What's Mello-Roos and why should you care? Find out from Tami Cicerello on this edition of "Real Estate Beat" with Gene Bleecker and Terry Bleecker.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles county has amassed one of the world's most extensive collections of natural and cultural history. It also curates new, immersive exhibitions that give visitors the opportunity to explore the "big picture" of our planet - specimens and objects, the stories behind them, and the increasing interrelatedness of the natural and cultural worlds.  

        No sooner had Gen. Edward F. Beale drawn up this map of Jose Covarrubias' Rancho Castac (aka Castec, the Lebec-Fort Tejon area) in November 1862 than he turned around and bought the property in 1863 through an intermediary. That's the sort of thing that got Beale fired from his job as U.S. Surveyor-General for California and Nevada. Abraham Lincoln said he didn't want a surveyor who became "monarch of all he has surveyed." 

        Instead of using latitude and longitude, Beale used oak trees and other natural features as boundary markers. The southern tip of the rancho is delineated by the "real" Castaic Lake, across today's I-5 from Lebec - not to be confused with the man-made Castaic Reservoir of a century later. About halfway up on the left is Fort Tejon; in between the lake and the fort are grapevines (uvas), hence the name, Grapevine - which has nothing to do with the windy Ridge Route road of the 20th Century.