Vernon is a city south of downtown Los Angeles, California, the nearest separate city to downtown Los Angeles. The population was 112 at the 2010 United States census, the least of any incorporated city in the state. Its population nearly doubled to 222 by the 2020 census, making it the second least populous city in the state, after Amador City.
The city is primarily composed of industrial areas and touts itself as "exclusively industrial". Meatpacking plants and warehouses are common. As of 2006, there were no parks in the city.Krasnowski, Matt. "Is tiny, industrial Vernon a model city or corrupt fiefdom? ." San Diego Union-Tribune. December 24, 2006. Retrieved on June 2, 2010.
History
Vernon is the site of the Battle of La Mesa on January 9, 1847, when General Stephen W. Kearny again defeated General José María Flores the day after the Battle of Río San Gabriel. Accepting defeat, General Flores fled southeast to Sonora, while Major Pico headed north into the San Gabriel Mountains with a hundred Californios. This ended hostilities in Alta California during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. By the dawn of the 20th century, it was a stretch of unincorporated grassland near Los Angeles' flourishing downtown.
In 1905, Vernon was incorporated by ranchers James J. and Thomas J. Furlong and John B. Leonis, a merchant. Vernon was incorporated to promote industrial development along the railroads in the area. John Leonis, of Basque origin, had come to Southern California in 1880 to work for his uncle, Miguel Leonis, and later established his own ranch on unincorporated county land southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Recognizing the importance of the three major railroads running through the area, he persuaded railroad executives to run spur tracks off the main lines and incorporated the adjacent as the first "exclusively industrial" city in the southwestern United States. He named the new city after a dirt road, Vernon Avenue, that crossed its center.
In 1907, on land leased from Leonis, the founders of the city marketed Vernon as a "sporting town". The Vernon Arena was known for its 20-round boxing matches. Shortly thereafter, the Pacific Coast League built a baseball park. The Vernon Tigers, a minor league baseball team in the Pacific Coast League, played from 1909 through 1925. The team won back-to-back PCL pennants in 1919 and 1920. The ballpark also housed two 1910 Southern California Trolley League teams, the Los Angeles Maiers and the Los Angeles McCormicks.
Leonis created an enticing attraction, leasing property to the founders of the city, for a baseball stadium, a 7,000-seat boxing arena, and the "world's longest bar", 100 feet long with thirty-seven bartenders. The Vernon Country Club was a popular night spot for young Hollywood for a time, especially during a brief window before national prohibition was instituted where Los Angeles was "dry" but Vernon still permitted the sale of alcohol. As industrialists from the East Coast traveled to Vernon for heavyweight matches, Leonis sold many of them on locating their West Coast factories in Vernon. By the 1930s, Owens-Illinois and Alcoa had facilities there, purchasing subsidized electricity from the new utility Vernon Light & Power.
While some land adjacent to the original incorporated area was excluded from the city in 1910 and 1924, land to the east and south was incorporated in 1914, 1920, 1925, 1926 and 1928. The most important of these was that of 1925, when almost 800 acres of the Central Manufacturing District, which was already built up with 28 industrial plants, adding an assessed valuation of $8 million to the city's resources. This annexation was voted up unanimously by Mr & Mrs A. J. Olsen, of 4318 S. Downey Road, the only two legal voters in the district. Such selective annexations ensured industrial areas were brought within the city, while residential areas were excluded.
The Studebaker factory was built in 1938 at 4530 Loma Vista Avenue. It was the company's only West Coast factory, producing 64 cars a day. It was closed in 1956, and ten years later in 1966, Studebaker folded.
Following Leonis' death in 1953, he left behind an estate reportedly worth $8 million, as well as several parcels of land, to his grandson Leonis. Leonis Malburg first won a council seat in 1956 and was elected mayor in 1974. "Vernon has long been dogged by accusations that it is a fiefdom run by a family that has held sway over the town for generations."
The Poxon China Company was founded by George Wade Poxon (b. 1887, Castle Donington, Leicestershire, England) and his wife Judith (née Furlong), who in 1913 were married at St. Martha's Church in Vernon. The church had been built by the Furlong family in 1913. George Wade Poxon, a cousin of George Albert Wade (later Colonel Sir George Albert Wade), was well known as the chairman of Wade Potteries Limited in England, which produced Wade Whimsies. George Wade (b. about 1863 Tunstall, Staffordshire, father to George Albert Wade and uncle to George Wade Poxon) owned a pottery in Burslem, Staffordshire, England. The Wade family had been associated with the pottery industry for many years. George Wade Poxon was a member of the Royal Science Academy. At the age of 24, in 1911, he emigrated to the United States. The kilns were located on the Furlong ranch.
