Getting to Know Montebello
How Montebello Sits
Montebello is an independent city about eight miles east of downtown Los Angeles, just east of East Los Angeles, where the Gateway Cities meet the southwestern San Gabriel Valley. Because Montebello is its own city, it sets its own rules on truck access, oversized vehicles, and permits. It is a general-law city, incorporated in 1920 as the thirty-fifth city in Los Angeles County. It runs on a council-manager government and covers about 8.4 square miles.
The land rises into the Montebello Hills in the north and spreads into flatter neighborhoods below. The terrain shapes a move. The 60 Freeway, the Pomona Freeway, crosses the city. Whittier Boulevard, Beverly Boulevard, Garfield Avenue, and Montebello Boulevard are among the main surface routes. Montebello borders East Los Angeles to the west and Monterey Park to the north. Rosemead and South San Gabriel lie to the northeast, Pico Rivera to the east, and Commerce and Bell Gardens to the south, with the Rio Hondo running along its eastern edge.
The housing is a mix of hillside homes in the Montebello Hills and postwar single-family houses on the flats. Older homes stand near the original townsite, with apartments and condominiums near the commercial corridors. The population is around 62,000, largely Latino, with a long-established Armenian community as well. Households are often large and multi-generational, reflected in a high number of people per home. Whittier Boulevard and the Shops at Montebello anchor the commercial life. The Montebello Municipal Golf Course and the historic Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe are among the city’s landmarks.
From Rancho La Merced to the Oil Fields
The land was home to the Tongva, also called the Gabrielino people, who lived along the Rio Hondo for thousands of years. After the founding of Mission San Gabriel in 1771, the area became part of three Mexican land grants: Rancho San Antonio, Rancho La Merced, and Rancho Paso de Bartolo. The Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe, built in the 1840s at the heart of Rancho La Merced, still stands as the oldest structure in the city. On the banks of the Rio Hondo, the Battle of Rio San Gabriel was fought in January 1847. It was one of the last clashes of the Mexican-American War in California.
After the Civil War, an Italian rancher named Alessandro Repetto held much of the land. After his death, his rancho was sold to a group of Los Angeles businessmen. Out of the shares held by Harris Newmark and Kaspare Cohn, a townsite was laid out near the railroad in 1899 and first called Newmark. The surrounding tract took the name Montebello, Italian for beautiful hills. Through the turn of the century, the area was farm country, famous for its flowers, vegetables, berries, and fruit.
Oil changed everything. In 1917 Standard Oil struck oil in the Montebello Hills on the Baldwin and Temple properties. The farm hills quickly became a major oil field. By 1920, the Montebello fields were producing one-eighth of all the crude oil in California. On October 16 of that year, the town incorporated as the City of Montebello, the thirty-fifth city in Los Angeles County. The oil boom built the early city. As production later eased, Montebello settled into the residential and commercial city it is today, still keeping the hills, the adobe, and the history that set it apart.
What a Montebello Move Really Involves
Montebello is an independent city, so a move here works under city hall rather than the county or the City of Los Angeles. For larger moves, the city issues temporary no-parking permits that hold curb space at the address, and our office arranges and posts these in advance. The permit matters most on the busy streets near the commercial corridors and on the narrower hillside streets, where there is little room to leave a truck.
The hills are a defining factor. The Montebello Hills rise across the northern part of the city. Homes there sit on slopes behind steep or curving driveways. That can mean a longer carry from where the truck can park, and a shuttle plan for the heaviest pieces. We check the grade and the access before move day and plan the carry for it. The flatter neighborhoods below are more straightforward, with driveways and garages.
The households are the other factor. Montebello has a high number of people per home, and many residences are large and multi-generational. They hold more furniture, appliances, and belongings than the floor plan suggests. We size the crew and the truck to the actual load rather than the room count, and bring door and floor protection as a matter of course. The permit, the access, and the grade are settled before move day, so nothing slows the job once the crew arrives.