Walnut Movers

Getting to Know Walnut

How Walnut Sits

Walnut is a city in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, in eastern Los Angeles County, about twenty-two miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It covers nearly nine square miles and had about 28,400 people at the 2020 census, which makes it a low-density city by valley standards. It sits on the southern slopes of the San Jose Hills, above the Puente Hills to the south, and borders West Covina, Covina, San Dimas, Pomona, Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights, the City of Industry, and La Puente. The 60, the Pomona Freeway, runs along its northern edge, with the 57 close by to the east.

The city was built to feel rural in the middle of a dense region. Housing is mostly master-planned single-family homes on larger lots, ranging widely in size, and the city keeps a semi-rural character with horse-keeping allowed in parts and open hillside woven through the neighborhoods. Walnut has one of the lowest crime rates in the valley and one of the highest median household incomes in the country, and the Walnut Valley Unified School District is regularly ranked among the best in Southern California. About two-thirds of residents are of Asian descent.

Walnut is also home to Mt. San Antonio College, known as Mt. SAC, one of the largest community colleges in California, on a 420-acre campus at the city’s edge. The college hosts the Mt. SAC Relays, a major track and field meet, at Hilmer Lodge Stadium, which held the 1968 Olympic Trials. The annual Walnut Family Festival, with a parade and activities in Suzanne Park, is the city’s signature event. The result is a quiet, affluent, family-centered city that keeps a country feel and a strong sense of community.

From the Ranch of the Walnut Trees to a Hillside Suburb

The land was home to the Tongva people. After the missions were secularized in the 1830s, the area was divided into Mexican ranchos. The first grants here included Rancho San Jose, given to Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar in 1837, and Rancho Los Nogales, the ranch of the walnut trees, granted to Jose De La Cruz Linares in 1840. The city takes its name from that grant and from the native California black walnut trees of the San Jose Hills.

For a century, the land stayed rural, used for cattle and for wheat, grapes, and citrus. The first post office opened in 1895 under the name Lemon, and in 1908 it was renamed Walnut, after the walnut groves that had spread across the area. The community stayed farm country, with ranches and orchards, well into the twentieth century.

Suburban growth reached the hills after the Second World War, and the residents incorporated as the city of Walnut on January 19, 1959, to guide that growth and protect the rural character. Master-planned neighborhoods filled in the hillsides over the following decades, built around larger lots and open space, and the farm town became the quiet, low-density suburb it is today.

What a Walnut Move Really Involves

Walnut is low-density and built on hills, so most moves here turn on the home and the terrain rather than tight streets. Access is what we settle first. Many homes sit up sloped or winding streets, set back behind long driveways and yards, and some are in master-planned tracts with their own associations. We figure out where the truck can park, how long the haul is, and what clearance the neighborhood asks for ahead of the day.

The home itself is next. A hillside home may sit well above or below the street with a long, curving drive. A large tract home holds a lot of furniture across two stories. A property with a horse setup has outbuildings and a long path across the lot. We check the grade, the driveway, any gate, and the carry distance ahead of time, and bring the crew size, the equipment, and the protection the home calls for.

The third piece is what is going on the truck. A large hillside home, a tract house, a horse property, and an office near Mt. SAC each call for a different plan. Walnut homes are spacious and often hold a full household across two stories, so the load runs larger than in a compact city. Door, railing, and floor protection are standard, and the handling for fragile and valuable pieces is planned ahead. With the access, the home, and the handling worked out beforehand, the crew runs without pause once on site.