Inglewood, California

• 1. Introduction

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  Inglewood, California sits in southwestern Los Angeles County, close enough to Los Angeles International Airport that jets pass overhead on their way in and out of one of the world's busiest air hubs. Yet for a city of just over 107,000 people, Inglewood punches far above its weight. On any given Sunday during the NFL season, more than 70,000 fans file into SoFi Stadium. The opening ceremony of the 2028 Summer Olympics will be held on that same field. A few blocks away, the Kia Forum has hosted Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, and the Jackson 5. And the Los Angeles Clippers opened their brand-new Intuit Dome here in 2024.

  How did a city incorporated on the 14th of February 1908, on land first grazed by cattle driven from a Spanish colonial settlement, become the sports and entertainment capital of Southern California? The answer runs from a natural spring the Native Americans used long before any European set foot here, through racial covenants and wildcat strikes, through demographic upheavals that remade the population not once but twice, all the way to a $100 million community investment pledge tied to an NBA arena deal. The story of Inglewood is, in many ways, the story of how a small American city can be remade from the outside in, and from the inside out, sometimes at the same time.

• 2. Springs, Ranchos, and First Settlers

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  Long before the city had a name, the Aguaje de Centinela natural springs drew the earliest residents to the land that is now Inglewood. Local historian Gladys Waddingham recorded that the springs took the name Centinela from the hills that rose around them, hills that let ranchers keep watch over their herds, the word centinelas meaning sentinels.

  Among the original Los Angeles settlers of 1781 was Jose Manuel Orchado Machado, described in the records as a 23-year-old muleteer from Los Alamos in Sinaloa. Officials of the San Gabriel Mission ordered these pobladores to graze their animals on the ocean side of Los Angeles so they would not encroach on mission lands. That directive pushed some settlers toward the lush pasture lands near Centinela Springs. The first physical structure on the site came in 1822, when Bruno Ygnacio Avila received a permit to build a corral and hut for his herders.

  Avila later constructed a three-room adobe house on a slight rise overlooking the creek that ran from the springs all the way to the ocean. In 1834, Ygnacio Machado, one of the sons of Jose Machado, built the Centinela Adobe, a structure that still stands above the present Interstate 405 and serves as headquarters for the Centinela Valley Historical Society. Two years after building it, Ygnacio was granted the 2,220-acre Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela, though the land had already been claimed by Avila. The area that would eventually become Inglewood was divided between two rancho grants: Rancho Sausal Redondo and Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela, a legal patchwork that would shape land disputes for years.

• 3. A City Takes Shape

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  Daniel Freeman acquired the rancho and became a co-founder of the Centinela-Inglewood Land Company in 1887, the organization that turned grazing land into a planned city. That same year, workers were laying out a grand avenue at least 150 feet wide from the end of Figueroa Street in Los Angeles all the way to the new town, planted with tropical trees. The first train station, described at the time as a natty and attractive building, cost $3,000 and sat at the temporary end of the Ballona railroad line.

  The Venice-Inglewood railway opened that year, and on the 7th of September 1887 the 18.03-mile line began service with stops running from Ballona Junction all the way southwest to Port Ballona, a one-hour journey departing Los Angeles at 9:15 in the morning. The Centinela-Inglewood Company ran a four-horse coach for prospective buyers, leaving at 9:30 a.m. and returning at 2 p.m.

  Schools followed fast. In 1888 a school district was organized and a building was chosen, opening on the 21st of May that year on the second floor of a livery stable on Grevillea Avenue, with 17 boys and 16 girls. The first teacher was Minnie Walker, a graduate of Los Angeles State Normal School. The schoolroom was named Bucephalus Hall after a horse belonging to Daniel Freeman himself. The city was incorporated on the 14th of February 1908, the same year the first high school graduation took place: one boy and four girls. Inglewood Park Cemetery was founded in 1905, and in 1938 Hollywood Park Racetrack opened, running as one of the premier horse racing venues in the United States until it closed in 2013. George Foster founded Fosters Freeze, the first soft serve ice cream chain in California, in Inglewood in 1946.

• 4. Labor, Race, and Resistance

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  When the United States entered World War II, a North American Aviation factory in Inglewood produced a fourth of the nation's fighter planes. In 1941, the United Auto Workers won an election over the International Association of Machinists and represented all 11,000 employees there. UAW negotiators demanded a starting pay of 75 cents an hour plus a 10-cent raise for those already working. Despite a no-strike pledge, a wildcat strike on the 4th of June shuttered the plant. When Washington intervened, President Franklin Roosevelt sent in the California National Guard to reopen it.

  On the racial front, Gladys Waddingham wrote that no Black residents had ever lived in Inglewood, yet by 1960 they lived in great numbers along its eastern borders. The 1960 census counted only 29 Black residents among Inglewood's 63,390 people. Real estate agents refused to show homes to Black buyers. A rumored curfew kept Black residents off the streets at night.

