Pacoima (Tataviam: Pakoinga, meaning "entrance") is a neighborhood in the northeast San Fernando Valley, within the city of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.Hsu, Tiffany (September 4, 2014) "Main Street economic renaissance planned for Pacoima". Los Angeles Times.
History Until 1848 The area was first inhabited by the Fernandeño-Tongva and Tataviam people, California Indian Tribes, now known as Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.McCawley, William The First Angelinos: The Fernandeno Indians of Mission de Fernndo Ballena Press, 1996 The original name for the Native American village in this area was actually Pakoinga or Pakɨynga in Fernandeño, but since the "ng" sound (a voiced velar nasal) did not exist in Spanish, the Spaniards mistook the sound as an "m" and recorded the name as Pacoima, as is seen today.
Pacoima's written history dates to 1769 when Spaniards entered the San Fernando Valley. In 1771, nearby Mission San Fernando Rey was founded, with Native Americans creating gardens for the mission in the area. They lived at the mission working on the gardens which, in a few years, had stretched out over most of the valley.
The Mexican government secularized the mission lands in 1834 by taking them away from the church. The first governor of California, Pio Pico, leased the lands to Andrés Pico, his brother. In 1845, Pio Pico sold the whole San Fernando Valley to Don Eulogio de Celis for $14,000 to raise money for the war between Mexico and the United States, settled by a treaty signed at Campo de Cahuenga in 1845, and by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The Pacoima area became sheep ranches and wheat fields.
Town In 1873, Senator Charles Maclay of Santa Clara purchased in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley adjacent to the San Fernando Mission and in 1887, Jouett Allen bought of land between the Pacoima Wash and the Tujunga Wash. The land he purchased was from the Maclay Rancho Water Company, which had taken over Senator Charles Maclay’s holdings in the Valley. Allen retained for himself and subdivided the remainder in tracts. It was from this that the town of Pacoima was born. The subdivision’s original boundaries were Paxton Street on the north, Herrick Avenue on the east, Pierce Street on the south, & San Fernando Road on the west.
The town was built in keeping with the new Southern Pacific railroad station. Shortly after the rail line had been established, the Southern Pacific Railroad chose the site for a large brick passenger station, which was considered to be one of the finest on their line. Soon large spacious and expensive two-story homes made their appearance, as the early planners had established building restrictions against anything of a lesser nature. The first concrete sidewalks and curbs were laid and were to remain the only ones in the San Fernando Valley for many years.
In 1888, the town's main street, wide and long, was laid through the center of the subdivision. The street was first named Taylor Avenue after President Taylor; later it was renamed Pershing Street. Today it is known as Van Nuys Boulevard. Building codes were established, requiring that homes built cost at least USD$2,000. The land deed contained a clause that if liquor was sold on this property, it would revert to Jouett Allen or his heirs.
But like the railroad station, the large hotel, the big two-story school building and many commercial buildings, most were torn down within a few years as the boom days receded. The early pioneers had frowned upon industry, which eventually resulted in the people moving away from the exclusive suburb which they had set up to establish new homes closer to their employment and Pacoima returned to its rural, agricultural roots.
In 1916, the presently named Pacoima Chamber of Commerce was established as the Pacoima Chamber of Farmers. For many years, the fertile soil produced abundant crops of olives, peaches, apricots, oranges and lemons. The opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct brought a new supply of water to the area. With the new water supply, the number of orchards, farms and poultry ranches greatly increased and thoroughbred horses began to be raised.
Los Angeles annexed the land, including Pacoima, as part of ordinance 32192 N.S. on May 22, 1915."Annexation and Detachment Map ." City of Los Angeles. Retrieved on March 19, 2010.
1940s: World War II During World War II, the rapid expansion of the workforce at Lockheed's main plant in neighboring Burbank and need for worker housing led to the construction of the San Fernando Gardens housing project. By the 1950s, the rapid suburbanization of the San Fernando Valley arrived in Pacoima, and the area changed almost overnight from a dusty farming area to a bedroom community for the fast-growing industries in Los Angeles and nearby Burbank and Glendale, with transportation to and from Pacoima made easy by the Golden State Freeway.
Beginning in the late 1940s, parts of Pacoima started becoming a place where Southern Californians escaping poverty in rural areas settled. In the post–World War II era, many African Americans settled in Pacoima after arriving in the area during the second wave of the Great Migration since they had been excluded from other neighborhoods due to racially discriminatory covenants. By 1960, almost all of the 10,000 African Americans in the San Fernando Valley lived in Pacoima and Arleta as it became the center of African-American life in the Valley.
