Rancho Dominguez, California

The communities of unincorporated Rancho Dominguez are: Rancho Dominguez, East Rancho Dominguez, and West Rancho Dominguez. Prior to earlier partitioning, Rancho Dominguez also contained the sites of the cities of Compton, Carson and a portion of North Long Beach.

History

Originally Rancho Dominguez was a small part of the Spanish land grant Rancho San Pedro, from the King of Spain in 1784. The Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum on South Alameda Avenue is the historic ranch home of land grantee Juan Dominguez and Manuel Dominguez, the men for whom the area is named. The Dominguez family lived in the home until the 1920s and it is now a retirement home for Claretian Catholic priests.

In the late 1800s most of the southern part of Rancho Dominguez and the land leading down to the Los Angeles Harbor was acquired by the railroad industry. Today these railroad tracks are used for the same purpose, and is a valuable tie between the Port of Los Angeles and Downtown Los Angeles.

Rancho Dominguez was home to California State University, Dominguez Hills. However, when Carson gained cityhood in 1968, it incorporated the Dominguez Hills section of Rancho Dominguez within its city boundaries.