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==History== ===Tongva=== The area of Bell Gardens has a history dating back thousands of years. The [[Tongva]] established settlements in the area, including the village of [[Chokishgna]]. The village prospered until the arrival of the Spanish, after which it came under the influence of [[Mission San Gabriel Arcángel|Mission San Gabriel]] in 1771.<ref name="VD">Verne Dyson: "The Old Ranchos That are Buried in Los Angeles" in ''The Los Angeles Times'' Sunday Magazine, issue of December 18, 1927, pp. 12-13, 23 (23), https://www.newspapers.com/image/?spot=25458857, last accessed February 2, 2019.</ref><ref name="gnis">{{gnis|1732516}}</ref> ===Spanish and Mexican === In the late 18th century, when the area was associated with a large amount of land situated along the lower basin of the Rio Hondo area in Los Angeles County, Bell Gardens was once a bustling agricultural center for [[Californios]] during the [[Spanish Empire]], 1509–1823, the [[Mexico|Mexican]] government, 1823–1848, and the [[United States]], after the [[Mexican-American War]] concluded in 1848. Among those early [[Spain|Spanish]] settlers was one of California's first families, the Lugos. While stationed at [[Mission San Antonio de Padua]] near [[Salinas, California]], Francisco Lugo's son [[José del Carmen Lugo#Antonio Maria Lugo|Antonio Maria Lugo]] was born in 1783. In 1810 Antonio Lugo, a 35-year-old corporal in the Spanish army, was given the {{convert|29514|acre|km2|adj=on}} [[Rancho San Antonio (Lugo)|Rancho San Antonio]] land grant. The land grant was a reward for his military service during the establishment of the Franciscan Missions in California while being the attendant of colonization for the area. Today, the grant includes the cities of Bell Gardens, [[Bell, California|Bell]], [[Maywood, California|Maywood]], [[Vernon, California|Vernon]], [[Huntington Park, California|Huntington Park]], [[Walnut Park, California|Walnut Park]], [[Cudahy, California|Cudahy]], [[South Gate, California|South Gate]], [[Lynwood, California|Lynwood]] and [[Commerce, California|Commerce]]. Antonio Lugo built several adobe homes within the boundaries of the Rancho San Antonio grant, and raised cattle. One of the adobe houses, built in 1795, is the oldest house in Los Angeles County and is still standing at 7000 Gage Avenue. Lugo was given a term as Mayor of [[Los Angeles]]. According to Dr. Roy Whitehead in his book Lugo, "Don Antonio Maria Lugo…rode around Los Angeles and his Rancho San Antonio in great splendor. He never adopted American dress, culture or language and still spoke only Spanish. He rode magnificent horses, sitting in his $1,500 silver trimmed saddle erect and stately, with his sword strapped to the saddle beneath his left leg…People knew him far and wide, and even the Indians sometimes named their children after him, as he was one Spanish Don that they admired." Antonio María Lugo died at the age of 85 in 1860. ===American period=== One of his nine children, Vicente Lugo, married and built a two-story adobe home in 1850, located at 6360 Gage Avenue. A daughter of Antonio Lugo married [[Stephen Clark Foster|Stephen C. Foster]], [[Mayor of Los Angeles]] in 1854, and lived in an adobe house just east of 6820 Foster Bridge Road, now a parking lot. A granddaughter of Antonio Lugo married [[Wallace Woodworth]], an early-day merchant and civic leader in Los Angeles. Their eldest son, [[Joseph Woodworth]], built a two-story colonial style house at 6820 Foster Bridge Road in 1924. The land's original adobe dwelling was built in 1795 and named [[Casa de Rancho San Antonio]] by Lugo. When [[Henry T. Gage]], a lawyer who married Antonia Lugo's granddaughter Frances V. Rains, occupied the residence, he added two wings and redwood siding, installed bronze fireplaces, and imported expensive fabric wallpaper from France to serve as background for the Gage coat of arms, which enjoys a place of prominence in every room. The Bell Gardens’ school system began in 1867 when the [[San Antonio School]] was built where Bell Gardens Elementary stands today. Area farmers sent their children to the San Antonio School, which was one of the earliest educational institutions in the County of Los Angeles. Because of the rich soil, many Japanese immigrants are part of Bell Gardens’ early history. Japanese gardeners leased land and farmed to produce quality vegetables for the marketplace. Rice fields also mushroomed within the city limits of Bell Gardens. With some of the richest agricultural land in the country, Bell Gardens remained a farming community until the 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, cheap homes were constructed, filled largely by defense plant workers.