Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
Cudahy's founder sold one-acre 'railroad lots' — 50 to 100 feet wide and 600 to 800 feet deep — meant for gardens, orchards, and chicken coops. A century later those extraordinary parcels host one of America's densest cities, and their geometry drives every survey.
Deep lots hide their own answers — tell us what is planned for yours and we will measure to it. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
Michael Cudahy bought 2,777 acres of Rancho San Antonio in 1908 and resold it as one-acre allotments — the famous Cudahy lots, narrow at the street and astonishingly deep behind. The plan was self-sufficiency: a vegetable garden, fruit trees, a stable or coop. What history delivered instead was infill, as generations added houses back along those long strips until Cudahy became one of the densest incorporated cities in the country.
Incorporated in 1960 and roughly a square mile in size, the city now packs its population onto that original parcel skeleton. Deep lots with multiple structures, shared driveways running hundreds of feet, and rear improvements the street never sees — this is survey country, and the questions are unlike anywhere else in the county.
A Cudahy retracement runs long: side lines stretching six to eight hundred feet, rear corners deep behind rows of structures, and evidence scattered along strips that have been fenced, built, and rebuilt for a century. The original allotment geometry is sound, and the county's records carry it — the fieldwork is reaching and recovering it through the accumulated occupancy.
Occupancy is the story. Long lots invited informal division — a second house here, a rented rear unit there, driveways shared by generations of agreement — and today's permits, sales, and ADU legalizations must reconcile all of it with the recorded parcel. We map what stands, establish the true lines, and give owners the measured base every formal process starts from.
Five services answer most Cudahy questions — the first two split by whether the line is trusted or contested:
The deep-lot situations that reach us from Cudahy:
Deep-lot scopes come together from a few basics:
We retrace the allotment record, plan access along the strip, then field-measure the full depth. The steps are on our how it works page.
They began as one-acre self-sufficiency allotments — Michael Cudahy's 1908 subdivision sold strips 50 to 100 feet wide and up to 800 feet deep so families could keep gardens, orchards, and animals. The plan's geometry outlived its purpose: the strips stayed, the city densified onto them, and every survey here works that inheritance.
What may be built is the city's zoning decision; what can be measured is ours. We establish the lines, map the existing structures and driveway, and document the rear area's true dimensions and access. Deep lots often hold more possibility than owners assume — and occasionally less, once the record is measured.
Start with one comprehensive picture: the recorded boundary, every structure located, and the occupied zones mapped. Informal arrangements cannot be formalized — by sale, lease, or division — until everyone sees the same measured facts. The legal paths forward are an attorney's counsel; the map is the ground they all stand on.
It takes planning, not magic — we coordinate access with you through the strip, work courteously around the households along it, and measure to the rear corners however deep they sit. Long-lot fieldwork is routine for us; the courtesy matters as much as the instruments.
More than the rear alone, quietly: the rear corners derive from the whole strip's record, so the retracement runs the full depth even when the stakes go only at the back. You get marks where the project needs them, backed by a resolution the entire lot can rely on later.
We serve property throughout Cudahy 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 Southern California Land Surveyors at (213) 787-3342 with the address and what you are planning, and we will scope the full depth of the question.