Los Angeles is governed under a charter adopted in 1924, in operation from July 1, 1925. It provides for the initiative, the referendum, the recall and an executive budget. The mayor (the chief executive, with wide powers of appoint ment), the city attorney, the controller and the seven members of the board of education are elected at large. The 15 members of the council (the legislative body) are elected by districts for a term of two years. The principal functions of government are entrusted to 18 commissions of 5 members each, appointed by the mayor, serving without salary, which appoint and fix the salary of general managers for their departments. There is also a municipal housing commission of 15 members and a board of appointment of 4 judges and the president of the Chamber of Commerce.
In 1769 an expedition under Gaspar de Portola, which had been sent to San Diego, marched from that point in July and on Aug. I reached an Indian village called "Yang-na," on the present site of Los Angeles. The place was named on the following day, Aug. 2, the day of "Our Lady Queen of the Angels" (Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles), by Father Juan Crespi. The pueblo, however, was not founded until Sept. 1781. The Franciscan mission of San Gabriel—still a famous landmark— had been established ten years earlier a few miles eastward. After Mexico's independence from Spain (1822) frequent political dis turbances and revolts hampered the little town. In 1835 it was made a city by the Mexican Congress, and declared the capital, but the last provision was not enforced and was soon repealed. In 1845-47 it was the actual capital of California. The city was rent by factional quarrels when war broke out between Mexico and the United States and with the appearance of the United States troops under Commodore Robert F. Stockton and Gen. John C. Fremont
the defenders of Los Angeles fled ; the American flag was raised over the city on Aug. 13, 1846. A garrison of 5o men, left in con trol, was compelled in October to withdraw on account of a revolt of the inhabitants, and Los Angeles was not retaken until Gen. S. W. Kearny and Commodore Stockton entered the city on Jan. 18, 1847. The city was incorporated in 185o, and in that year the .first English school was opened and the first Protestant church established. Los Angeles continued to grow steadily thereafter until it attained railway connections with San Francisco in 1876, and with the east by the Santa Fe system in 1885. A carload of oranges was sent east by rail in 1877, and then began a new era of horticultural enterprise. A rate war between competing rail ways and a simultaneous land boom brought thousands of visitors to Southern California. A large portion of these travellers became permanent settlers. It is also from this period (about 189o) that the "tourist era" dates. Each succeeding decade showed remark able increases in population, industry and wealth. In 1914 the city's harbour (San Pedro) was opened, and with the Panama Canal open, Los Angeles began to benefit by its position on a new world trade route. The discovery of rich new oil fields and the de velopment of manufacturing enterprises made the decade 192o-30 momentous, and this has continued with the steady success of the cinema, continued public building, and the coming of cheap power.