<ref name="ericbrightwell.com"/> In 1927, [[Firestone Tire Company]] bought some of the land at $7,000 an acre. By 1900, Bell Gardens was divided into tracts of 40 to {{convert|100|acre|km2}}. The land adjoining the City of [[Bell, California|Bell]] became known as Bell Gardens. Both Bell Gardens and Bell are named for [[James George Bell]]. In 1930, O.C. Beck purchased property and begins to build affordable homes for those suffering through the depression era. It was during this period that the area was known as 'Billy Goat Acres'. To this day, Bell Gardens is affectionately known by this moniker. [[World War I]] and [[World War II]] brought defense plants to the area that helped build the economic stability and the population, which led to construction of new homes, more schools, and a prosperous business climate. This land used to be floodplains, farmlands split into long, narrow plots by depression-era developers. Tiny houses were sold and rented to [[Okies]] and Native Americans, forced from their homes by the [[Dust Bowl]]. By the 1980s, high-wage factories had left, taking with them virtually all of the whites and many of the blacks. In their places—coming from the Mexican states of Michoacan, Jalisco, Sinaloa, and Zacatecas— were large families of immigrants.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lamag.com/longform/arlene-rodriguez-queen-of-florencia/|title=The Queen of Florencia Los Angeles Magazine|first=Sam|last=Quinones|date=September 25, 2017}}</ref> Latinos moved here for work and some brought their small businesses.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/pioneers-of-artistic-revolution-making-art-and-space-in-southeast-los-angeles|title=Pioneers of Artistic Revolution: Making Art and Space in Southeast Los Angeles|first=Vickie|last=Vértiz|date=April 8, 2014|website=KCET}}</ref> Thousands of Central Americans fleeing civil wars in the 1980s also came to the region and created small businesses and worked in the same service industry jobs. By the 1990s, Colmar Elementary changed its name to Cesar E. Chavez Elementary and 85 percent of the residents of Bell Gardens were Hispanic.<ref name="kcet.org">{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/city-rising/the-right-to-live-southeast-los-angeles-life-in-three-moments|title=The Right to Live: Southeast Los Angeles Life in Three Moments|first=Vickie|last=Vértiz|date=September 20, 2017|website=KCET}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CebCDAAAQBAJ&q=Bell+Gardens&pg=PA164 | title=The Twentieth-Century American City: Problem, Promise, and Reality| isbn=9781421420387| last1=Teaford| first1=Jon C.| date=September 15, 2016}}</ref> By 2013, approximately 122,000 homeowners in the southeast were Latina/o; a region where, prior to 1965, families of color could not live due to restrictive covenants.<ref name="kcet.org"/> On September 30, 2014, Bell Gardens mayor Daniel Crespo was shot dead at his home. Police took Crespo's wife into custody. Daniel Crespo's brother, William Crespo, filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Crespo's wife, Lyvette 'Levette' Crespo.<ref>http://www.inquisitr.com/1553290/daniel-crespo-timeline-family-sues-for-wrongful-death-against-bell-gardens-wife/ Inquisitr.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bell-gardens-mayor-shot-20140930-story.html|title=Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo fatally shot at home|date=September 30, 2014|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=September 30, 2014}}</ref> ===Gage Mansion=== [[File:Lugo family members at their home in Bell Gardens-2.jpg|thumb|Lugo family members at their home in Bell Gardens]] The oldest remaining house in [[Los Angeles]] City is the [[Avila Adobe]] located on Olvera Street (built in 1818). It is not, however, the oldest remaining house in Los Angeles County. Shane Kimbler, a Bell Gardens history enthusiast, wrote that early colonist Francisco Salvador Lugo and son Antonio María Lugo began construction in 1795 on what is now known as Casa de Rancho San Antonio or the Henry Gage Mansion. The house is located at 7000 East Gage Avenue in Bell Gardens. It was built to qualify the younger Lugo, a former Spanish colonial soldier, for a land grant from the Spanish crown. In 1810, Antonio María Lugo completed the house and received the grant, naming his new grant Rancho San Antonio. The ranch eventually grew to encompass {{convert|29513|acre|km2}}, including what are now the cities of Bell Gardens, [[Commerce, California|Commerce]], and