Pacoima - City of Los Angeles

Demographics Land Area (Sq. Mi.): 9.4 Population: 69,032 African American: 5.5% Asian American: 1.4% Hispanic: 88.8% White: 3.9% Other: 0.3% Median Housing Value: $520,000 (average of east north valley as per Southland Regional Association of Realtors) Number of Households: 21,373 Related Websites City of Los Angeles

Pacoima is one of the San Fernando Valley's most historic communities and sits on land that also was part of the Charles Maclay empire.

For many years, Pacoima's fertile soil produced abundant crops of olives, peaches, apricots, oranges and lemons. In fact, the Pacoima Chamber of Commerce was originally called the Pacoima Chamber of Farmers. That was in 1916, a couple of years after the city had briefly changed its name to Mulholland.

William Mulholland was the engineer who brought prosperity to Pacoima and the rest of the Valley by transporting water from the Owens River through the Los Angeles Aqueduct.  With the new water supply, farms and poultry ranches proliferated, and thoroughbred horses were raised.  Two floods took their toll on the pre-World War II agricultural community, the first in 1891 and the second in 1938.  Today residential Pacoima is enjoying a renaissance, thanks in part to the state's designation as an Enterprise Zone.