There are many inconsistencies in the tale of the Schwall/Swall family and their holdings in this part of town, so take everything with a grain of salt. Mathias (1824-1896) and Elizabeth (1830-1916) Schwall were German immigrants who met and married in Illinois in 1847, then came to California in 1865. They had somewhere between ten and thirteen children, who would anglicize their surname to “Swall”. The family hopped around from one CA farming community to another, with the kids eventually starting their own families and spreading out across the state. (William, the eldest, was a Tulare County pioneer; Matt was prominent in Arroyo Grande.) Sometime in the early 1880s, Elizabeth purchased around 200 acres of Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. She, Mathias, and their youngest sons Joseph (1871-1959) and Lucian (1874-1943) then settled along present-day Doheny Drive, their ranch stretching between Sunset and Beverly boulevards. Joseph and Lucian established the Swall tract on that land in 1901. There was a Swall Avenue by 1910 – several Swalls lived upon it – but that little byway later became the northern tip of Robertson Blvd. in WeHo. Today’s Swall Drive didn’t properly exist until 1923, most likely south of the Swalls’ original property.
Find it on the map:
