Rocha, a respected local settler, was a blacksmith and businessman who had come from Portugal. There was some confusion as to whether the land was part of the Los Angeles pueblo in which case, provisional ownership would be correct or not.
The Rocha family hired lawyer, Henry Hancock, to help them with the grant clarification. A legal back and forth ensued and legal fees, then as now, were overwhelming. Senate, Hancock prevailed on his pal to fix his problem for him on a federal level. And Colegrove is where most of the Hollywood Media District lies.
Colegrove and the Rancho La Brea, for that matter were situated in what was then known as The Cahuenga Valley, an area where seemingly anything of the fruit and vegetable variety could be grown. As such, citriculture was the theme of the Colegrove era. For the next 30 years, life in Colegrove was easy, pastoral, juicy and lemon scented.
In alone this facility processed and shipped 17 and a half million lemons across the western U. Could anything this idyllic last?
Well, apparently the answer is no. It seems there was a growing animosity and a rivalry raining down on Colegrove from the immediate northβ¦.. Whatever the combination of perceived slights, animosity did, indeed, grow. When the widow Daeida Wilcox married Philo Beveridge a mere days after their first meeting, she soon arranged for his father, the former Governor of Illinois, to come out and live with them.
