Photoessay #1537 - San Gabriel Valley

Picture of endless orange groves with the caption

1942, looking north San Gabriel – Covina
Photo courtesy of Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office

Looking at the map San Gabriel and Covina are at least 10 miles apart. I'm going to guess that the straight road in the center of the picture is (now) Hwy 39, South Azusa Avenue which puts the picture more towards Covina about 15 miles east of Pasadena. Hwy 39 veers east and goes into the mountains as San Gabriel Canyon Road. The area to the right which is not planted looks like part of the foothills which are still uninhabited.

That fits my purposes even better. What do you see in this picture? Endless citrus groves and some spectacular mountains. No towns really. 1942. The center of the picture, to the north are the sites of the future towns of Duarte, Azusa, Glendora.

Future, they're not there yet. No towns.

Aerojet was formed in 1942, the year this photo is taken by some scientists at Cal Tech.

My parents moved to this area in 1951. Only 9 years later. By then, the town are there and there's a big Aerojet plant in Azusa (now a superfund site). S\It's located somewhere near the end of the road in the picture, My father, a young aeronautical engineer, has been recruited from General Dynamics (not sure) in Hartford. They rent a house in Duarte west of the main road. My birth certificate contains the Duarte address. Later they buy a house in Glendora to the east of the road but likely still in the picture. My mother says that her house in Glendora has xx (she had an exact number) of orange trees in her backyard.

Things moved lightening fast in Southern California. In less than 10 years, my parents are settling in towns with developed downtowns and services that are nowhere to be found in 1942. The mobile population also moves quickly. By 1956, my parents are gone to their next stop on the young California engineer postwar shuffle. And even during that time, my parents and myself as a baby spent 9 months in Oak Ridge Tennessee where my father went to reactor school.

This beautiful agrarian landscape will be quickly destroyed. In 1942, 57154 acres are reports as bearing citrus in Los Angeles County. In 1951 (when they moved there), the number has dropped to 44,230. By 1956 (around the time they left), 26,100 acrea and down to 16,577 in 1959.

The young aerospace engineers move on leaving it all behind.