Whittier () is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Part of the Gateway Cities, the city had 87,306 residents as of the 2020 United States census. Whittier was incorporated in February 1898 and became a charter city in 1955. The city is named for the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier and is home to Whittier College. The city is surrounded by four unincorporated areas sharing the Whittier name, West Whittier-Los Nietos, North Whittier, South Whittier, and East Whittier, which combined are home to a larger population than Whittier proper.
Etymology
In the founding days of Whittier, when it was a small, isolated town, Jonathan Bailey and his wife, Rebecca, were among the first residents. They followed the Quaker religious faith and practice and held religious meetings on their porch. Other early settlers, such as Aquila Pickering, also espoused the Quaker faith. As the city grew, the citizens named it after John Greenleaf Whittier, a respected Quaker poet, and deeded a lot to him. Whittier wrote a dedication poem and is honored today with statues and a small exhibit at the Whittier Museum; a statue of him sits in Whittier's Central Park, and another representing his poem "The Barefoot Boy" used to reside by the City Hall and is now in front of the main library. Whittier never set foot there, but wrote the poem "My Name I Give to Thee" about the city. Many of the streets in Uptown Whittier bear the names of Quaker settlers of Whittier or other prominent Quakers, such as Greenleaf Avenue (for Whittier), Bailey Street, Pickering Avenue, Penn Street (for William Penn), Hadley Street and Washington Avenue (both for Washington Hadley), and Painter Avenue (for John Hunt Painter).
History
The Gabrielino first inhabited the area.
Whittier's roots can be traced to Spanish soldier Manuel Nieto. In 1784, Nieto received a Spanish land grant of , Rancho Los Nietos, as a reward for his military service and to encourage settlement in California. The area of Nieto's land grant was reduced in 1790 as the result of a dispute with Mission San Gabriel. Nonetheless, Nieto still had a claim to stretching from the hills north of Whittier, Fullerton, and Brea, south to the Pacific Ocean, and from what is known today as the Los Angeles River east to the Santa Ana River. Nieto built a rancho for his family near Whittier, purchased cattle and horses for his ranch, and planted cornfields. When he died in 1804, his children inherited his property.
At the time of the 1840s Mexican–American War, much of the land that became Whittier was owned by Pio Pico, a rancher and the last Mexican governor of Alta California. Pio Pico built a hacienda on the San Gabriel River, known today as Pio Pico State Historic Park. After the war, German immigrant Jacob F. Gerkens paid the U.S. government $234 to acquire of land under the Homestead Act and built the cabin known today as the Jonathan Bailey House. Gerkens later become the Los Angeles Police Department's first chief of police. His land was owned by several others before a group of Quakers purchased it and expanded it to , intending to found a Quaker community. The area soon became known as a thriving citrus ranching region, with "Quaker Brand" fruit shipped all over the United States. Beginning in 1887, walnut trees were planted, and Whittier became the nation's largest walnut grower. In addition to walnuts and citrus, Whittier was also a significant producer of pampas grass.
For many years, the sole means of transport from this area to Los Angeles was by foot or horse and wagon over rough dirt roads, impeding settlement, development, and the export of agriculture. Thus in 1887 "enterprising and aggressive businessmen" contracted with the Southern Pacific Railroad to build the first railroad spur to Whittier, including a depot.Arnold and Clark, 20 The businessmen covered the $43,000 construction cost for the six-mile spur, which branched off from the Southern Pacific mainline at a junction near what is now Studebaker Road between Firestone Boulevard and Imperial Highway. By 1906, 650 carloads of oranges and 250 carloads of lemons were shipped annually by rail. In 1904, the Pacific Electric opened the trolley line known as "Big Red Cars" from Los Angeles to Whittier. In the first two decades, over a million passengers a year rode to and from Los Angeles on the Whittier Line.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Whittier was a conservative sundown town. New housing tracts such as College Hills were developed under restrictive covenants and minorities were restricted to areas outside the city limits such as Jimtown (portions of which were destroyed by the building of the 605 Freeway). Whittier even had a branch of the Silver Shirts. Liquor sales were forbidden in the city; Bailey's Liquor Store was just outside the city limits. Richard Nixon, though born and buried in Yorba Linda, grew up in East Whittier. He attended and played football at Whittier High School (1928–1930) and Whittier College (1930–1934) In the 1930s, Nixon's law office was in the National Bank of Whittier Building in Uptown Whittier. Upon Nixon's return from World War II service, conservative Whittier businessman Herman Perry, Nixon's former landlord at the bank, spearheaded an effort to form a Committee of 100 Republicans in Eastern Los Angeles County to get Nixon elected to Congress in 1946.
After World War II, Whittier grew rapidly. The subdividing of orange groves began, driven by housing shortages in southern California. In 1955, the Civic Center complex was completed, and the City Council met in new chambers for the first time on March 8, 1955. The city continued to grow as it annexed portions of Whittier Boulevard and East Whittier. The 1961 annexation added over 28,000 people to the population, bringing the total to about 67,000. South and West Whittier remained unannexed by the city.
