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Early Toluca Lake Engineering Street Map

Oriented with East at the top, this is a detailed map of the area immediately north of the Lakeside Golf Club and showing the area Toluca Lake and Valley Springs Lane and between Forman and Cylbourn Avenue.

Part of a small collection with several maps dated 1932, this would seem to be a very early engineering related plan, as it notes manholes, flush tanks, sewere lines and other early infrastructure.

Toluca Lake

Toluca Lake is located in the San Fernando Valley, the property was initially controlled by the Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After the 1823 Independence of Mexico, the area became part of the Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando owned by Pio Pico and the 1843 Rancho Providencia grant to Vincente de la Osa.

In 1862, Pío Pico sold his interests to Isaac Lankershim (operating as the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association). In 1873, Isaac Lankershim's son, James Boon Lankershim, and future son-in-law, Isaac Newton Van Nuys, took over management of the property and in the 1880s 

In 1893, a petition was submitted to create the "Toluca Post Office", at the suggestion of General Charles Forman, a wealthy local landowner.  Forman called his own ranch and the surrounding land "Toluca". One of the wealthiest men in Nevada, Forman had made his fortune in mining, then cattle ranching, and then lumber. After marrying Los Angeles native Mary Agnes Gray, he soon moved to the area in the late 1880s and started the Kern River Company, a power company which delivered electricity from generators at the Kern River to Los Angeles. He bought a farm in the San Fernando Valley which included most of modern-day Toluca Lake and by 1923, the Forman Toluca Lake Ranch was flourishing.

In 1923, investors bought and developed the land as Toluca Lake Park. The first venture failed, but a new group soon took over, renaming the firm as the Toluca Lake Company. With a "vision of creating a first 'bedroom community' for Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley" and simplified the name of the communite toToluca Lake.

The Lakeside golf course was designed in 1924 by Max Behr  Aviator Amelia Earhart lived in Toluca Lake on Valley Spring Lane after marrying publishing magnate George P. Putnam in 1931.