Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
Compton incorporated in 1888 — the Hub City, eighth in the county — on land settled by wagon-train families two decades earlier. Its founder reserved acreage for agriculture that survives today as Richland Farms, where barns and horses still share the city with dense urban blocks.
City lot or agricultural-zone acreage, describe the project and we will match the survey to it. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
Griffith D. Compton's settlers arrived in 1867, and the city they incorporated in 1888 carries some of the region's oldest municipal history — with a founding condition that still shapes the map: land zoned solely for agriculture, named Richland Farms. Those generous lots, platted for families to keep gardens, barns, and livestock, remain a working agricultural-residential district inside a modern city.
Around Richland Farms, Compton built out in the twentieth century's waves — streetcar-era blocks, then dense postwar tracts. The survey docket spans both worlds: compact urban lots with fence, setback, and escrow questions on one side; on the other, the Farms' deep parcels where stables, corrals, and outbuildings raise placement questions most cities never see.
A cross-section of the requests we field from Compton:
The oldest blocks retrace from nineteenth-century plats and long deed chains — patient research work with results as firm as any modern tract. The postwar neighborhoods carry standard mid-century records with the usual worn evidence. Across both, fences have long substituted for monuments, and one careful retracement often reveals what an entire block has quietly mislocated.
Richland Farms behaves like small acreage: deeper lots, agricultural improvements placed by generations of practical judgment, and boundaries that matter more as the district's rural character gets more precious. We retrace the lines, locate the barns and corrals where the project calls for it, and document restored corners with the county — leaving the record stronger each time.
Six services carry the city's docket — lines first, documentation where sales and permits need it:
It was reserved for agriculture at the city's founding — the donor stipulated it — and its lots were sized for gardens, barns, and livestock. For surveying that means deeper parcels, agricultural improvements to locate, and owners who care intensely about lines because the district's character depends on them.
Potentially among the county's oldest — central blocks trace to nineteenth-century plats, with deed chains running continuously since. Age deepens the research, not the uncertainty: the record is intact, and retracement lands the lines where that record puts them. Newer tracts to the south and west carry standard mid-century maps.
One survey establishes the true lines for the lots it covers, and neighbors often extend the scope together once the first result shows the pattern — block-wide retracement costs far less per lot than ten separate jobs. The zigzag usually turns out to be decades of fences copying fences; the record is straighter than the wood.
The zoning rules are the city's; the placement facts are ours. We locate the lines and existing structures and map the measured distances, so your plans show the stable exactly where it may sit. On Richland Farms lots the margins are usually generous — but generous is not the same as assumed.
A survey exhibit: the located boundary, the back house mapped in position, and the measured distances between them, signed and dated. Lenders and escrow officers ask for exactly this when an extra structure raises questions, and it usually settles the matter in one page.
Whatever subset exists will sharpen the scope:
Record research first — the Hub City's chains run deep — then a confirmed scope, fieldwork, and delivery. The steps are on our how it works page.
We serve property throughout Compton and across Los Angeles County — request a survey quote for any parcel in the area.
Survey scope and deliverables depend on title records, site conditions, and what your project requires. Call (213) 787-3342 to discuss the property and the survey you need.
Call (213) 787-3342 with the address and the plan, and Southern California Land Surveyors will scope the research and fieldwork your parcel's era requires.