Machado Lake

Machado Lake

Machado Lake is located in the Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park bounded by Anaheim Street, South Vermont Street, Pacific Coast Highway and the 110 Freeway in Harbor City. The regional park, at 241 acres, probably contains the greatest bio-diversity of any like sized site in Los Angeles County, but certainly in the coastal section of the county.

The lake was named for Antonio Machado, who had married the widow of Jose Dolores Sepulveda (who first laid claim to Rancho de los Palos Verdes in a dispute with the Dominquez family over rights over part of Rancho San Pedro in the early 1800 €™s ) shortly after Jose died in 1824 .Historians suspect that the subsequent union of Machado and Sepulveda’s widow came about so she would have a husband to protect the Sepulveda family’s claim to the land and the lake, which later bore Machado’s name.

Machado lived where the golf course sits today. Juan Capistrano Sepulveda, stepson of Antonio Machado and one of two sons of Jose Dolores Sepulveda, built his adobe home near the intersection known as €œFive Points € in San Pedro, which is the convergence of the following five streets: Palos Verdes Drive North, Gaffey Street, Anaheim Street, Vermont Avenue and Normandie Avenue. The casa was located on the bluff on the northwest side of this intersection, possibly the site of the trailer park, and the casa overlooked Machado Lake.

The lake is generally considered to have been an “oxbow”, or “bend in a river”, from the L.A. River’s location at some point in the past. It was tidal at some point as well. Many effects are still present, such as beach sand and many “sea shells” in some areas. Going back to the earliest of known times, it was a center of Native American habitization locally, with several villages around it over the years. The water at Machado Lake was so clean that it used to be called “Sweet Water.”When the Spaniards invaded from Mexico and enslaved the Native Americans,
it remained at the center of activity, with trading posts (the “Casa de Sangre” at 5-points), etc. around it.

The riparian willow forest around the lake was named Canada de los Palos Verdes in the mid-1600’s by the explorer Sebastian Vizcaino. The site was known as Bixby Slough for some time when owned by the Bixby family of Long Bch in the late 1800 €™s (a sign on PCH at the Wilmington Drain still calls it such). For many years, Lake Machado and the aquifer surrounding the lake was the primary source of drinking water for the Palos Verdes Peninsula once development began in the early 1920 €™s.

The city of L.A. purchased the lake in the 1950’s to preserve it as open space in the big city. It was officially developed into a park in the very late 1960’s. That was when the lawns and facilities were put in on the west side of the lake along Vermont Avenue.

For more South Bay and Palos Verdes History, see my web site at http://www.southbayhistory.com