A Brief History of Torrance

Circa 1920s postcard of Torrance's downtown business district. Courtesy of the South Bay History Collection, Cal State Dominguez Hills Archives.

Circa 1920s postcard of Torrance's downtown business district. Courtesy of the South Bay History Collection, Cal State Dominguez Hills Archives.

Founded in 1912, the city of Torrance was named after industrialist Jared Sidney Torrance who set out to build a model industrial city halfway between Los Angeles and the San Pedro Harbor. To create the new city, Mr. Torrance purchased 3,522 acres that was part of an old Spanish land grant for $1 million and began persuading industrial firms and a railroad to relocate here.

The big-picture design for the new community was done by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., a renowned landscape architect. Meanwhile, the original buildings we see here in Old Town Torrance, along with the Pacific Electric Railway depot (now the Depot Restaurant) and the railroad bridge, were all deigned by modernist architect Irving J. Gill. And none other than Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr. was brought in to help with the landscaping.

The Red Car Brewery & Restaurant located in a historic building on Sartori Avenue often gets its history confused with that of The Depot’s. From 1928 to 1953, that building was the site of a Pacific Telephone and Telegraph office, not the Pacific Electric Railway depot itself.

Due to ups and downs in the economy before the war, Olmsted’s plan for Torrance was executed over the course of 30 years. In 1921, Torrance incorporated as a city and, through gradual annexation, grew to its present-day size of 21 square miles, which includes a sandy 1.5-mile coastline.