As one of the oldest neighborhoods in LA, El Sereno has quite a history.

The El Sereno area was first visited by Europeans in 1769 when the Spanish overland Portola Expedition passed just south of present-day El Sereno. In 1771, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was founded, including the area that became El Sereno area of its lands was used for cattle grazing, and an adobe building was constructed there in 1776.

In 1784, three years after the Pueblo was founded, Spanish Governor Pedro Fages granted all the lands between the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco to Jose Maria Verdugo. The Rancho San Rafael as it was known, covered approximately 36,000 acres (14,569 ha). The El Sereno area was not included in either the pueblo or Rancho San Rafael.

El Sereno was later part of the Mexican Rancho Rosa Castilla land grant. Around 1810, a New Spain government’s adobe toll house was built next to the road from the Mission to the Pueblo (present-day Valley Boulevard/Alhambra Avenue), near present-day Warwick Avenue and Martin Street, just north of Alhambra Avenue.

The first roads were built in 1859 and ran along Valley Blvd.

The Southern Pacific Railroad was built through El Sereno in 1876 with a stop at Aurant.

On May 1, 1895, the first inter-urban rail route in Southern California opened from Los Angeles to Pasadena along the Arroyo Seco, spurring subdivisions along that passage. By 1915, eleven tracts had been subdivided in the Bairdstown area, centered at Farmdale Avenue (now Eastern Avenue) and Huntington Drive.

During WW1 El Sereno’s population rose as the country prepared for the war. Because of the rationing of gas and rubber, most new residents who came to work at the aircraft and munitions factories in Los Angeles moved to communities along the Pacific Electric routes. EI Sereno experienced huge industrial growth during the war years.

A handful of the families that moved here at the time were Italian-American. The rise in population led to the construction of the El Sereno Theatre at 3333 Eastern Avenue; it was the third theater in the community.

After WW2, restrictions had prevented Mexican-American families who lived in the adjacent communities of Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights from purchasing homes in EI Sereno. After restrictions were lifted by a 1948 Supreme Court decision (Shelly v. Kraemer), many Mexican-American families moved to EI Sereno. The demand for housing after World War II was satisfied by the construction of new neighborhoods in the southern end of EI Sereno.