It’s the granddaddy of L.A. dynasties.
Its roots stretch back to the late 1780s, before the signing of the U.S. Constitution, when Catherine the Great still ruled Russia and Spain had only recently sent out its first exploration parties to settle the West Coast of “Alta America.”
Centuries later, the Watson family name along with those of their cousins the Carsons and the Del Amos graces countless roads, cities, shopping centers and charities.
Downtown L.A.-based Watson Land Co. remains one of the largest landowners in town, and still uses a corporate logo incorporating the family’s original land-grant seal from the King of Spain.
“We occupy a unique position as descendents of the first land-grant family in California,” said Watson Land Chairman William Huston, a Watson family member by marriage. “We are aware of the responsibility that comes with that role.
One of the oldest and most politically active families since the early days of this arid city, the Watsons have helped shape Southern California’s development while riding out their vacillating fortunes over the decades.
The Watson story starts in 1784, when Juan Jose Dominguez, a scout and interpreter for the Spanish Colonial Army, was rewarded for his loyal service with a 75,000-acre land grant from King Carlos III of Spain. Named Rancho San Pedro, the granted land stretched across South Bay territory that included what is now San Pedro, Torrance, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Carson, Dominguez Hills, Compton, Gardena, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Dominguez and his large family created one of the area’s leading rancheros for the following century, sitting at the center of the state’s social, religious, political and agribusiness activity.
But with the momentum of the westward expansion movement, the mostly Latino Los Angeles irrevocably changed. Outlaws, Mexican bandits and disgruntled local landowners (who would later inspire creation of the romantic character Zorro) turned Los Angeles into a setting for daily gunfights. Tensions flared between the founding Latino families and the new East Coast transplants.
But there was a far more serious threat. As the U.S. laid claim to California, the Spanish land-grant recipients were forced to go through tortuous court battles to get the federal government to recognize their grants. Because cattle ranching, with its variable meat prices and livestock diseases, was a somewhat precarious existence, the legal costs became prohibitive.
Patriarch Manuel Dominguez discovered a solution to his family’s mounting problems in James Alexander Watson, according to “California Legacy: The Watson Family” by Cal State Dominguez Hills History professor Judson Grenier.
A respected real estate attorney and political figure known as a dangerous hand with a gun, Watson seemed the family’s best bet to hold onto its land and secure its position in the increasingly Anglo city.
The Washington, D.C.-born Watson blew into town after stints in the Mexican War, the vigilante Texas Rangers, gold prospecting, and finally, a post with the newly formed state Democratic Party. In L.A., he used his political ties to procure a spot in the city’s inner social and power circles, and set up a healthy real estate law practice that worked with the landowners descended from the Spanish settlers. He became a frequent guest in the Dominguez home.
While the subsequent marriage of Watson and Manuel Dominguez’s 16-year-old daughter has not been described flat-out as arranged, family legend has it that Maria Dolores hid under her bed when first ordered to meet her future husband, scared by his reputation as a dead-shot gunslinger.
The couple’s 1855 marriage marked two milestones: the first historically documented merging of prominent Latino and Anglo families, and the beginning of a process that would make the Dominguez family the sole Spanish land-grant recipient in Southern California to retain its title. The U.S. Supreme Court formally approved the family’s title for 43,119 acres in the South Bay in 1858.
Watson and his wife ultimately settled on a 24-acre vineyard on the southern fringes of Los Angeles County. Watson remained an active politician, serving three terms in the state Assembly as a die-hard member of the Democratic Party, which then held conservative political views and was on the side of the Confederates in the Civil War. Watson died of natural causes at age 48, leaving his widow and four sons with an estate worth less than $3,000.
The family fortunes didn’t improve until Maria Dolores Watson received an inheritance upon the death of her father 13 years later.
The four Watson boys became active in the family land holdings, with son James taking over the family’s land management business a couple of years prior to his father’s death. He also led the charge to buy and lease more land throughout L.A.
The Watson land slowly grew more valuable as land use shifted from cattle ranching to farming, and some commercial uses. The value escalated even more when the new L.A. harbor was located in San Pedro, for which family members had actively lobbied, rather than Santa Monica.
