La Puente

History

The original inhabitants of the area now occupied by the city of La Puente were the Tongva lived in a village called Awingna, which linguists translate as "abiding place." The Awingna chief Matheo (who also held sway over several other nearby villages) was baptized at Mission San Gabriel in 1774. In 1769, the Spanish Portolá expedition became the first Europeans to see inland portions of Alta California. On July 30, the party camped on the east side of the San Gabriel River, in today's unincorporated area of Bassett. Father Juan Crespi wrote in his diary that, the next day, they had to build a bridge (Spanish "puente") to cross the miry San Gabriel River. With the establishment of Mission San Gabriel, the area encompassing Awingna and what is now the city of La Puente became part of Rancho La Puente, established as a mission outpost and ranch. The rancho was visited by the Jedediah Smith party in November 1826, the first Americans to travel overland to California. Following secularization of the missions in the 1830s, former mission ranchos passed into private ownership. In 1842, John Rowland and William Workman were granted the Rancho La Puente. In 1884, the area was named Puente (bridge in Spanish; in old Spanish the noun was often feminine, as opposed to modern Spanish el puente). In Crespi's diary, it was written as "la puente", and that spelling has persisted. The area was known for its fruit and walnut groves during the 1930s. The city was even home to the world's largest walnut packing plant. A small airport called the 'Skyranch' operated in La Puente from 1944 to 1951 before it was closed and developed for housing. Today, the city is heavily urbanized, but the area still has some historical landmarks from its founding days nearby, for instance, the…

Geography

La Puente is located at (34.032410, -117.955195). The city, which is mostly flat, covers about of land in the San Gabriel Valley.

Race & ethnicity