Forty years ago, the City of Industry’s...

Forty years ago, the City of Industry’s name was carefully chosen to evoke images of smokestacks and tireless assembly lines, of great machines clanking around the clock.

Envisioned as a community devoted solely to commerce, the city occupies a two-mile-wide, 14-mile-long strip wedged between two transcontinental railroad tracks in a former agricultural area in the south San Gabriel Valley. Although 70,000 workers toil in the city by day, only 580 people actually live within its sprawling boundaries.

In fact, when it was incorporated in 1957, it was able to reach the minimum population required for cityhood only by including a sanitarium with 150 patients.

The city has just 179 registered voters and a political history unlike that of any other in the county. For decades, it never published an annual budget. In the 38 years since incorporation, there have been only three contested City Council races. John Ferrero, the only mayor since the city’s founding, ha always run unopposed.

One of the biggest corruption cases in California history focused on the city’s founder, James Marty Stafford, whose empire included a family grain mill and substantial real estate holdings. In the early 1980s, six men were indicted in a Stafford-orchestrated kickback and bid-rigging scheme, mostly involving contracts for work on the 660-acre, $65-million Industry Hills and Sheraton Resort. In 1984, all pleaded guilty to various charges and agreed to pay $4.5 million in fines. Stafford, the only one sentenced to prison, was released in 1988 after serving four years.

Industry has most of the largest tax assets in the southern San Gabriel Valley--including 2,000 factories, warehouses and discount outlets, as well as a first-class golf course and resort hotel built on a former garbage dump. The city’s fiscal influence on surrounding, tax-starved suburbs such as La Puente and South El Monte prompted one author to compare it to an economic atom bomb.

GALLOPING ESCARGOT: The City of Industry hosts the annual Great Snail Race every April in which snails of all varieties compete for fabulous prizes by sprinting up 13-inch poles in a little over two minutes. A week later, usually in the wake of the escargot extravaganza, the city plays host to another sporting event: armadillo races.

PASTORAL ERA: In 1841, William Workman and John Rowland led the first overland wagon expedition into Southern California. The Workman family house, which was remodeled in the 1870s, still stands on a six-acre site on Don Julian Road and is part of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum. In 1920, Walter Workman, William’s grandson and founder of Temple City, bought back some of the land that his grandfather had lost to land baron Lucky Baldwin and, in the middle of a walnut grove, built a 24-room Spanish Colonial Revival mansion that has been likened to a miniature San Simeon. Also at this small oasis of rural history is El Campo Santo, the Workman family cemetery, believed to be among the oldest private cemeteries in California.

BIG McTEASE: Don’t try to order a Big Mac here. Back in the late 1970s, McDonald’s plunked down nearly $1 million to build a McStudio to film commercials. This so-called Production Store on Green Drive looks like every other McDonald’s. But the grill never gets turned on. Outside, the trees are stuffed in special planters so directors can roll them around. The McDonald’s sign rotates to face any direction. A 10-foot fence surrounds the place, giving it more the appearance of a prison than a place where Ronald McDonald might rest his arches. The fence, however, is there to keep out those who might confuse it with the real thing. Still, once in a while a gate is left open and--in the middle of filming--some unsuspecting motorist pulls into the drive-up window and honks his horn for service.

GOLF HEAVEN: Guests at the Industry Hills and Sheraton Resort are often surprised to find the Ralph W. Miller Golf Library and Museum and its collection of more than 5,000 volumes on the science and history of the game. A 1597 edition of “Laws and Actes of Parliament” records a 1495 edict that banned Scots from playing golf because Scottish lords felt that people should be learning archery to defend their lands rather than hitting balls. The museum’s memorabilia includes score cards, postcards, medals, artwork, a tee collection, golf ball exhibits and Winston Churchill’s railway funeral coach.

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By The Numbers

City Business

Date founded: June 18,1957

Area in square miles: 14

Number of parks: 1

Number of city employees: 19

1995-96 budget: $38.2 million

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People

Population: 580

Households: 97

Average household size: 3.31

Median age: 35.5

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Ethnic Breakdown

Asian: 3%

Black: 3%

Latino: 51%

White: 42%

Other: 1%

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Money and Work

Median household income: $35,125

Median household income / L.A. County: $34,965

Median home value: $165,100

Employed workers (16 and older): 163

Percentage of women employed: 35%

Percentage of men employed: 39.7%

Self-employed: 6

Car- poolers: 19

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Number of Cars Per Household

One: 37%

Two: 39%

Three or more: 18%

None: 6%

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Ages

65 and older: 16%

50- 64: 11%

35- 49: 22%

18- 34: 32%

17 and younger: 19%

Source: Claritas Inc. Household expenses are averages for 1994. All other figures are for 1990. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.