In 1912, the family finally took the suggestion of longtime attorney Henry O’Melveny (founder of O’Melveny & Meyers) and formally consolidated their holdings under a corporate entity, the forerunner of Watson Land Co.
At this point, the family began to scatter beyond the South Bay, spreading throughout the city and out of town. While some moved to prosperous enclaves like Pasadena and the Wilshire area, most weren’t all that well-off.
The immense asset of Rancho San Pedro was illiquid, and it was still mostly used for farming. None of the estate companies were generating wealth solely through agriculture, and the family quibbled over whether to sell some land. According to Huston, one of the Watson women even came up with the idea to develop Dominguez Hills into a well-to-do area like Beverly Hills.
It wasn’t meant to be. Oil was discovered in the area, and the family’s fortunes changed radically.
Unocal, Shell and the predecessor of Atlantic Richfield Co. swept into the South Bay when oil was first discovered at Signal Hill in 1921. The Watson directors sold land to the oil companies for refineries the following year. For a while, the South Bay represented the largest concentration of refineries in the country.
By the time the oil frenzy settled down, total sales for the Watson family company reached over $4 million. Monthly dividend checks began to be issued to the family members, which helped carry them through the Great Depression.
Watson Land Co. kept its head above water throughout the ’30s, and continued to buy, lease and sell commercial buildings in areas ranging from Santa Monica to Glendale. But despite the business activity, the company’s worth remained rooted in the original Rancho San Pedro land.
Watson Land was briefly buoyed by World War II. Oil companies and the U.S. Air Force leased more land. For the next decade or so, the Watsons sold bits and pieces of their property to a variety of buyers. But for the most part, the company was stuck in neutral.
It was jolted into high gear in the ’60s, when the Watsons began to aggressively develop their land.
“There was nothing doing; the company just wasn’t active until the early ’60s,” said Huston, who was a tax lawyer and husband of James Alexander Watson’s great-granddaughter Susana before being named president of Watson Land Co. in 1963. “I was brought in because I was younger and had the energy to handle what everyone knew was a huge effort.”
That effort was to build and sell one of Southern California’s first industrial parks, the Watson Industrial Center. The $150 million, 350-acre complex helped turn Carson into one of L.A.’s industrial centers. By 1967, the assets of Watson Land reached $19.8 million, far above the $9.3 million it was worth the previous year.
Watson Land continued to expand, developing a business park in Carson in the mid-’70s and another one by the San Diego (405) Freeway in Carson in the early ’80s.
Like all developers, the Watsons were hard hit by the lengthy real estate slump in the early 1990s. The company did no speculative building, and its property occupancy rates were down to 80 percent, meaning that profits were eaten up by taxes and other costs.
Watson Land once again rode out the stagnant period, and once again is ready to expand now that the L.A. real estate scene has picked up. The company is operating at near 100 percent occupancy on the more than 10 million square feet of property it owns and manages. It has large projects underway in Rancho Dominguez and Carson. Huston said the company is looking for new acquisition opportunities, possibly outside of the South Bay area.
The Watsons still own roughly 1,500 acres of the original 75,000 Rancho San Pedro, and Watson Land Co. remains a family business. More than 100 Watson family members own just over half of the privately held corporation, and for many the company’s monthly dividend checks are their main source of income. Four family members remain on the board. Huston’s son Tom is the sole Dominguez family descendant working full time at the company.
“The family has led a completely non-flashy lifestyle for quite a while,” said an associate familiar with the Watsons. “Yet they are incredibly influential in Los Angeles in a non-public way.”
The family, especially Huston, consciously preserves its heritage of political and philanthropic duty. It has supported numerous, mostly Republican, politicians, including Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian to Pete Wilson and Dan Lungren. It also is dedicated to supporting educational causes, funding both parochial and non-denominational local inner-city private schools, and the Catholic Church’s scholarship program. Watson Land also is a leading donor to the United Way, and countless other local charities.
“It is our responsibility as a leading family to do all this,” said Huston.
