Rosemead is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The 2020 United States census reported a population of 51,185. Rosemead is part of a cluster of cities, along with Alhambra, Arcadia, Temple City, Monterey Park, San Marino, and San Gabriel, in the west San Gabriel Valley with a growing Asian-American population.
History
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the area around Rosemead was populated by Native Americans known as the people of the willow houses or better known as the Kizh (pronounced Keech), alternatively Tongva or as the Spaniards renamed them, the Gabrieleños. In 1771, the Spanish founded the first Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in the area that was formally known as the village of Shevaangna or Siba what is [first Angeleno William McCawley 1996] now known as La Misión Vieja or Whittier Narrows on the border between Montebello and Rosemead. In 1775, the mission moved to avoid the spring floods that ruined the first crops, to its present location in San Gabriel formally known as the village of Tovisvanga .
During the Spanish Colonial era, the area that is now the City of Rosemead was part of the land administered by the San Gabriel Mission. As part of the Mexican government's Secularization Act of 1833, the land, formerly held by the Mission, was distributed to private citizens, requiring only that they build a house and graze cattle, bringing to an end the Mission Era Following the Mexican–American War and the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe which transferred sovereignty over the territory now known as the State of California to the United States, Anglo-American immigration began to flow to the area. Most of present-day Rosemead was part of Rancho Potrero Grande (Large Pasture) which was originally granted to a Native American man named Manuel Antonio Pérez in 1845, who was a "mayordomo" (overseer) at the San Gabriel Mission. By 1852, the ranch was later transferred to Juan Matías Sánchez, a native of Taos, New Mexico.
In 1852, John and Harriet Guess moved cross-country in an ox drawn wagon, to the San Gabriel Valley from Conway County, Arkansas. In 1855, the couple camped where present-day Savannah Elementary School is located on Rio Hondo Avenue. They claimed to be renting the land, but it was later determined by the courts in 1867 that they were illegally squatting on Juan Matías Sánchez's land. Later, John Guess purchased of a ranch and named it Savannah. The land stretched from Valley Boulevard to Marshall Street, and from Rosemead Boulevard to the Eaton Wash.
Other pioneers, Frank Forst and Leonard John Rose, also settled in this valley. Rose and his wife Amanda bought about of land between what is now Rosemead Boulevard and Walnut Grove Avenue. Rose bred and trained horses for a living. He named his ranch "Rose's Meadow" which was eventually shortened to Rosemeade and gave the city its name.
Fletcher Aviation acquired the airport from the Heasley brothers during the Korean War and later sold to AJ Industries in the 1960s, AJ immediately sold the portion of the land from Rio Hondo Avenue almost to Rosemead Boulevard to AeroJet Corporation and they built a large facility there. It was named Flair Park and the roadway that parallels I-10 was named Flair Drive.
Demographics
Rosemead is part of a cluster of cities (along with Arcadia, Temple City, Monterey Park, San Marino, and San Gabriel) in the west San Gabriel Valley with a growing Asian population. Rosemead has a significant population from Mexico, among other Latino nationalities. Less than 1% of the population is African-American or Native American.