Vernon Kilns was founded in July 1931 after Faye G. Bennison purchased the Poxon China Company in Vernon. The Poxon China Company had its headquarters on 52nd Street, which is now part of Los Angeles. Bennison continued to produce Poxon lines, using Poxon shapes until an earthquake in 1933 forced Bennison to develop new and original shapes for the company. Two fires in the late 1940s almost destroyed Vernon Potteries, Ltd., but Bennison rebuilt and the company continued to thrive. The company was not able to compete when foreign imports flooded the US. In 1958 Vernon Kilns sold all its holdings to Metlox. Metlox continued to market some Vernon shapes and patterns under the division Vernonware until 1989. The company produced dinnerware, art pottery, figurines, ashtrays and other popular items. All products were of earthenware, with clays from Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and England. Glazes were developed from minerals mined in California, and many patterns, including all of the plaids, were hand painted.
Vernon returned to being exclusively industrial around 1919. Two giant stockyards were opened and meat packing quickly became the city's main industry. Twenty-seven slaughterhouses and the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards eventually lined Vernon Avenue from Soto Street to Downey Road until the late 1960s.
The 1940s and 1950s added aerospace contractors Norris Industries, box and paper manufacturers, drug companies such as Brunswig, and food processors General Mills and Kal Kan. Giant meat packers Farmer John and Swift flourished.
In 1932, after a dispute with Southern California Edison over industrial rates for electricity, John Leonis sponsored a bond measure to authorize the building of a city-owned power plant, which is still operational today, providing the city with its notably lower utility rate.
Elections of 2006 The city held no contested or meaningfully competitive elections from 1980 to 2006. Out of five city council members serving in 2006, only one had been chosen by the voters, the other four having been appointed to their positions by city officials.
Most of the city's fewer than 90 voters were city employees or connected to city employees who lived in homes rented at a nominal fee. In 1979 a firefighter tried to run for mayor and was immediately evicted and told he couldn't run.
In 2006, a few people moved into Vernon and ran for city council, the first time in more than two decades that there was a competitive race for city council. Eight people converted a 1950s-era office building into a five-room apartment (the building had previously been used as a tanning facility turning sheepskin into billiard/pool pockets), and three of them filed to run for office. In response, the city turned off their power and attempted to evict them as illegal squatters. The City of Vernon alleged that the men were part of a hostile takeover attempt by convicted felon Albert T. Robles, who nearly bankrupted the nearby city of South Gate as treasurer, and Eduardo Olivo, a former Vernon attorney who also worked with Albert T. Robles in South Gate. The city tried to cancel their registrations but was ordered to allow them to run and to count the ballots.
On June 30, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson called on the city to count the votes and expressed his support for the state to take over the responsibility of conducting the city's elections. During the trial it was alleged that all three of the newcomer candidates had direct ties to Albert T. Robles: Alejandro Lopez is a first cousin, David Johnson Jr. is the brother-in-law of a business partner, and Don A. Huff is associated through Eduardo Olivo. In March 2006, Judge David P. Yaffe ruled that the city could not prohibit legally registered voters who reside within its boundaries from running for city council. The city had to be ordered to allow the election to proceed. An election was held under a court order on April 11, 2006. But the city clerk, Bruce Malkenhorst Jr., refused to count the ballots until the legal disputes were resolved, and temporarily ordered the ballots to be sealed. In August 2006, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz ruled that the newcomers received free rent and jobs prior to registering to vote and that they were involved in a scheme orchestrated by Albert T. Robles and Eduardo Olivo to "steal" the election, but that such actions were not illegal. On October 16, 2006, it was announced that city officials were ready to count the votes from the contested April 11 election. The officials failed to prove their claim of voter fraud. A judge granted Vernon's motion to count the votes. The challengers lost by a landslide.
Corruption
Corruption charges On November 15, 2006, the investigation into alleged public corruption in Vernon resulted in charges against the city's mayor, Leonis Malburg, as well as his wife, his son, and the former city administrator. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office had launched an investigation in April 2005 upon allegations that the city's former administrator, Bruce Malkenhorst Sr., had misappropriated public funds for personal use.
Their investigation uncovered evidence of voter fraud on the part of the ruling family, which, it was asserted, tried to keep out new residents. Leonis Malburg, who had been mayor since 1974, claimed he lived in a small Vernon apartment in the 2800 block of Leonis Boulevard (named after his grandfather, also a mayor), when in fact he was living in upscale Hancock Park, Los Angeles. His wife and son also claimed to live in Vernon, voting in Vernon elections although evidence indicated they too lived in Hancock Park. Charges against the Malburgs included voter fraud, assisting unqualified voters, false registration, and perjury.
Malkenhorst Sr. was charged with 18 counts of "misappropriation of public funds" for reportedly taking $60,000 of city money for personal use. His salary from the city had been $600,000. Malkenhorst at one time collected a pension of $499,674.84. In 2010, Malkenhorst received a reported $510,000 annual pension, plus health benefits, as former city administrator, the most of any of the 9,111 retired California government workers receiving pensions from CalPERS. Malkenhorst retired in 2005.
Corruption allegations