Rancho La Ciénega ó Paso de la Tijera

About

Rancho La Ciénega ó Paso de la Tijera was a 4,219-acre (17.07 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California, given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Vicente Sánchez. "La Cienega" is derived from the Spanish word ciénega, which means swamp or marshland and refers to the natural springs and wetlands in the area between Beverly Hills and Park La Brea and the Baldwin Hills range.

"Paso de la Tijera" appears in c. 1860 maps where a path crosses a stream, at today's intersection of Crenshaw Blvd. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Some sources say the term means "Pass of the Scissors" and was used by Spanish settlers to describe a pass through the Baldwin Hills which resembled an open pair of scissors, though another (Marinacci) says that "tijera" almost always means "drainage ditch" in old land descriptions.