check out history - Arcadia, CA. | WikiXM

Arcadia largely grew up as the well-to-do suburb of neighboring Pasadena, with many early residents being the sons and daughters of long-established Southern California families. A large tract of estate homes was developed by Harry Chandler, the scion of the Los Angeles Times, who lived in adjacent Sierra Madre, California.

The city became the residence of choice for many corporate chief executives, including those in the aerospace, horse-racing, and finance industries. The postwar boom saw Arcadia grow rapidly into a suburban residential community, with many of the chicken ranches being subdivided into home lots. Between 1940 and 1950, the population grew by more than two and a half times.

The housing boom continued through the 1950s and 1960s and along with that growth came the necessary infrastructure of schools, commercial buildings, and expanded city services. During the postwar boom, a modern commercial district developed along Baldwin Avenue south of Huntington Drive in west Arcadia.

In 1951 this strip, called the West Arcadia Hub, was anchored by a new, locally owned Hinshaw's department store. This was the first large department store to be built in Arcadia, and the largest in the western San Gabriel Valley outside the city of Pasadena. This development marked the beginning of Arcadia's gradual transformation into one of the leading shopping districts of the San Gabriel Valley. In 1947, 111 acres (0.45 km2) that comprised the heart of the Baldwin Ranch were deeded to the State of California and the County of Los Angeles, and developed into Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Until a Supreme Court ruling in 1965, every property sale contract within the borders of Arcadia had to include a provision that the new owner could only sell the property to a white Protestant.

However, these clauses had been ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court's ruling in 1948's Shelley v. Kraemer, and many non-Protestant families did, in fact, own homes and live in Arcadia well before 1965.In October 1975, the Santa Anita Fashion Park was opened to the public on the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Huntington Drive, on part of the former Santa Anita Assembly Center site.

The center court featured a very large "Blue head" by artist Roy Lichtenstein, which was later removed. The mall expanded in 2004, and renamed Westfield Santa Anita. It was affected by the late 2000s Great Recession, but continues to attract business. James Dobson, a former Arcadia resident, founded the nonprofit Christian ministry Focus on the Family in the city in 1977.

Its original office still stands on the south side of Foothill Boulevard. Focus grew to larger quarters in the city, and in intervening years expanded to Monrovia for warehouse space before moving out of Arcadia completely in 1990. Focus on the Family is now based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but still has thousands of members in Arcadia. In the 1980s, the Asian population in Arcadia began to grow.

The city had remained 99% white until the late 1970s, but in 1985, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Asian population had grown from 4% in 1980 to an estimated 9%, overtaking Latinos, who accounted for roughly 7% of the population. By the 2010 census, Asians consisted of 59.2% of the population. In the late 1990s, Native American activists threatened to sue Arcadia High School over its use of the "Apache" mascot.

The high school's use of Native American symbols, including an "Apache Joe" mascot, the Pow Wow school newspaper, the Apache News television program, the "Smoke Signals" news bulletin boards, the school's auxiliary team's marching "Apache Princesses" and opposing football team fans' "Scalp the Apaches" signs were viewed by these Native American activists and many Arcadia community members as offensive.

Other residents, and some school alumni with Native American ancestry, did not object to their use. The school consulted with some Native American groups and made some concessions, but did not change the mascot. Arcadia High School has a yearly charity drive for the Apache community.