Archaeological evidence shows people in the Culver City area since at least 8000 BCE, and the region was the homeland of the Tongva. The city was founded on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona and Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, part of the land grants made by Spain and Mexico between 1785 and 1846. During the Civil War the Army post of Camp Latham stood on the south bank of Ballona Creek from 1861 to 1862.
More about Culver City
Harry Culver first tried to establish the city in 1913, and it was incorporated on September 20, 1917, and named for him. It benefited from existing transportation links, and his early ads proclaimed "All roads lead to Culver City." Like most suburbs around Los Angeles at the time, it was founded as a whites-only sundown town; Culver advertised "this model little white city," his associate Guy M. Rush sold lots "restricted to Caucasian race," and the city at times also excluded people of non-Christian faiths. The weekly Culver City Call, founded in 1915, was its first newspaper.
Thomas Ince built the city's first film studio in 1918 for the Triangle Motion Picture Company, Hal Roach built his studios there in 1919, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer took over the Triangle complex in 1924. During Prohibition speakeasies and nightclubs lined Washington Boulevard. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941, where it built the H-4 Hercules, known as the Spruce Goose, and Culver Center, one of Southern California's first shopping malls, opened in 1950.
Sources
Wikipedia: Culver City, California