Most people associate historic America with properties east of the Mississippi River. This is for good reason: these early colonies and states established the foundation for our modern federal government.But, west of the Mississippi is a fruitful historic landscape worthy of exploration in somewhat unexpected cities, like Los Angeles.What is now Los Angeles was founded thrice—once in 1781 by a group of 44 settlers known as Los Pobladores, once when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1835 and again in 1850 when the city became an American municipality five months after California became a state.The first dwellings of the Los…