Quakers
The first Quaker meetings were held on the front porch of the Jonathan Bailey House. As more Quakers arrived, the need for an actual Quaker meeting house arose, and the first one was built in 1887 on the corner of Comstock Avenue and Wardman Street. The meeting soon outgrew this 100-seat meeting house, and a larger building was erected on the corner of Philadelphia Street and Washington Avenue in 1902. By 1912, membership had grown to 1,200, and a third building was dedicated on the same site in 1917. With a capacity of 1,700, the 1917 meeting house had a balcony and was constructed of brick with mahogany paneling and pews. The present meeting house, dedicated in 1975, has many architectural elements and materials from the 1917 building, including the stained glass windows and mahogany interior. The Quakers also founded Whittier Academy (later Whittier College), and additional meetings met in East Whittier and at Whittier College's Mendenhall. The Mendenhall and East Whittier meetings kept the silent meeting longer than the main church.
Colleges
In 1887, the Pickering Land and Water Company set aside a parcel of land to develop a college, but a collapse in the land boom stalled construction. Progress on developing a college was sporadic, but on July 30, 1896, the Whittier Academy, operating since 1891, officially changed its name to Whittier College and enrolled 100 students. The school mascot is "The Poet". By 1906, Whittier College was an educational institution with laboratories, boarding halls, a large gymnasium, and athletic fields. Due to an economic depression in the 1890s, the first bachelor's degrees were not awarded at the college for 17 years.
Leona May Mendenhall donated the Mendenhall Building at Whittier College in honor of her husband, Oscar. The Mendenhalls were among Whittier's founding families. Oscar's brother, Samuel Mendenhall, helped bring in the water system and post office. The Mendenhalls were major growers of Sunkist oranges and Blue Diamond walnuts.
Whittier was the first home to Azusa Pacific University, established in 1899 by the Quaker community and a Methodist evangelist under the name Training School for Christian Workers.
Whittier Narrows earthquake
On October 1, 1987, at 7:42 a.m., the Whittier Narrows earthquake struck, the epicenter north-northwest of Whittier. The seismic event, which registered 5.9 on the moment magnitude scale, killed eight people and damaged many of uptown Whittier's historic buildings. Three days later, on October 4 at 3:59 a.m., a major aftershock measuring 5.2 caused further damage. Buildings and residential structures that were already borderline unsafe were now deemed unsafe or uninhabitable. In the years following the earthquake, the city's deteriorating uptown business district became the focus of renewed development, meeting opposition from many Whittier citizens. The Whittier Conservancy was formed in 1987 to stop the demolition of many historic buildings and residences after the disaster. The city also created a Historic Resources Commission to oversee the approval of landmark designations, historic districts, and Mills Act proposals. The Whittier Narrows earthquake destroyed The Quad at Whittier, a shopping mall that was rebuilt.
Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , virtually all land.
Whittier is bordered by Hacienda Heights to the northeast, City of Industry to the north, and several other unincorporated communities in the San Gabriel Valley mostly along its northern sections. Pico Rivera lies to the west, La Habra Heights to the east, La Habra to the southeast, and Santa Fe Springs to the south.
Neighborhoods
Whittier has several neighborhoods. The area around Philadelphia Street and Greenleaf Avenue is known as Uptown Whittier and contains the traditional central business core. Just north of it are the neighborhoods known as Central Park and Hadley-Greenleaf. They have been designated historic districts by the city Historic Resources Commission and comprise most of the Whittier Historic Neighborhood Association area. These districts contain many Craftsman and Spanish Colonial Revival homes. In and abutting the hills north of the historic districts is Starlite Estates. The area surrounding Whittier College is known as College Hills and was also designated a historic district, as has a small cluster of homes along Earlham Drive. The area east of College Avenue is called East Whittier. It was an unincorporated agricultural community until the postwar era. The eastern part of East Whittier, developed in the 1950s and 1960s, is known as Friendly Hills, and was developed at the same time as Murphy Ranch and Leffingwell Ranch. Friendly Hills and Murphy Ranch are generally considered north of Whittier Boulevard, while Leffingwell Ranch is south of it. The area at the extreme east of Whittier is occasionally called Sunglow.
Climate Whittier is about inland of the Pacific Ocean, resulting in higher daytime temperatures, and since it lies at a higher elevation than the cities further west, cold air drains into the lower elevation of the Los Angeles Basin, causing warmer nighttime lows, an example of thermal inversion. Winter daytime highs typically range from with overnight lows dropping to about 41 °F to 50 °F (6° to 12 °C). In the summer highs range from and corresponding overnight lows in the . Rainfall follows a Mediterranean pattern, with most falling during winter, while summers tend to be rather dry. The mean annual rainfall is about .
Demographics
Whittier first appeared as a town in the 1890 U.S. Census; and as a city in the 1900 U.S. Census.
Racial and ethnic composition