CHANGING FORTUNES : The Evolution of the Valley’s Economy

Described by Father Juan Crespi as “pleasant and spacious” in 1769, the San Fernando Valley can trace its economic beginnings to the Native Americans who made their home here for hundreds of years before the first white men arrived. After the establishment of the San Fernando Mission, Indian labor provided the basis for the region’s early prosperity under the direction of the Spanish fathers.

Over the next 150 years, following an influx of settlers and developers, the Valley was transformed from wheat fields and orange groves to movie studios and factories producing everything from airplanes to automobiles.

Today, it is a different Valley, a region struggling to recover from years of crippling recession and the jolting chaos of the Northridge earthquake. But despite the hard times, some see a bright future.

John Rooney, president of the Valley Economic Development Center, says that the recent crises have served as a wake-up call for businesses. “It’s clear, after the recession, that we have to look to international markets,” he says.

According to David S. Honda, the center’s chairman, the Valley’s cultural and industrial diversity has been its greatest strength throughout history--a feature that will serve it well in the new economy.

“The Valley represents America like nowhere else,” he says.

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1797: On Sept. 8, Mision San Fernando Rey de Espana --the San Fernando Mission--is founded.

1869: Backed by Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the San Fernando Homestead Assn. gains 60,000 acres in the South Valley.

1874: A railroad line is completed linking the Valley to Los Angeles.

1876: The Southern Pacific Railroad completes a tunnel through the hills north of San Fernando, providing a crucial transportation link between Los Angeles, the Valley, San Francisco and northern California.

1913: On Nov. 5, water from the Owens River flows through the L.A. aqueduct for the first time, setting the stage for explosive development.

1915: A 170-square-mile section of the Valley is annexed to Los Angeles. Other towns soon follow.

1939: Walt Disney moves his Silver Lake studio to a 51-acre site in Burbank.

1940s: During World War II, Lockheed’s Burbank workforce tops 90,000.

1952: NBC opens a television production facility in Burbank.

1957: The first section of the Hollywood Freeway (101) enters the Valley.

1964: Topanga Plaza, the first enclosed shopping mall on the West Coast, opens. Universal Studios opens to the public.

1971: On Feb. 9, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake occurs in the Sylmar-San Fernando area, causing nearly $500 million in property damage.

1980: Construction of the Warner Center office complex begins.

1986: Voters pass Proposition U, a slow-growth measure backed by Valley homeowners angered by the construction of a block-long Ventura Boulevard building.

1987: Investors lose more than $26 million when Reseda business whiz Barry Minkow’s carpet cleaning company collapses amid massive fraud.

1991

April: Rocketdyne announces that 212 Valley workers were laid off in the first four months of the year.

September: Bancorp, the Valley’s second-largest banking company, declares its first annual loss since the business began in 1982.

1992

January: Encino-based Independence Bank closes after being seized by federal regulators who declare the bank insolvent and.

April: Valley Federal Savings disappears after 67 years when it is sold to American Savings Bank in a government-arranged transaction.

August: General Motors closes its 44-year-old Van Nuys factory, putting 2,600 blue-collar employees out of work.

December: Bankruptcies peak at 47,744.

1993

March: Hughes Aircraft Co. says it will shift its Canoga Park missile design operations to Tucson over the next 18 months, taking 1,900 jobs.

October: Valley property foreclosures hit 3,187 10 months into the year, an increase of 42% over all of 1992.

November: Rocketdyne, a Canoga Park-based unit of Rockwell International, says it will cut nearly 1,000 jobs in 1994, approximately 15% of its payroll.

The average price of a single-family Valley home drops to $240,000--a decline of more than $16,000 since January and the lowest average since a peak of $300,000 in 1989.

December: The Clinton Administration announces that Rocketdyne in Canoga Park and Calstart of Burbank will receive a total of $7 million in defense conversion grants.

General Motors says that some 200 workers laid off from its defunct Van Nuys automobile plant will be put to work making seat covers at a new Valley factory.

1994

January

The magnitude 6.8 Northridge earthquake inflicts over $2 billion in damage, destroys up to 50,000 dwelling units in the most devastating natural disaster in U.S. history.

Morgan Guaranty Trust, a New York-based bank, notifies the Warner Ridge office complex developers that it will not provide $100 million in permanent financing.

Packard Bell, a Chatsworth-based computer maker, announces that it will transfer 420 technical support jobs--roughly one-third of its work force--to Utah.

March: U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown announces that the quake-damaged Sepulveda VA Hospital will be demolished and replaced with an outpatient center.

June: Woodland Hills-based 20th Century Insurance Co. says it will stop selling earthquake insurance and phase out homeowner coverage in the next two years.

July: More than 37,000 are at work in entertainment and more than 11,000 each in biomedical aerospace and computer hardware sectors, the new employment leaders in the Valley.

Tinseltown II

The entertainment industry employs more Valley residents than any other. The studios have a particularly colorful history.

1913: Under contract to the Biograph Co., director D.W. Griffith films the four-reel Biblical epic “Judith of Bethulia” in the West Valley.

1915: Carl Laemmle creates Universal City on a former 420-acre chicken ranch near the Cahuenga Pass.

1926: First National Pictures, which produced silents starring Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, sets up shop on 78 acres of land in Burbank.

1928: Filmmaker Mack Sennett builds his self-titled studio on what is now Studio City, where he creates hundreds of zany two-reel comedies.

1929: Warner Bros. purchases First National.

1934: Columbia Pictures purchases 40 acres in Burbank.

1936: Sennett’s Valley facility is sold to Republic Studios, which produces numerous Westerns starring John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers on the lot.

1962: Television station KRCA moves to NBC’s Burbank studio, becoming KNBC.

1963: CBS opens its Studio Center, now the home of such television programs as “Roseanne” and “Seinfeld.”

1972: Columbia and Warner Bros. join to create Burbank Studios.

1990: When Columbia leaves Burbank, the lot is renamed Warner Bros. Studios.

The Lockheed Legacy

For more than 60 years, the Lockheed Corp. dominated the Valley’s economic landscape as one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of aircraft, missiles and rockets. For decades, its Burbank plant was the Valley’s largest employer--a distinction that came to a swift end after the end of the Cold War and the start of defense industry downsizing. A brief chronology of the company’s Valley history:

1928: Fifteen years after Allan and Malcolm Loughead fly their first aircraft, Lockheed sets up shop in Burbank where they produce the popular Vega airplane. A year later, the company is in the hands of the Detroit Aircraft Co., which goes bankrupt during the Depression.

1932: Financier Robert Gross purchases the Burbank site for $40,000, forming the corporation that exists today.

1940s: During World War II, the company escalates production of the P-38 fighter, Hudson bomber, B-17 Flying Fortress, C-69 Constellation transport, PV-1 Ventura and the Constitution.

1951: Built with the U.S. Air Force, an Antelope Valley facility opens in Palmdale.

1953: The company’s 25,000th airplane rolls off the assembly line.

1974: Lockheed leads the Valley’s industries with $3 billion in annual sales.

1986: A new corporate headquarters is established in Calabasas.

1993: The last of the Burbank buildings that housed the Skunk Works facility are razed. Currently, Lockheed’s Valley employees number less than 5,000.

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Sources: “The San Fernando Valley: Past and Present;” “Burbank: An Illustrated History;” “Movie-Made America;” “This is Hollywood;” “The Owensmouth Baby.”