This is for the map junkies out there.
Here is a rather parochial (i.e. Alamitos-centric) selection from a c.1953 map of Ranchos in Orange County. (It was labeled as a 1955 map, but I’m assuming it is about 1953 since Disneyland is not shown on the map.) (Click to it and go to a large version of the map for the entire county). There are three things of particular interest to me:
1) Notice how the “town” of Los Alamitos at that time extended only to Kaylor Avenue, barely extending beyond the “Los” in Los Alamitos.
2) Also interesting is the prominence of “City Garden Acres” as a designated community. Now the term is almost never in use — it is basically always referred to as “Apartment Row.”
3) Finally, look at the so-called “4th corner” (the area south of Katella and west of Los Alamitos Boulevard). There is not one structure on it. That is because the rest of Los Alamitos was built on land subdivided and made available by the Bixby Land Company — which was an offshoot of the Jotham and Lewellyn Bixby families of Rancho Los Cerritos. The 4th corner land was owned by Jotham and Lewellyn’s younger cousin, John W. Bixby — and his J.W. Bixby Company — which after his early and untimely death, passed down to his childen, Fred H. Bixby and Susannah Bixby Bryant. Fred’s operation later became known as the Bixby Ranch Company. Susannah owned the 4th corner section immediately immediately south of Katella, and after she died in 1946, the land was sold to two individuals and the Irvine Company. It stayed in their hands until Ross Cortese optioned it as part of his new Rossmoor development in 1955. While Los Alamitos can certainly try to annex the land nowadays, it would be tough to justify that historically the land has always been part of Los Alamitos because it seems very apparent the owners of the land have deliberately made sure that wasn’t so.
(map courtesy of the OC Archives on Flickr. Check them out, they’re doing good things)