parts of Bell, [[Cudahy, California|Cudahy]], [[Lynwood, California|Lynwood]], [[Montebello, California|Montebello]], [[South Gate, California|South Gate]], [[Vernon, California|Vernon]] and [[East Los Angeles, California|East Los Angeles]]. When [[California]] became part of the U.S. in 1850, Lugo, as did all recipients of Spanish/Mexican land grants, began losing portions of his land to the growing population of Anglo newcomers. The ranch adobe, however, continued to be owned and used by the Lugo family. By 1865, most of the Lugo ranch, divided among five sons and three daughters, had been sold off for as little as a dollar per acre. The original adobe ranch home, however, remained in the family. In 1880, attorney [[Henry Tifft Gage]], a transplant from Michigan, married one of Lugo's great-granddaughters, Francis "Fanny" Rains. The original adobe ranch home was given as a gift to Gage as a wedding dowry and it became known as the Gage Mansion. When Gage acquired the mansion he worked very extensively to restore the heritage farmhouse of early Los Angeles. In 1898, Gage was elected to become the 20th governor of California. He served in that office from 1899 to 1903. In 1910, he was appointed by President William Howard Taft to serve as U.S. Minister to [[Portugal]]. He resigned after only one year due to his wife's health problems. Gage lived in the abode ranch house until his death in 1924. Bell Gardens maintains only a small portion of the original Lugo land grant, which is located at the site of the Casa Mobile home Park at 7000 Gage Ave. In 1991, the park's tenants, who own the land as well as Lugo's original dwelling, were successful in their efforts to have Casa de San Antonio named State Historical Monument No. 984. Their effort ensures that Don Antonio Maria Lugo's name and his historic home will be preserved for future generations of Bell Gardens residents and Californians.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bellgardens.org/n_about.asp?view=history |title=Welcome to the city of Bell Gardens California |access-date=December 4, 2006 |archive-date=September 28, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928121739/http://www.bellgardens.org/n_about.asp?view=history |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[File:Casa Mobile Home co-op site of Henry Gage Mansion.jpg|thumb|Casa Mobile Home co-op site of Henry Gage Mansion]] A century later, the Gage Mansion was all that remained of the once great Rancho San Antonio. In 1983, the Casa Mobile Home Park, a cooperative of mobile home owners renting lots on the property, purchased the land and the house from their ailing landlord. Although they were aware of the historical significance of the old house, they had no means of maintaining it. In 1987, then Bell Gardens City Councilwoman Letha Viles began working to get the house listed on the state historical registry, making it eligible for maintenance grants. It is now listed as California Historical Site Number 984. ===Indian Revival Church=== In 1956, [[Assemblies of God]] evangelist Arthur Stoneking recognized this demographic shift and pioneered Indian Revival Center (now Indian Revival Church<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/bell-gardens-thats-indian-town-1980s-pow-wows-and-cultural-persistence|title='Bell Gardens? That's Indian Town!': 1980s Pow Wows|first=Vickie|last=Vértiz|date=June 17, 2014|website=KCET}}</ref>), a congregation for Native Americans in Bell Gardens. Stoneking, a member of the Winnebago tribe, had remarkable success in bringing together people from various tribes. Started as a home bible study, the congregation soon became the largest Native American congregation in Los Angeles.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ifphc.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/indian-revival-church-bridging-tribal-divides-in-los-angeles-for-sixty-years/|title=Indian Revival Church: Bridging Tribal Divides in Los Angeles for Sixty Years|date=December 1, 2016}}</ref> In 1990, there were 889 American Native Indian people living in Bell Gardens.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> ===Miss Bell Gardens=== An official annual city beauty pageant held in the city from 1947 ending in 2015. Successfully returning in 2020 and ending again in 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/worth-gold-feminism-and-leadership-at-the-miss-bell-gardens-pageant|title=Worth Gold: Feminism and Leadership at the Miss Bell Gardens Pageant|first=Vickie|last=Vértiz|date=November 20, 2015|website=KCET}}</ref>
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