Jon Ponder
Henry Hancock, with a vintage photo of the La Brea Tar PIts
Henry Hancock, with a vintage photo of the La Brea Tar PIts

Henry Hancock

Major Henry Hancock was an attorney, surveyor, and land speculator who lived in Los Angeles from 1852 until his death in 1883. He owned Rancho La Brea, a 4,444-acre holding that encompassed the 1.9-square-mile tract that is now West Hollywood. Born in Bath, New Hampshire, in 1822, Hancock attended Norwich Military Academy and graduated from Harvard University in 1846. After graduation, he moved to St. Louis and worked as a surveyor. When the war with Mexico began, he joined the Army and served in the Quartermaster Corps.

Hancock moved to California in 1849 and tried his hand at gold mining on the American River. He then relocated to San Diego, where he was appointed Collector of the Port. While in San Diego, he met Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian nobleman and founder of the Buena Vista Winery, remembered as the father of California’s modern viticulture industry. Hancock also met Haraszthy’s daughter, Ida, who would later become his wife.

In 1852, Hancock was elected to the California State Assembly from Los Angeles. He also began practicing law in the pueblo, focusing on real estate and property law. He was commissioned as a surveyor and drafted some of the pueblo’s first official property maps. It was then that he began purchasing real estate.

In 1860, Hancock acquired Rancho La Brea, a 4,444-acre parcel located about six miles west of Los Angeles. Most of the acreage was used for livestock grazing, but the ranch’s principal feature was its bitumen springs, also known as “tar pits,” which are pools of thick, viscous petroleum. The ranch’s name was derived from these bitumen pools, as “brea” means “tar” in Spanish.

The tar pits were a landmark on the ranch’s southern boundary. The land around the pits produced asphaltum, a natural paving material that was also used to seal the flat roofs of Spanish colonial-style buildings. A precursor to asphalt, asphaltum was more malleable and tended to soften in hot weather.

Rancho La Brea’s footprint today would encompass the city of West Hollywood and the Los Angeles districts of Hollywood, Hancock Park, Mid-Wilshire, and Miracle Mile. West Hollywood’s 1,216 acres are located in what was the ranch’s far northwestern corner. Its northern border ran along what is now the Sunset Strip. To the west, it shared a border with Rancho El Rodeo de las Aguas (the Gathering of the Waters), today’s Beverly Hills, which Henry Hancock and a partner had purchased in 1854.

There are no photographs of the willows by the pool behind Greek George's cabin, but it was similar to this cabin in Nevada in 1895
There are no photographs of the willows by the pool behind Greek George’s cabin, but it was similar to this cabin in Nevada in 1895

Greek George’s Ranch

The adobe cabin where the camels were kept on the ranch was less than three miles northwest of the tar pits. The compound included the house, a stable, a corral, and several outbuildings. Known locally as Greek George’s Ranch, the compound was surrounded by fields of waist-high native grasses — wild rye and deer grass — scattered sagebrush, and flowering foliage. Behind the house, a stand of willows had taken root along the banks of a pond, which was fed by a stream that ran a mile downhill from the Cahuenga Mountains, today’s Hollywood Hills.

Greek George lived alone in the one-story house. The front room served as both the living and dining room, and doors at the back of the room opened into two bedrooms. The kitchen was located in a lean-to shed on the side of the house.
On February 26, 1865, in Sonoma, Henry Hancock married Ida Haraszthy, the daughter of his wine-making friend, Agoston Haraszthy. When Henry and Ida returned to Los Angeles, they built a modest frame house near the tar pits. Henry set about modernizing asphaltum production by building a refinery to prepare the tar for commercial applications. The refinery produced five tons of asphaltum daily until 1887. Two decades later, after oil was discovered on Rancho La Brea, the business became the Hancock Oil Company.