History
Burbank California had humble beginnings; it started out as parts of two large Spanish land grants. The Rancho San Rafael granted to Don Jose Maria Verdugo in 1798 and later the Rancho La Providencia in 1821. Named after a New Hampshire dentist named Dr. David Burbank, the city’s real history started when he sought new opportunities in the land together with thousands of Americans.
Dr. Burbank bought the two ranches in 1867 and combined the two to make one large ranch to raise sheep. The ranch house he built stood on what is now a Warner Bros. backlot and slowly sold off plots of the land. He also sold to Southern Pacific Railroad for one dollar a stretch of right-of-way, foreseeing that a railroad would rake in more profits for his ranch. Foresight would prove to be David Burbank’s genius. When santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads were having a rate war, Dr. Burbank once again seized opportunity when people started flocking to California by selling his property in 1886 to a group of land speculators for $250,000 thus forming the Providencia Land, Water and Development Company. These speculators organized the land by putting abusiness district, subdividing the rest into small farms and residential lots and on May 1, 1887 when they opened the tracts of land for sale, the town of Burbank was born.
Burbank grew slowly but surely, but it was in the 1920’s when Burbank boomed. From a population of just 500 in 1911, it grew to about 2,900 in 1920 then exploded to a whopping 16,622 by 1930. In the mid 1920’s, Lockheed Aircraft Company bought a piece of farmland in Burbank and built a plant for its airplane production, and by the time the United States entered the war, Lockheed had about 94,000 employees and churned out 19,000 planes. This wartime effort further increased Burbank’s population to 53,899 in 1943. When the aviation industry of Burbank was still starting out, so did the motion picture business. First National Pictures first moved in but was later taken over by an upstart company founded by four brothers named Warner. This same company made motion picture history when it release on October 23, 1927 the first all-talking movie or talkie, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. Soon after, other companies followed like Columbia Pictures, the Walt Disney Company and many more.
After the war, Burbank’s prosperity didn’t end with it. During the 1960’s and 70’s many more of the entertainment industry moved to Burbank. One of these companies was NBC. In 1978, the Lockheed airport was purchased and was named the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport and is also the largest privately owned municipal Airpost in the United States.
Today, Burbank is a city focused and centered around the media and entertainment industry since Lockheed closed its Burbank operations in 1990. Burbank is a technologically sound city with the feel of a small-town. A city that is truly about “people, pride, and progress.”