1957 airplane crashes
On January 31, 1957, a Douglas DC-7B operated by Douglas Aircraft Company was involved in a mid-air collision and crashed into the schoolyard of Pacoima Middle School, then named Pacoima Junior High School.Hill, Gladwyn. "7 Die as Planes Collide and One Falls in Schoolyard; PLANES COLLIDE, SCHOOL YARD HIT Roar Alerts Students 'Everything on Fire' Witness Describes Crash", The New York Times, February 1, 1957, Retrieved on February 3, 2010. "Wreckage of airliner falls into school yard at Pacoima, Calif.""31-JAN-1957 Douglas DC-7B N8210H." Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on February 3, 2010. By February 1, seven people had died, and about 75 had been injured due to the incident."7 KILLER, 74 HURT IN SCHOOL AIR CRASH." Los Angeles Times. February 1, 1957. Start page 1. 5 pages. Retrieved on February 3, 2010. A 12-year-old boy died from multiple injuries from the incident on February 2."Pacoima Boy Dies, 8th Air Crash Victim." Los Angeles Times. February 3, 1957. Start page: 1. 4 pages. Retrieved on February 3, 2010. On June 10, 1957, a light aircraft hit a house in Pacoima; the four passengers on board died, and eight people in the house sustained injuries."PLANE SLAMS PACOIMA HOUSE; 4 ABOARD DIE." Los Angeles Times. June 10, 1957. Start page 1, 2 pages. Retrieved on February 3, 2010.
1960s to present In 1966, Los Angeles city planners wrote a 48-page report noting that Pacoima does not have a coherent structure to develop businesses in the central business district, lacks civic pride, and has poor house maintenance."." Los Angeles Times. May 22, 1966. Retrieved on March 18, 2010.
By the late 1960s, immigrants from rural Mexico began to move to Pacoima due to the low housing costs and the neighborhood's proximity to manufacturing jobs. African Americans who were better established began to move out and, in an example of ethnic succession, within less than two decades, the African American population was replaced by a poorer Latino immigrant population. Immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador settled in Pacoima. Seventy-five percent of Pacoima's residents were African Americans in the 1970s. According to the 1990 U.S. census, 71% of Pacoima's population was of Hispanic/Latino descent while 10% was African American.
The closing of factories in the area around Pacoima in the early 1990s caused residents to lose jobs, reducing the economic base of the neighborhood; many residents left Pacoima as a result. By 1994, Pacoima was the poorest area in the San Fernando Valley. One in three Pacoima residents lived in public housing. The poverty rate hovered between 25% and 40%. In 1994, Williams wrote of Pacoima, "one of the worst off" neighborhoods in Los Angeles "nevertheless hides its poverty well." Williams cited the lack of homeless people on Pacoima's streets, the fact that no vacancies existed in Pacoima's major shopping center, and the presence of "neat" houses and "well-tended" yards. Williams added that in Pacoima "holding a job is no guarantee against being poor." In 1994, Howard Berman, the U.S. Congress representative of an area including Pacoima, and Los Angeles City Council member Richard Alarcon advocated including a in the City of Los Angeles's bid for a federal empowerment zone. The proposed area, with 13,000 residents in 1994, included central Pacoima and a southern section of Lake View Terrace.
In July 2025, a fireworks explosion occurred in a house used to store fireworks. One person died and at least four Pacoima adjacent houses burned and were red-tagged to disallow habitation.– Pacoima fireworks explosion kills man, burns four homes, Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2025.
Geography Location Pacoima is in the northeast San Fernando Valley, within the City of Los Angeles, bordered by the L.A. districts of Mission Hills on the west, Arleta on the south, Sun Valley on the southeast, Lake View Terrace on the northeast, and by the city of San Fernando on the north.
Pacoima covers an area of .Los Angeles Times, Mapping LA, Pacoima: 81,318 population in 2008, based on L.A. Department of City Planning estimates. 7.14 square miles. 10,510 people per square mile, about average for the city of Los Angeles and about average for the county.
Climate
Description Ed Meagher of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1955 that the 110-block area on the north side of San Fernando Road in Pacoima consisted of what he described as a "smear of sagging, leaning shacks and backhouses framed by disintegrating fences and clutter of tin cans, old lumber, stripped automobiles, bottles, rusted water heaters and other bric-a-brac of the back alleys."Meagher, Ed. "Pacoima Area Revamped by Awakened Citizenry." Los Angeles Times. May 18, 1955. A1. Two Pages Local News. Retrieved on March 18, 2010. In 1955 Pacoima lacked curbs, paved sidewalks, and paved streets. Pacoima had what Meagher described as "dusty footpaths and rutted dirt roads that in hard rains become beds for angry streams." Meagher added that the 450 houses in the area, with 2,000 inhabitants, "squatted" "within this clutch of residential blight." He described most of the houses as "substandard." Around 1955, the price of residential property increased in value, as lots that sold years prior for $100 sold for $800 in 1955. Between 1950 and 1955, property values on Van Nuys Boulevard increased six times. In late 1952, the Los Angeles City Council allowed the Building and Safety Department to begin a slum clearance project to try to force homeowners who had houses deemed substandard to repair, demolish, or vacate those houses. In early 1955, the city began a $500,000 project to add of curbs, sidewalks, and streets. Meagher said that the "neatness and cleanness" of the new infrastructure were "a challenge to homeowners grown apathetic to thoroughfares ankle deep in mud or dust." Some area businessmen established the San Fernando Valley Commercial & Savings Bank in November 1953 to finance area rehabilitation projects after other banks persistently refused to give loans to those projects.