Monterey Park, CA

Monterey Park Map

Monterey Park is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city's motto is "Pride in the past, Faith in the future". Monterey Park is part of a cluster of cities, along with Arcadia, Temple City, Rosemead, San Marino, and San Gabriel in the west San Gabriel Valley, with a growing Asian American population. According to the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of 60,269.

For at least seven thousand years the land was populated by the Tongva (Gabrielino) Native Americans. The Tongva lived in dome like structures with thatched exteriors, an open smoke hole for ventilation and light at the top. Both sexes wore long hair styles and tattooed their bodies. During warm weather the men wore little clothes but the women would wear minimal skirts made of animal hides. During the cold weather they would wear animal skin capes and occasionally wore sandals made from hide of yucca fiber. With the arrival of the Spaniards, Old World diseases killed off many of the Tongva, and by 1870 very few Native-Americans had survived. In the early 19th century the area was part of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel mission system and later, the Rancho San Antonio.

Following the Civil War, an Italian, Alessandro Repetto, purchased 5,000 acres (20 km²) of the rancho and built his ranch house on the hill overlooking his land, about a half-mile north of where Garfield Avenue crosses the Pomona Freeway, not far from where the Edison substation is now located on Garfield Avenue.

Nearby cities include Lynwood, Hacienda Heights, Duarte, La Puente, Norwalk.