Security Guard in Monrovia, CA

Monrovia is the fourth-oldest general-law city in Los Angeles County and the L.A. Basin (after Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Pasadena, all now charter cities). Incorporated in 1887, Monrovia has grown from a sparse community of orange ranches to a residential community of over 37,000.

Around 500 BC, a band of Shoshonean-speaking Indians named the Tongva established settlements in what is now the San Gabriel Valley. They were called the Gabrieliño Indians by early Spanish missionaries, a tribe of Mission Indians. The Tongva were not farmers; they gathered wild seeds, berries, and plants along rivers and in marshlands. Abundant oaks in the Valley, such as Coast Live Oak and Interior Live Oak provided a staple of the Tongva diet: acorn mush made of boiled acorn flour.

In 1769, the Portolà expedition was the first recorded Spanish (or any European) land entry and exploration of present-day California, then the Spanish colonial Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (colonial México). It had been claimed from sea by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 for the King of Spain, Europeans first visited the San Gabriel Valley, including Monrovia. The expedition, led by Gaspar de Portolà, proceeded north from San Diego, passing through the area en route to Monterey Bay. Accompanying Portolà was Franciscan padre Juan Crespí, famed diarist of the expedition. Much of what is known of early California is from Crespi’s detailed descriptions.