![santa_monica_1877](https://lede-admin.lataco.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/santa_monica_1877.jpg?w=710)
Check out this bird's eye map of Santa Monica as it appeared in 1877. Because it was so sparsely populated, it's easy to see the configuration of the streets (most of which is still there), and imagine how the city has grown in the last 130+ years. The biggest obvious change is that Wilshire, Santa Monica, Olympic, Pico, etc. were substituted for their original state names such as Oregon and Utah. Click for the larger version. Via the Library of Congress.