Talk about holdouts. By the spring of 1959, the roughly 20 remaining residents of Chavez Ravine had been at it for nearly a decade. Their tight-knit neighborhood, nestled in a canyon just east of downtown Los Angeles, had been slotted for redevelopment under the Housing Act of 1949, which promised remedy for postwar housing shortages via construction of low-income public housing. Hundreds of locals were promptly relieved of their properties through eminent domain, cash buyouts, and right of return offers. But the planned development—the 3,600-unit Elysian Park Heights—was not to be. By 1953, political support had shifted with the election of L.A. mayor Norris Poulson, who ran on an anti-communist platform opposed to “socialist housing,” and whose first step was to abort the Elysian Park project. Displaced Chavez Ravine locals, many of whom had roots going back to the 1880s, were out in the cold. Those who remained adopted a siege mentality.

Bridesmaids and best man at a wedding in Chavez Ravine in 1929. (Los Angeles Public Library)

For years the city was unsuccessful in attracting new developers to the site still earmarked for “public purposes.” Eventually it was offered to baseball mogul Walter O’Malley, who saw the potential for a new home for his team—the Brooklyn Dodgers. Predatory acquisition tactics ensued, including a tiered buy-out scheme which offered increasingly lower amounts to sellers who stalled, exploiting their fear of losing out on the maximum payment. In reality the prices paid were well below market value. Some of the last to go were Manuel and Abrana Arechiga, who had been in Chavez Ravine for 45 years, and who were joined by their daughter, Aurora Vargas, and extended family.

On May 8, 1959, after years of debate over the public good of a professional baseball team, the remaining residents of Chavez Ravine were forcibly evicted by Los Angeles County Sheriffs. Aurora Vargas, a war widow, was physically removed from her home, manhandled by four officers and rammed into a squad car. Press photos from the contentious eviction and subsequent demolition of the Arechiga family home show a media frenzy convening on the steps Chavez Ravine’s remaining clapboard farmhouses.

Aurora Vargas struggles with sheriff deputies during her family’s forced eviction in 1959. (Miller/USC Libraries)

Even after their home was bulldozed, the elderly Arechigas persisted, setting up camp on the site. The 63-year-old Abrana was quoted in the papers saying, “We started in a tent then and maybe we’ll end in a tent.”

The Arechigas finally left for east Los Angeles in 1961, but the trauma of their experience lingered. A June 1978 follow up in The Los Angeles Times found Aurora Vargas still hurting from the memories of uncertainty and violence. “Actually I had a nervous breakdown after it happened, and I spent 30 days in jail,” she revealed to reporter Penelope McMillan. “I think they did that to scare the other homeowners not to fight. And they didn’t. We were the example.”