Bellflower, California

Bellflower is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 72,878.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles County, California - United States - 2000

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The city derives its name from a mispronunciation of belle fleur, a variety of apple tree. Originally settled by dairy farmers of Dutch, Japanese, and Portuguese descent, Bellflower and neighboring Paramount served as the milk production centers for Southern California until soaring post-World War II property values motivated most of the farmers to move several miles east to the Dairy Valley/Dairyland area (now the cities of Cerritos and La Palma). Seemingly overnight, the city's pastures and farms were replaced by sprawling subdivisions of inexpensive, largely prefabricated single-story houses. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bellflower Boulevard, the city's main thoroughfare, was a thriving commercial strip. However, suburban growth in Orange County and the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys made Bellflower's relatively humble housing tracts decidedly unattractive, and by the 1990s much of its original white population--and the businesses that served it--had left. The departed Anglos were replaced by just about every ethnicity imaginable, to the extent that the "A-B-C" region, formed by Bellflower and neighboring Artesia and Cerritos, is considered one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse in the United States. Bellflower Boulevard has recovered much of its previous business traffic, and is now lined with shops advertising in two dozen languages.

Related Topics:
Apple - Dutch - Japanese - Portuguese - Paramount - World War II - Cerritos - La Palma - Orange County - San Gabriel - San Fernando - Artesia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~