When did Long Beach California get discovered and by who?

Question: When did Long Beach California get discovered and by who!?
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Indigenous people have lived in coastal southern California for at least ten thousand years!. Over the centuries, several successive cultures inhabited the present-day area of Long Beach!. By the time Spanish explorers arrived in the 16th century, the dominant group were the Tongva people!. They had at least three major settlements within the present day city boundaries!. Tevaaxa'anga was an inland settlement near the Los Angeles River, while Ahwaanga and Povuu'nga were coastal villages!. Along with other Tongva villages, they disappeared in the mid 1800s due to missionization, political change, and a drastic drop in population from exposure to European diseases!.

The Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos were divided from the larger Rancho Los Nietos, which had been granted by the Spanish Empire's, King Carlos III in 1784 to a Spanish soldier, Manuel Nieto!. The boundary between the two ranchos ran through the center of Signal Hill on a southwest to northeast diagonal!. A portion of western Long Beach was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro, and was in dispute for years, due to flooding changing the Los Angeles River boundary, between Juan Jose Dominguez and Manuel Nieto's ranchos!.

Rancho Los Cerritos was bought in 1843 by John Temple, a Yankee who had come to California in 1827 !. Soon after he built what is now known as the "Los Cerritos Ranch House," an adobe which still stands and is a National Historic Landmark!. Temple created a thriving cattle ranch and prospered, becoming the wealthiest man in Los Angeles County!. Both Temple and his ranch house played important local roles in the Mexican-American War!.

Meanwhile, on an island in the San Pedro Bay, Mormon pioneers made an abortive attempt to establish a colony (as part of Brigham Young's plan to establish a continuous chain of settlements from the Pacific to Salt Lake)!.

In 1866 Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos to the Northern California sheep-raising firm of Flint, Bixby & Co, which consisted of brothers Thomas and Benjamin Flint and their cousin Lewellyn Bixby, for $20,000!. Two years previous Flint, Bixby had also purchased along with Northern California associate James Irvine three ranchos which would later become the city that bears Irvine's name!. To manage Los Cerritos, the company selected Lewellyn's brother Jotham Bixby, the "Father of Long Beach", to manage their southern ranch, and three years later Jotham bought into the property and would later form the Bixby Land Company!. In the 1870s as many as 30,000 sheep were kept at the ranch and sheared twice yearly to provide wool for trade!. In 1880, Bixby sold 4,000 acres (16 km2) of the Rancho Los Cerritos to William E!. Willmore, who subdivided it in hopes of creating a farm community, Willmore City!. He failed and was bought out by a Los Angeles syndicate which called itself the "Long Beach Land and Water Company!." They changed the name of the community to "Long Beach", which was incorporated as a city in 1888!.Www@QuestionHome@Com