Earlier settlers in what is now Oakland chose to establish their community in the area east of what is now Lake Merritt, with its towering redwoods and abundant pastureland. In 1822, Luis Peralta, a Spanish aristocrat in Mexico was granted from the King of Spain a vast plot of land, extending from El Cerrito in the north to San Lorenzo in the south, on condition that he come to settle it. Peralta's son Antonio settled in a large estate in what is now Oakland's Fruitvale District. A small town, known as San Antonio, emerged around a plaza laid out for weekly fiestas for the ranch hands. His land produced great quantities of hides that were shipped around the world from a dock at the foot what is now 13th Avenue, shown here about 1885. All along the East Bay shoreline, where commerce developed, so did a small community, and soon a string of villages from Oakland in the west to Elmhurst in the east lined the main route to San Jose.