Norwalk, site of freeway hubs, a community...

Norwalk, site of freeway hubs, a community college, two museums and a one-man Center for Bigfoot Studies was the geographic center of the post-World War II housing boom in which returning servicemen used GI loans to help create instant cities.

“GIs, no down payment, 2 bedrooms and den on large lots, only $7,999,” proclaimed dozens of billboards that ringed the areas surrounding Los Angeles, including the cities now known as Norwalk, Artesia, Bellflower and Lakewood.

Soon, the rustic charms of prewar dairy farms had given way to two-car garages and cement walls.

Before the GI housing market altered it forever, Norwalk was the “Cream Pitcher of America’s Richest Agricultural County.” And before the livestock arrived, Norwalk had gained national attention from some fine-feathered friends: ostriches.

In the late 1880s, an Englishman named Edwin Cawston had 52 South African ostriches, weighing about 300 pounds each, shipped to his ranch on Norwalk’s Bloomfield Avenue. The Cawston Ostrich Farm delighted tourists who could pay to hop aboard stuffed ostriches, watch the feather-plucking process or feed whole oranges to the birds.

Eventually, neighbors’ complaints led Cawston to take his flock to South Pasadena, where the ostrich ranch remained until changing tastes in ladies’ hats closed it in 1934.

But other entrepreneurs discovered Norwalk. In the 1920s and ‘30s, thousands of Dutch dairy farmers fled poverty in their homeland for the cheap land of Norwalk and other nearby cities. Years later in the 1950s, many immigrants came to Norwalk from Dutch Indonesia after it won its independence from Holland.

When Norwalk incorporated in 1957, pro-development zoning changes and the escalating price of land forced the farmers to move to Chino, where many remain today.

The onslaught of suburbia gave rise to various enterprises that prospered from it; in the 1980s, the city gave a face-lift to the shops and offices along Front Street, the brick-ornamented commercial backbone of the old farming community.

City leaders now trumpet Norwalk as the “Home of Cerritos College,” as the site of a new entertainment center with 20 movie theaters and as a transportation hub, citing Metrolink and Green Line stations and the eastern terminus of the Century Freeway.

Norwalk Tidbits

AIR TRAGEDY: On Feb. 1, 1958, a four-engine Military Air Transport Service DC-6 collided in midair with a twin-engine Navy anti-submarine bomber. In all, 48 people died, including passengers and people on the ground near the crash site at the Five Points downtown intersection.

THE NAME GAME: For almost a century Norwalk was known by such names as New River, Seven Sycamores, Sycamore Grove and Corazon de los Valles (Heart of the Valleys), which got shortened to Corvalles. Eventually, in 1877, a name generated by the Southern Pacific Railroad stuck: The rail tracks crossed the “north walk,” hence “Norwalk.”

THE FAME GAME: Film-friendly Norwalk entices dozens of filmmakers to its scenic virtues, including historic 1920s Front Street, where Independence Productions will soon begin shooting scenes for a movie starring Drew Barrymore. The Metropolitan State Hospital, the state’s 80-year-old mental facility, was used as the backdrop for Oliver Stone’s upcoming “Cold Around the Heart.” Other popular filming sites include the 19th century Paddison Farm and the now-closed Excelsior High School.

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By the Numbers

CITY BUSINESS

Incorporated: Aug. 27, 1957

Square miles: 12

Number of parks: 12

City employees: 185

1995-96 operating budget: $23 million

PEOPLE

Population: 94,279

Households: 26,279

Average household size: 3

Median age: 29

MONEY AND WORK

Median household income: $38,124

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

Median home value: $164,700

Employed workers (16 and older): 45,457

Percentage of women employed: 56%

Percentage of men employed: 76%

Self-employed: 1,977

Car poolers: 6,835

RETAIL STORES

Number of stores: 534

Number of employees: 4,384

Annual sales: $573 million

ETHNIC BREAKDOWN:

Latino: 48%

White: 38%

Other: 1%

Asian: 12%

FAMILIES:

Non-family households: 18%

Married couples with children: 37%

Married couples with no children: 26%

Other types of families: 18%

AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME (see microfilm for chart) Source: Claritas In. Retail figures are for 1995. All other figures are for 1990. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.