Los Tract

Los Tract is one of only two neighborhoods the City of Buena Park draws in two separate pieces on its boundary layer. Together they cover 133.6 acres holding 690 addresses across 688 parcels, on 4.37 miles of street with lots running to a median of 0.143 acres. Twenty two streets serve it and nineteen begin with Los: Los Alamos, Los Altos, Los Amigos, Los Amores, Los Angeles, Los Arcos, Los Cientos, Los Encinos, Los Feliz, Los Flores, Los Indios, Los Molinos, Los Nietos, Los Pacos, Los Palos, Los Ramos, Los Ranchos, Los Rapidos and Los Santos.

The city zones 101.3 acres for 6,000 square foot one family residential lots and 1.8 acres for offices. Mail splits between two zip codes, 90620 and La Palma's 90623, and the neighborhood straddles two elementary districts: it feeds George B. Miller Elementary in Centralia over about half the boundary and Steve Luther Elementary in Cypress over the rest, then Walker Junior High and John F. Kennedy High for all of it.

The plural masculine drawer of Buena Park's Spanish street system, and the one with the best joke buried in it. Los Alamos is the poplars, Los Encinos the live oaks, Los Molinos the mills, Los Arcos the arches, Los Amigos the friends, Los Amores the loves, Los Ramos the branches, Los Rapidos the rapids, Los Santos the saints, Los Altos the heights and Los Ranchos the ranches. Then there is Los Nietos, which translates as the grandchildren and is also the surname of the family that owned this ground.

Manuel Nieto received a Spanish grant covering the whole district in 1783. His heirs, the actual grandchildren, divided it into five ranchos in 1834, and the piece under Buena Park was Rancho Los Coyotes, roughly 46,806 acres. Juan Jose Nieto sold it in 1840 to Juan Bautista Leandry. Whether the street was named deliberately or by a developer working through a Spanish phrasebook, it lands on the right family.