  On the 22nd of July 1970, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Max F. Deutz ordered the Inglewood schools to desegregate in response to a suit filed by 19 parents. Deutz found that since at least 1965, the school board had been aware of a growing influx of Black families into the eastern areas but had done nothing. The first Black principal among the city's 18 schools was Peter Butler at La Tijera Elementary. In 1971, Loyd Sterling Webb, president of Inglewood Neighbors, became the first Black officeholder when voters elected him to the school board. Curtis Tucker Sr. was appointed the first Black city council member in 1972. Composer LeRoy Hurte, an African-American, took over the Inglewood Symphony Orchestra that same year and led it for 20 years. Edward Vincent Jr. became Inglewood's first Black mayor in 1983, and every mayor since his term ended in 1997 has been African-American.

• 5. A Shifting Population

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  Between 1980 and 1990, the Latino population in Inglewood grew by 134 percent, the largest jump in the South Bay. Norm Cravens, assistant city manager at the time, pointed to two factors: housing costs were generally lower there than elsewhere, and new arrivals received a warmer welcome. The white population fell from nearly 21 percent in 1980 to 8.5 percent in 1990.

  By the 2000 census, Black Americans made up 47 percent of residents and Latinos comprised 46 percent. Seven years later, census estimates showed the Latino share had climbed to 52.5 percent while the Black share had declined to 41 percent. The 2020 census recorded a population of 107,762, with Hispanic or Latino residents at 51.7 percent and African Americans at 38.7 percent.

  The Los Angeles Times's Mapping L.A. project, drawing on 2000 census data, captured a city that was younger and denser than most of Los Angeles County. The median age was 29, among the youngest in the county, and the percentage of children aged 10 or under was among the county's highest. The median household income of $46,574 was low for both the South Bay and the county. Mexico and El Salvador were the most common foreign places of birth. By the 2020 census, the median household income had risen to $71,029, though 14.9 percent of the population still lived below the poverty line. In 2009, the city held the highest percentage of registered Democrats of any city in California, at 75.6 percent of its 48,615 voters.

• 6. The Forum and the Arena Era

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  Architect Charles Luckman, who also designed Madison Square Garden, built the Forum in 1967 with the Roman Forum in mind as its visual inspiration. For decades it served as the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings, and as one of the biggest concert venues in the region, hosting Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, and the Jackson 5.

  When both teams moved to the Staples Center in 1999, the Forum was sold to the Faithful Central Bible Church for Sunday services. In 2012, The Madison Square Garden Company bought it for $23.5 million and announced plans to spend $50 million on renovations to create what they described as a world-class concert venue. The newly refurbished arena reopened on the 15th of January 2014 with the first of six performances by the Eagles. On the 4th of April 2022, a naming rights deal with car manufacturer Kia, negotiated through then-owner Steve Ballmer, renamed it the Kia Forum.

  On the 24th of February 2015, the Inglewood City Council voted 5-0 to approve construction of an NFL-capacity stadium on the former Hollywood Park Racetrack site. Construction began on the 13th of January 2016, one day after the NFL approved the Rams' return to Los Angeles. SoFi Stadium opened in 2020 and hosted Super Bowl LVI in 2022. It is scheduled to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Super Bowl LXI in 2027, and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. On the 26th of July 2019, the Clippers announced plans for Intuit Dome; owner Steve Ballmer separately pledged $100 million to the city, including $80 million for affordable housing and $12.75 million for school and youth programs. The arena opened in August 2024.

• 7. Culture, Community, and Controversy

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  The Southeast Symphony Association was founded in 1948 with an explicit mission to create an orchestra that welcomed African-American musicians, a direct response to the exclusions common in Southern California arts institutions at the time.

  The annual Open Studios event grew from six featured artists in its first year to more than 30 expected at the November 2011 gathering, said Renee Fox, gallery director at the Beacon Arts Building on North La Brea Avenue. That building was converted into 14 artists' studios, with 16 more planned by the end of 2011. The first church service in the city's history was held on the 22nd of April 1888 in the Inglewood House hotel on what is now La Brea Avenue, when the town had only 300 residents and 112 registered voters. By 2007, the area served by the Inglewood post office had 98 churches, temples, mosques, chapels, and other houses of worship.

  Inglewood was named an All-America City by the National Civic League in 1989 and again in 2009. Yet in 2018, an investigation opened into a 2012 trash-hauling contract worth $100 million that had gone to Consolidated Disposal Services, a company that had hired Michael Butts, the brother of Mayor James T. Butts, as an operations manager shortly before winning the contract. As of 2023, Consolidated continued to provide the city's garbage collection services. Inglewood was also the first city in California to declare the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a public holiday, a decision made during the tenure of Edward Vincent Jr. in the 1980s.