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The 1920 earthquake brought mandatory urban renewal to Englewood – Daily Breeze
Real estate developer Daniel Freeman tried hard to get people to buy plots of land in the Englewood area after he acquired the lands of Rancho Social Redondo and Rancho Aguas de la Centinela in the 1880s.
Sam Jenner
He became a pivotal figure in the development of Inglewood through his Centinela-Inglewood Land Company, founded in 1887. Freeman eventually became a very wealthy man by dividing and selling his real estate holdings.
He built some structures on mostly empty land in an effort to portray the development as attractive and prosperous. One of them, the Inglewood Hotel, was built in 1888.
At first, it didn’t even work as a hotel, acting more as an advertising front than a real business. By the early twentieth century, private owners began to receive guests, but the hotel was far from luxurious.
Other early buildings in the nearby city included the First National Bank of Inglewood, built around 1905, the Inglewood Grammar School in 1911, and several commercial buildings on Commercial Avenue/Queen Street in the city. (The trade name will later be changed to La Brea.)
The city was incorporated in 1908. By 1920, Englewood wasn’t fully thriving, but had about 4,000 residents and was estimated to be worth a total of just over $1 million.
All that changed on June 21, 1920, when an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Newport-Inglewood scale struck the city at 12:35 p.m.
Although not a massive earthquake by modern standards, the earthquake turned out to be powerful enough to cause severe damage to many downtown Englewood buildings, as well as mains water pipes and street lights.
Newspaper reports on the event tend to recycle the damage as minor and relatively insignificant. While it is true that no one was killed in the earthquake, most of the buildings listed above were severely damaged.
The hotel’s aging workmanship was revealed when it was badly damaged by the earthquake. This marked the end of the hotel, which was never opened and would be demolished shortly thereafter.
The First National Bank also suffered a complete loss, and the Citizens Savings Bank suffered serious structural damage. The earthquake destroyed Inglewood Grammar School in Queen Street and it was a complete loss.
Image of a furniture store, left, and a funeral parlour, right, after the 1920 Englewood earthquake. In the foreground are four unidentified people observing the aftermath of the earthquake. (credit: Englewood Public Library)
Dozens of storefronts were damaged, including pharmacies, grocery stores and movie theaters in the city. Some have just had broken windows and merchandise, but many have had at least one wall collapsed.
Thousands of spectators descended on the small town to witness the aftermath of the earthquake, and climbed among the ruins to view the buildings with their now exposed interior rooms. Additional law enforcement authorities had to be called to the scene to control the overflowing crowds.
Initial estimates put the city’s total damage at about $100,000, which was probably on the conservative side. Work began quickly to remove bricks, broken glass, and other debris from the streets, even as the aftershocks caused more tension. The city’s main water pipes and street lights were also fixed over the next few days.
Plans to rebuild the damaged parts of the city were announced almost immediately. The first national bank was completely rebuilt. Citizens Savings spent about $40,000 on restoring the broken building, and a new school began to appear on the site of the old grammar school. It will eventually develop into Crozier Middle School, which occupies the site today.
Business owners repaired storefronts and interiors. As mentioned, the hotel was not reconstructed, but a new town hall building on Queen Street was begun in 1923.
The 1920s brought a boom of prosperity to the region. Local historian Gladys Waddingham, in her book Englewood History (Centinella Valley Historical Society, 1994), attributed the hike in part to these visitors to the earthquake scene being attracted enough to the area to pursue resettlement there.
Whether it was that or just the business boom of the 1920s that caused the city’s renewal, things quickly changed for the better in Englewood. By 1927, just seven years after the earthquake, the city’s population had exceeded 25,000, and its total value was estimated at more than $13 million.
It is hard to deny that its citizens were affected by the earthquake of 1920 due to the rapid urban renewal that followed that changed the face of their city.
Sources: Daily Breeze Archives; The Englewood History, by Gladys Waddingham, published by the Centinela Valley Historical Society, 1994; Los Angeles Herald Archives; Los Angeles Times archives; San Pedro News Pilot Archives.
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