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City of Los Angeles company history timeline

1850

The people of Los Angeles County on April 1, 1850 asserted their newly won right of self-government and elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first governing body.

In 1850 Los Angeles was incorporated.

18, 1850, the County of Los Angeles was established as one of the 27 original counties, several months before California was admitted to the Union.

In 1850 the first salable petroleum in California was the oil found at Pico Canyon near San Fernando.

1851

Then in 1851, Los Angeles gained its first newspaper.

1852

In 1852 the Legislature dissolved the Court of Sessions and created a five-member Board of Supervisors.

1861

In the winter of 1861–62, a flood left the western part of the Los Angeles basin looking like a chain of lakes dotted with islands.

1869

The construction of a railroad from Los Angeles to the harbor in 1869 gave a fresh impetus to the development of agricultural resources in the county.

1870

By 1870 their numbers grew to more than 4,000.

1874

In 1874 the first streetcar began operating in Los Angeles.

1880

Furthermore, the University of Southern California was founded in 1880.

1893

Meanwhile, the Bradbury Building was built in 1893.

1900

As a result, the city grew very rapidly and by 1900 the population of Los Angeles was over 100,000.

1904

Meanwhile in 1904 Abbot Kinney built the city of Venice.

1905

The official seal for the City of Los Angeles was designed by Herbert L. Goudge, a deputy city attorney, and officially adopted on March 27, 1905 via Ordinance 10,834.

By July 1905, Chandler’s L.A. Times began to warn the voters of Los Angeles that the county would soon dry up unless they voted bonds for building the aqueduct.

In 1905, Kinney opened “Venice of America,” a planned seaside community which featured its Italian namesakes Italianate architecture and copied its world famous canals.

1907

In September 1907, construction began on a massive aqueduct that would transport water from the lake all the way to Los Angeles.

1909

The annexations of Wilmington and San Pedro and a connecting narrow “shoestring” of land (1909–10) resulted when Los Angeles created a harbour and linked it to the city proper.

1910

Both Biograph and Selig-Polyscope began shooting in in Los Angeles by 1910, but it was the arrival of director Cecil B. DeMille that really set LA on its path to movie mecca.

1911

Later in 1911 the Long Beach harbor was established and the port at San Pedro was also added to give Los Angeles a position in the international trade market.

The first motion picture studio in Hollywood proper was Nestor Film Company, founded in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.

1913

Also in 1913, Cecil B. DeMille hired a barn in the suburb called Hollywood for filmmaking.

The Natural History Museum opened in 1913.

1914

In 1914, DeMille filmed The Squaw Man, the first feature film to be shot in Los Angeles, for the newly formed Jesse L. Laskey Feature Play Company.

1917

By 1917 Los Angeles had tripled in size by adding the entire San Fernando Valley and the district of Palms.

1920

The area also had excellent dairy farms, including the world’s largest Guernsey herd in the 1920s.

1923

Also in 1923, the famous Hollywood sign was first erected.

Originally spelling out Hollywoodland, it was built as a temporary advertisement in 1923 for a new upper-middle class neighborhood snuggled in the hills of Beachwood Canyon.

1927

Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was built in 1927.

1928

City Hall was built in 1928.

1930

During the next 80 years the influx of blacks grew, and by 1930 Los Angeles was home to the largest black community on the Pacific Coast.

By 1930 the motion picture industry was in full swing.

1931

Ordinance 70,000 officially established the City’s own flag, then known as the "Fiesta Flag" on July 22, 1931, designed for the City's 150th birthday (Sesqui-Centennial).

1933

The Long Beach Quake of 1933: A 6.3 magnitude earthquake that is considered “the deadliest seismic event in recorded Southern California history,” it killed 120 people and may have been caused by the drilling for oil.

1939

By 1939 it had a population of over 1.5 million.

Union Station was built in 1939.

1943

In the summer of 1943, there were riots called the Zoot Suit riots in which Mexicans were attacked.

1947

Her body was found on the morning of Wednesday 15 January 1947 on a vacant building plot in the Leimert Park district of Los…

1950

But in 1950, Chavez Ravine was slated to be the site of a massive public housing project called Elysian Park Heights, which would provide 3,600 affordable apartments.

1954

Watts Towers was built in 1954 by Simon Rodia.

1959

On Black Friday, May 9, 1959, the remaining families of Chavez Ravine were met with bulldozers and sheriffs wielding eviction orders.

1961

The aging, increasingly unprofitable and empty Red Car system was not taken over by National City but was discontinued in 1961 by LA’s Metropolitan Transit Authority.

1962

Dodger Stadium opened on April 10, 1962.

1965

When the Immigration Act of 1965 opened the door to new immigrants, it initiated dramatic changes in the area.

1968

The Fair Housing Act formally deemed both activities illegal in 1968, but their deep-seeded scars remain.

1979

The Museum of Contemporary Art was founded in 1979.

1982

Another shopping mall, The Beverly Center opened in 1982.

1989

US Bank Tower was built in 1989.

1990

The first light rail line opened in 1990.

1992

On April 29, 1992, four police officers charged in the beating were acquitted of using excessive force in the King beating.

1993

A Museum of Tolerance opened in 1993.

1994

In 1994 Los Angeles was struck by an earthquake.

2000

The 2000 census showed the area was home to 4.2 million people of Latino/Hispanic origin—only Mexico City had a larger number.

2002

Among new buildings, The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opened in 2002.

2003

Walt Disney Concert Hall was built in 2003.

2016

As The Guardian’s Colin Marshall explained in 2016, “One can confidently accuse General Motors and their National City Lines of nothing worse than scheming to profit from a trend already in motion.”

2017

In 2017 the population of Los Angeles was 4 million.

2021

2021 Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens

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