Early history

The city of Burbank occupies land that was originally part of two Spanish land grants, the vast Rancho San Rafael, granted to Don Jose Maria Verdugo by the Spanish government in 1798, and the Rancho La Providencia created in 1821.

Dr. David Burbank purchased over 4600 acres (19 km²) of the former Verdugo holding and another 4600 acres (19 km²) of the Rancho La Providencia in 1867 and operated a successful sheep ranch for many years.

A shrewd businessman, foreseeing the value of rail transport, Burbank sold Southern Pacific Railroad a right-of-way through the property for one dollar. A boom created by a rate war between the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific would bring people streaming into California shortly thereafter and a group of land speculators would purchase much of Burbank's land holdings in 1886 for $250,000 USD.

The speculators formed the Providencia Land, Water, and Development Company and began developing the land, calling the new town "Burbank" after its enterprising founder and began offering farm lots on May 1, 1887.

Laid out and surveyed with a modern a business district surrounded by residential lots, wide boulevards were carved out as the Los Angeles Express printed:

Burbank, the town, being built in the midst of the new farming community, has been laid out in such a manner as to make it by and by an unusually pretty town. The streets and avenues are wide and, all have been handsomely graded. All improvements being made would do credit to a city.... Everything done at Burbank has been done right.

The City of Burbank

The town grew steadily, weathering the drought and depression that hit Los Angeles in the 1890s and in 20 years, the community now consisted of its own bank, newspaper, high school and a thriving business district with a hardware store, livery stable, dry goods store, general store, and a bicycle repair shop.

The population would petition the State Legislature to incorporate and formally become a city on July 8, 1911, naming Thomas Story, a local businessman, as their first mayor.

By 1916, 1,500 residents claimed Burbank as home. By 1930, as First National Studios, Andrew Jergens Company, The Lockheed Company, McNeill and Libby Canning Company, the Moreland Company, and Northrop Aircraft Corporation opened factories and studios there, the numbers had swelled to 16,662.

The Federal government officially recognized Burbank's status in 1923 when the United States Postal Service reclassified the city from the rural village mail delivery classification to city postal delivery service.

Aviation

In the meantime, the United States Department of Commerce recommended Burbank as the most favorable airport location in the Los Angeles area. Dedicated on Memorial Day Weekend (May 30 - June 1), 1930, the United Airport was the largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles area until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Municipal Airport (now Los Angeles International Airport) in Westchester when that facility (the former Mines Field) commenced commercial operations.

Burbank's airport has undergone a number of name changes since its opening day in 1930. It had five runways that radiated in varying directions, each 300 feet wide and 2,600 feet long. It remained United Airport until 1934, when it was renamed Union Air Terminal (1934–1940). Boeing built planes on the field. Lockheed Aircraft had its own nearby airfield. Lockheed bought the airport in 1940 and renamed it the Lockheed Air Terminal, which it was known as until 1967, when its name changed again, to Hollywood-Burbank Airport. It remained Hollywood-Burbank Airport for over a decade, until 1978, when it was renamed Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978–2003). Most recently, in December 2003, the facility was renamed Bob Hope Airport in honor of the famous comedian who lived in nearby Toluca Lake.

The growth of companies such as Lockheed and the burgeoning entertainment industry drew more and more people to the area as Burbank's population doubled again between 1930 and 1940 to 34,337. Burbank saw its greatest growth during World War II due to Lockheed's strong presence in the city, employing some 80,800 men and women to contribute to the war effort producing aircraft such as the Hudson, P-38 Lightning, PV-1 Ventura and America's first jet fighter, the P-80 Shooting Star, arriving too late to participate in the war, but would see service in the Korean War, logging the world's first jet-to-jet aerial kill in history. Lockheed would go on to create the super secret spy planes U2, SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk at its Burbank-based "skunk works."

Burbank's growth did not slow as war production ceased and over 7,000 new residents created a postwar real estate boom and real estate values soared as housing tracts sprang up on formerly vacant land in the Magnolia Park area of Burbank between 1945 and 1950.

As America entered the atomic age, the city's industries thrived and as the world changed around it, Burbank continued to evolve to meet its demands ushering in the 21st century vastly different from the town's sheep-farm roots.

Entertainment Industry

The motion picture business moved to Burbank in the 1920's. First National Pictures bought up a 78-acre site on Olive Avenue near Dark Canyon. The company was soon taken over by another young company founded by four brothers by the name of Warner. On October 23, 1927, motion picture history was made when Warner Bros. released the first all-talking movie, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.

Other movie companies soon followed. Columbia Pictures purchased property in Burbank as a ranch facility, using it primarily for outdoor shooting. Walt Disney's company, which had outgrown its Hollywood quarters, bought 51 acres in Burbank. Disney's million-dollar studio was completed in 1939 on Buena Vista Street.

Disney and Warner contributed to the war effort by producing training films and morale films for the armed services and cartoons promoting the sale of war bonds. Disney artists designed more than 1000 unit mascot designs for units from every branch of the armed forces. Walt Disney had authorized that the creation of these insignias were to be designed for free and by the end of the war was estimated to have cost Disney over thirty thousand dollars.

Burbank would also witness its first real civil strife as the culmination of a six month labor dispute between the set decorator's union and the studios resulted in the Battle of Burbank on October 5, 1945.

By the 1960s and 1970s, more and more of the Hollywood entertainment industry were relocating to Burbank. The NBC moved its network television headquarters to its new location at Olive and Alameda avenues. NBC arrived in 1952 from its former location at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, California.

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