There's a small street in Woodland Hills called De La Osa. It refers to Vicente de la Ossa, an L.A. City Councilman in the 1830s who parlayed political power into real estate. He was the first owner of Rancho La Providencia, which today is Burbank. Artist J. Michael Walker says de la Ossa was greedy. He sold his rancho and started eyeing Rancho Los Encinos, owned by an absent landlord and two illiterate widows.

"The widow and daughter of the native men who had inherited Rancho Los Encinos probably didn't know they owed property tax, or if they did, they didn't know how to deal with it. And Vicente de la Ossa stepped in, paid a hundred dollars in property tax, and took away a third of their land."

Within three years, de la Ossa had acquired all 4,400 acres for $120. Today, De La Osa Street is all that remains of greedy Vicente de la Ossa. You can see an exhibit of J. Michael Walker's "All the Saints of the City of the Angels" at the Autry Museum.

(Airdate: 3/8/2008)