texas to Alta (Upper) California, which became a state in 1850

  • 6. Rancho Niguel to Moulton Ranch

Under pressure from land grabs by illegal aliens from the U.S. and Russia, Mexico made Land Grants to its citizens of retirement age to incentivize staying in Alta California.  One granted 13,132 acres to the Ávila family as Rancho Niguel in 1842, which they sold in small parcels.  In the 1870s, the Rawson brothers bought the remainder and bought back the original acreage.  In 1895, their 17,000 acres were sold to Lewis F. Moulton & Co., ⅓ owned by the Daguerre family and ⅔ owned by the Moultons.

  • 7. Ross Cortese’s Rossmoor Corporation

Expanding from flipping resale remodels to full-fledged single-family housing tracts in southern California, Ross Cortese incorporated his business as Rossmoor Corp. headquartered in today’s Taj Mahal Medical Building with 210 employees.  Completing Leisure World – Seal Beach, his first retirement community, he bought 3,600 acres of Niguel Ranch’s 22,000 acres, commonly called Moulton Ranch as of the 1930s.  Of those, 2,200 acres surrounded by walls were Leisure World – Laguna Hills

  • 8. Gerontology

Upon finishing Leisure World in Seal Beach, Ross Cortese commissioned a study on aging from the University of Southern California (USC).  Impressed by the content, his donation endowed the chair and created the first U.S. gerontology school, Rossmoor-Cortese Institute, today called USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.  Leisure World–Laguna Hills is the first community to provide for elderly people’s needs.  Prior retirement communities were marketed to buyers’ initial wants.

  • 9. Leisure World – Laguna Hills

When the first residents moved in on Sept. 10, 1964, a doctor and four nurses were available for healthcare in Clubhouse 1.  This predates government programs that evolved from gerontology.  The buildout took 18 years to complete 2,530 residential buildings, 12,736 manors, nine clubhouses (7 numbered), four golf courses, and five pools on 3.4 square miles within the walls.  With many amenities and 250 clubs, active retirement was redefined in Rossmoor’s Leisure World – Laguna Hills.

  • 10. City of Laguna Woods

When the Marine Corps closed its El Toro Air Station, Orange County planned to use it as an Intercontinental Airport.  This meant more air traffic over the 4,000-foot-wide flyway above our golf courses, so our community governance opposed it.  But county politicians resisted.  So, we incorporated the City of Laguna Woods in 1999, which gave us elected officials who joined politicians in other cities to stop the airport development.  Our city is named for 26,000 trees left from plantings by Rossmoor.

  • 11. Laguna Woods Village

After Ross Cortese died at 74 in 1991, Rossmoor Corp.’s dissolution meant Leisure World – Laguna Woods paid royalties to Cortese’s heirs for the right to use registered assets, e.g. Leisure World.  Community governance tried to reduce costs, which ended in litigation with the heirs.  The court ruled against us for annual amounts but said we are not obligated to continue using registered assets.  So, we decided to stop using them, and the community voted for the new name, Laguna Woods Village, in 2005.        

  • 12. Cosmopolitans

Laguna Woods Village celebrates our cultural diversity today.  Was this always the case?  After World War II as urban and suburban neighborhoods became more racially mixed, people of various European ancestries moved from cities to suburbs and exurbs for racially homogenous neighborhoods.  Called White Flight by sociologists, did this influence the development of our village?  We can infer little from recorded history.  Yet preconceptions still can complicate local human history.