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J
uan Rodríguez Cabrillo first arrived at the site of Los
Angeles in 1542. He dubbed it the “Bay of Smokes”
and claimed its desolate tidal flats for the King of Spain.
In 1781, a group of forty-four settlers established a town
and named it after the Virgin Mary: “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula”—The Town of Our Lady
the Queen of Angels. When California gained its independence
from Spain in 1821 and became a part of Mexico, Los Angeles was
a regional capital. California then became a U.S. territory in 1848
following the Mexican War, and was granted statehood in 1850.
Los Angeles remained an agricultural town even after the
arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876; it was the discovery
of oil in 1892 that sparked the city’s transformation into a West Coast
industrial center. The emergence of the motion picture industry
brought wealth and fame to Los Angeles. In 1907 the Port of Los
Angeles opened, and within 15 years it had surpassed San Francisco
as the West Coast’s busiest port, ranking second only to New York in
foreign export tonnage.
Four miles south of downtown Los Angeles is the community
of Vernon, where Thomas Neilan first established Reliance. Vernon
was founded in 1905 by ranchers James and Thomas Furlong and
merchant John B. Leonis to take advantage of nearby railroad lines.
The founders named it after the single dirt road—Vernon Avenue—
that ran through the area. Before emerging as the industrial hub it is
today, Vernonwasa“sportingtown” that includedabaseball stadium,
a boxing arena, and the “world’s longest bar”—100 feet long with
thirty-seven bartenders—among its attractions. Several eastern
industrialists opened plants in Vernon during the early 20th century.
By the late1930s, itwasasmokestack townwithsteel, aluminum, glass,
tin cans, and automobiles being produced there. Two stockyards,
twenty-seven slaughterhouses, and several meatpacking facilities
were also in operation, despite the Depression. By 1939, Vernon
was at the industrial heart of the greater Los Angeles area and a
good place for Neilan to establish his new rebar and steel products
business.
THE “BAY OF SMOKES”
AND THE SMOKESTACK TOWN