Editing San Fernando, California (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=November 2022}}
[[File:Exterior view of the Mission Hotel in San Fernando, ca.1888 (1874?) (CHS-9501).jpg|thumb|Mission Hotel in San Fernando, ca. 1888]]
Prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries and soldiers, the area of San Fernando was in the northwestern extent of [[Tovaangar]], or the homelands of the [[Tongva]]. The nearby village of [[Pasheeknga]] was a major site for the Tongva, being the most populous village in the San Fernando Valley at the time. The homelands of the [[Tataviam]] could be found to the north and the [[Chumash people|Chumash]] to the west.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=John R. |url=https://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/21299/files/sspshp%20ethnohistory-complete.pdf |title=Ethnohistoric Overview for the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park Cultural Resources Inventory Project |publisher=Southern Service Center, State of California, Department of Parks and Recreation |year=2006 |pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://dpw.lacounty.gov/avi/airports/documents/WHP%20IS%20MND.pdf |title=Whiteman Airport Master Plan Update |publisher=County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works |year=2014 |pages=14}}</ref>

=== Spanish colonial period ===
The [[Mission San Fernando Rey de España]] (named after [[Ferdinand III of Castile|St. Ferdinand]]) was founded in 1797 at the site of [[Achooykomenga]], an agricultural rancho established by [[Juan Francisco Reyes (soldier)|Juan Francisco Reyes]] for [[Pueblo de Los Ángeles]] worked by [[Ventureño Chumash]], [[Fernandeño]] (Tongva), and [[Tataviam]] laborers.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=John R. |date=1997 |title=The Indians of Mission San Fernando |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41172612 |journal=Southern California Quarterly |volume=79 |issue=3 |pages=249–290 |doi=10.2307/41172612 |jstor=41172612 |issn=0038-3929}}</ref>

In 1833, the mission was [[Mexican secularization act of 1833|secularized by the Mexican government]]. During its time as a mission, 1,367 native children were baptized at San Fernando, of which 965 died in childhood. The high death rate of children and adults at the missions sometimes led those kept at the mission to run away.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Guinn |first=James Miller |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xu81AQAAMAAJ |title=History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-known Citizens of the Past and Present |date=1907 |publisher=Historic record Company |pages=63 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Champagne |first=Duane |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1245673178 |title=A coalition of lineages : the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians |date=2021 |others=Carole E. Goldberg |isbn=978-0-8165-4285-7 |location=Tucson |pages=56 |oclc=1245673178}}</ref>

=== Rancho land grant ===
In 1846, the area became part of the [[Ranchos of California|Mexican land grant]] of [[Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando]]. In 1874, [[Charles Maclay]], bought {{convert|56000|acre|km2|0}} of the Rancho.

In 1882, cousins George K. Porter and Benjamin F. Porter, of future [[Porter Ranch, Los Angeles|Porter Ranch]], each received one-third of the total land. In 1885, Maclay founded the Maclay School of Theology, a Methodist [[seminary]] in San Fernando.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hunt|first=Thomas C.|author2=James C. Carper |title=Religious Higher Education in the United States: A Source Book|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=1996|page=474|isbn=978-0-8153-1636-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lxr_PID7o2IC&pg=PA474|access-date=February 1, 2009}}</ref> After his death it became an affiliate and moved to the [[campus of the University of Southern California]] and then the [[Claremont School of Theology]].

While most of the towns in the surrounding [[San Fernando Valley]] agreed to annexation by Los Angeles in the 1910s, eager to tap the bountiful water supply provided by the newly opened [[Los Angeles Aqueduct]], San Fernando's abundant [[groundwater]] supplies allowed it to remain a separate city.

=== Incorporation ===
In the first half of the 20th century after incorporation in 1911, the city of San Fernando tried to extend its city limits to Sylmar, Mission Hills and Pacoima, but the city of Los Angeles kept up its rapid annexation plans and caused many attempts to fail.

By the 1950s, the city said that annexation was hard to do, due to the large bureaucracy of Los Angeles. As the San Fernando Valley transitioned from an agricultural area to a [[suburb]]an one in the decades after [[World War II]], San Fernando retained its independence.

As with much of the San Fernando Valley east of the [[Interstate 405 (California)|San Diego Freeway]], the city of San Fernando has seen a significant demographic shift in recent years. Declining birth-rates and an aging population of middle-class Whites, who once dominated the area in the 1950s, has contributed to the movement into other parts of the San Fernando Valley. There has also been movement into the [[Santa Clarita Valley|Santa Clarita]] and [[Antelope Valley]]s to the north.