About South Gate

South Gate was incorporated in 1922, a petition for incorporating the town of South Gate was circulated by I.W. Lampman. The petition was signed by more than 50 qualified electors and presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. An election was held on January 2, 1923 to determine the will of the people. On January 20, 1923, the Board of Supervisors formally declared the incorporation of the “City of South Gate.” The population at that time was 2,500 people.

City Hall

During the 1st year of incorporation a City Hall was built at the intersection of Post and Victoria. This City Hall was replaced with a new City Hall in 1942, on California Avenue. The new City Hall is still in use today. In 1964, the old City Hall was demolished, the mosaic seen on the front of the building was removed and placed on a plaque in front of the new City Hall.

What is note worth about South Gate?

Amelia Earhart 
America’s famous aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, learned to fly at Kinner Field, a dirt field located on Century Boulevard at Long Beach Boulevard. She was born in Kansas in 1897 and came to California with her parents in 1921. She attended an air show in Long Beach and was immediately drawn to the idea of flying a plane. She took flying lessons from pioneer aviatrix Anita “Neta” Snook. By 1922, she had acquired her pilot’s license. In 1932, Amelia became the 1st woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She was also the 1st woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was awarded to her by the United States Congress. Amelia vanished without a trace in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world.

Post War South Gate

When the war was over, the city, industry, business, and the people all looked forward to a period of growth and prosperity. In 1945, 20 businessmen organized a Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of promoting the economic welfare and happiness of the community, through the creation of jobs and increase in commercial development.

South Gate History

Situated less than twelve miles from downtown Los Angeles and just under twenty miles from Los Angeles Harbor, South Gate is a young city, having laid its roots in the last century and grown to maturity in the past sixty years. During the eighteenth century, the area between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Pacific seacoast now occupied by South Gate was home to at least two villages of Gabrielino Indians whose ancestors had settled the area more than two thousand years before. Spanish explorers first ventured to California in the 1500s, but it wasn’t until the late 1770s that the Spanish made a permanent imprint on the Indian lands, building missions and striving to convert the native peoples to Catholicism and to teach them to live as Europeans. By the late nineteenth century, the traditional Gabrielino way of life was no longer evident.

Spanish ranchers controlled the future South Gate lands during much of the nineteenth century, before their ranches gave way to dairies and vegetable and fruit farms. By 1917 developers saw in the cauliflower fields and apple orchards the potential for a shiny new residential community, selling tracts of land for houses and introducing an infrastructure that also beckoned Eastern companies looking to gain a foothold in the West to expand their markets. Though financial difficulties threatened to ruin the fledgling community in the 1930s, and an earthquake destroyed buildings and took lives in 1933, South Gate managed to pull through. War industries buoyed the town in the early 1940s, with industrial and population growth combining to spur the city’s continued success throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

Agriculture in early South Gate

In the 1800s, cattle ranchers occupied the land which was to become South Gate. In the latter part of the century, sheep grazing, dairies, and farming became common. An 1880 study reported that the key crops grown in the area included alfalfa, barley, beets, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins. This agricultural focus would continue into the early twentieth century. When in 1917 developers first sold tracts of land in the new South Gate Gardens, their advertisement talked of the many apple orchards in the vicinity, and prospective landowners who ventured out to view available tracts found broad expanses of cauliflower fields. Eventually these farms conceded nearly all of their territory to the new cities of Los Angeles County. [SOURCES: “South Gate 1776-1976;” “South Gate Police Annual 1927”]