The Crescenta Valley is a small inland valley in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

, lying between the

San Gabriel Mountains The San Gabriel Mountains () are a mountain range located in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert ...

on the northeast and the

Verdugo Mountains The Verdugo Mountains, also known as the Verdugo Hills or simply The Verdugos, are a small, rugged mountain range of the Transverse Ranges system in Los Angeles County, California. Located just south of the western San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdu ...

and San Rafael Hills on the southwest. It opens into the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

at the northwest and the

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley (), sometimes referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, with the city of Los Angeles directly bordering it to the west and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern ...

at the southeast. It is nearly bisected by the

Verdugo Wash Verdugo Wash is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 16, 2011 tributary of the Los Angeles River, in the Glendale area of Los Angeles County, California. The stre ...

, a smaller valley separating the Verdugo Mountains from the San Rafael Hills. Most of the valley lies at an elevation of over .

Etymology

The name "Crescenta" does not derive from the Spanish word for "crescent", which is ''el creciente''. Benjamin Briggs coined the name from the English word "crescent" because he could see three crescent-shaped formations from his home,Gudde, Erwin G. (1998). ''California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographic Names'', 4th ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. or because of the shape of the valley.Dougherty, June (1993). ''Sources of History: La Crescenta''. Privately printed. The post office was established in 1888, with the Post Office adding the "ta" to the name to distinguish it from

Crescent City, California Crescent City ( Tolowa: ''Taa-’at-dvn''; Yurok: ''Kohpey''; Wiyot: ''Daluwagh'') is the only incorporated city in Del Norte County, California, of which it is also the county seat. The city is on the North Coast of California and had a tota ...

History

The Crescenta Valley area has been inhabited by the

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . In the precolonial era, the peop ...

for thousands of years, including the central villages of Tuyunga, Hahamongna, and Wikangna. Wikangna was most central to the valley, being located in the Las Barras Canyon area possibly at the Verdugo Hills Gold Course. Villagers thrived on the sprawling oak forests of the area and natural springs. The Crescenta Valley was a pastoral area under the Rancho Tujunga,

Rancho San Rafael Rancho San Rafael was a Spanish land grant in the San Rafael Hills, bordering the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco in present-day Los Angeles County, southern California, given in 1784 to Jose Maria Verdugo. Geography The rancho include ...

and Rancho La Cañada

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

s during the Spanish and Mexican periods. The first American settler in the valley was Theodore Pickens, who settled at the top of today's Briggs Avenue in 1871. The western portion of ''Rancho La Cañada'', which included the major portion of the valley, was subdivided in 1881 into 10-acre parcels by Benjamin B. Briggs. Significant suburban residential development began with the opening of the Montrose subdivision in 1913, accelerating significantly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Today, the Crescenta Valley is a mature

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

an area.

Communities

Incorporated cities, districts of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, districts of Glendale, and unincorporated

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

s in the Crescenta Valley include: * City of La Cañada Flintridge * Crescenta Highlands (also known as "Glendale Annex"): City of Glendale * La Crescenta-Montrose: unincorporated LA county * Montrose: City of Glendale * Sunland: City of Los Angeles * Tujunga: City of Los Angeles * Verdugo City: City of Glendale

Weather

Daytime temperatures are generally warmer than those in coastal regions during summer. Winter is somewhat colder than most L.A. area stations. Winter snow is rare, but not unknown on the valley floor. Because of proximity to the mountains, rainfall is generally higher than most Los Angeles area locations, averaging around 20 inches per year, mostly falling between November and March.

References

External links

Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce

Historical Society of Crescenta Valley
*
Crescenta Valley Weekly
' {{California Geography of Los Angeles Geography of the San Fernando Valley Geography of the San Gabriel Valley Glendale, California La Cañada Flintridge, California Los Angeles County, California, regions San Gabriel Mountains San Rafael Hills Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles Valleys of California Valleys of Los Angeles County, California Verdugo Mountains