Best Laundry Pickup and Delivery Service in Woodland Hills

DID YOU KNOW?

Victor Girard Kleinberger bought 2,886 acres and founded the town of Girard in 1922. To attract residents and businesses, he planted 120,000 trees. The community of Girard was eventually incorporated into Los Angeles, and in 1945, it became known as Woodland Hills.

FUN FACT

Bud Abbot, Buster Keaton, Dr. Dre, and Rick Auerbach are all from Woodland Hills. 

A LITTLE HISTORY

The area was inhabited for around 8,000 years by Native Americans of the Fernandeño-Tataviam and Chumash-Venturaño tribes, who lived in the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills and close to the Arroyo Calabasas (Calabasas Creek) tributary of the Los Angeles River in present-day Woodland Hills.

The first Europeans to enter the San Fernando Valley were the Portola Expedition in 1769, exploring Alta California for Spanish mission and settlement locations. Seeing it from present-day Sepulveda Pass, the oak savanna inspired them to call the area El Valle de Santa Catalina de Bononia de Los Encinos (Valley of St. Catherine of Bononia of the Oaks). The Mission San Fernando Rey de España (Mission San Fernando) was established in 1797 and controlled the valley's land, including future Woodland Hills. 

Ownership of the southern half of the valley, south of present-day Roscoe Boulevard from Toluca Lake to Woodland Hills, by Americans began in the 1860s. First, Isaac Lankershim (as the "San Fernando Farm Homestead Association") in 1869, then Isaac Lankershim's son, James Boon Lankershim, and Isaac Newton Van Nuys (as the "Los Angeles Farm & Milling Company") in 1873, and finally, in the "biggest land transaction ever recorded in Los Angeles County", a syndicate led by Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times with Hobart Johnstone Whitley, Gen. Moses Sherman, and others (as the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company) in 1910.

Victor Girard Kleinberger bought 2,886 acres (1,168 ha) in the area from Chandler's group and founded the town of Girard in 1922. He sought to attract residents and businesses by developing an infrastructure, advertising in newspapers, and planting 120,000 trees. His 300 pepper trees, forming a canopy over Canoga Avenue between Ventura Boulevard and Saltillo Street, became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #93 in 1972. c. 1939 the area was described as "A small business district on Ventura Boulevard at Topanga Canyon Junction.

The population is scattered, being found mostly throughout the surrounding agricultural country." The community of Girard was eventually incorporated into Los Angeles, and in 1945, it became known as Woodland Hills. Reference to the founding of Girard is part of the story arc in the first season of Perry Mason (2020).