Incredible images of Los Angeles when it was covered in wetlands

Before Los Angeles became the center of the film industry, it was covered in wetlands and farmland.

The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project recently began mapping LA's lost Ballona Creek watershed, which once spanned thousands of acres and ranged from freshwater ponds to marshes to meadows for several centuries.

European colonists later came and formed the city's first street grid, destroying around a third of these wetlands.

Archival photos from the USC Libraries show what LA looked like before it became a modern municipality. Take a look at the city's transformation.

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Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola founded LA's first official settlement in 1769.

That year, Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí wrote that the explorers "came across a grove of very large alders ... from which flows a stream of water ... The water flowed afterwards in a deep channel towards the southwest," referring to the headwaters of Ballona Creek.

The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project focuses on the years between 1850 and 1890, before European settlement completely transformed the land.

Source: The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project

In the late 19th century, the Ballona Creek's wetlands stretched over 8,100 acres, according to the researchers.