L.A. TACO Neighborhood Guides: Westwood

This guide to the restaurants, history, and sights of Westwood is sponsored by Eduardo's Border Grill.

FIRST, A SHORT HISTORY OF WESTWOOD, BY ARTIST ADAM VILLACIN

The land that modern-day Westwood occupies was once inhabited by the Chumash. Once that society had mostly moved to the Channel Islands, the Tongva people settled in (around 3500 BCE). A village named Kuruvungna (meaning "a place where we are in the sun") once stood in the current Sawtelle neighborhood. 

Rancho San José de Buenos Ayres was a Mexican land grant that transferred hands a few times before it ended up with the director of the L.A. and Pacific Railroad, John Wolfskill.

A portion of the land was donated to the federal government in 1887 to be used for the care of Civil War and "Frontier Wars" veterans. In 1919, department store impresario Arthur Letts bought 3,300 acres of land for $2 million. UCLA moved in. Letts came up with the names Westwood and Holmby Hills.