Rose Hills, Los Angeles

Rose Hills
Neighborhood of Los Angeles
Rose Hills Location within Central Los Angeles
Coordinates:
Country	United States
State	California
County	Los Angeles
City	Los Angeles
Government
• City Council	José Huizar
• State Assembly	Jimmy Gomez (D)
• State Senate	Kevin de Leon (D)
• U.S. House	Xavier Becerra (D
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP code	90032
Area code(s)	323

Rose Hills is a small Los Angeles City neighborhood in the Eastside Los Angeles region of the County of Los Angeles, California.

Rose Hills as mapped by the Los Angeles Times. Cal State Los Angeles is in the lower right corner.

History

The community of Rose Hills has a long and profound record of history. Data, archives, maps, and historical reports have indicated that Rose Hills was once part of the lands titled "Rancho Rosa de Castilla" and filed land claim #309 SD in the year of 1852. The history of the community starts back over 5,000 years, when the Native Tongva people-Kizh Nation lived in the Los Angeles basin. At that time, the Tongva named the villages in relation to local features. You may notice and hear current names of other communities such as (Topanga, Tujunga, Cucamonga, Cahuenga, and Azusa) and many others. The name of the village where this community rests was once called 'Otsungna', the largest Village of the Tongva tribe. The word 'Otsungna' translates to "Place of Roses." In a sea expedition in 1602, the first record of 'Rosa de Castilla' was coined by Padre Antonio de la Ascension, as noted in his voyage log.

During the Spanish Exploration led by Gasper de Portola in 1769, the men traveled through the area and made several notes about the abundant amount of roses they saw during the expedition. Father Junipero Serra also made a kind remark in his diary - that they had "met the Queen of them all, the 'Rosa de Castilla'". After the founding of 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de la Reina de Los Angeles Sobre el Rio Porciuncula' (Los Angeles), a large area outside the pueblo was named 'Rancho Rosa de Castilla'. The first recorded owner of the Rancho was Juan Ballesteros, registrar of the pueblo, granted to him in 1831. Nearly twenty years later the land had been transferred twice, now owned by Anacleto Lestrade, priest of Our Lady of the Angels Church in the pueblo (mission). The Priest filed his claim for the land grant as ordered by the Land Commission in California in 1852. One of the original 36 adobes in California was built on Rancho Rosa de Castilla.

There had been many notable references promoting the community such as the Southwest Museum (of the American Indian), Rose Hill Elementary School (now Huntington Drive Elementary), Rose Hill Regional Park (now Ernest Debs Regional Park), Rose Road (now Huntington Drive), Rose Hill Pharmacy (no longer stands), Our Lady of Guadalupe (Rose Hill), Rose Hill Recreation Center, and Rose Hill Courts. Rose Hill also was the name of a stop on the Pacific Electric's Sierra Vista line.