Chicken City – La Crescenta in the 1920s

Los Angeles, and its suburb of La Crescenta, was booming in the 1920s. The population was doubling and tripling, and the orchards and ranches in all the suburbs were being divided up into city lots. La Crescenta was no exception, but chicken ranching locally was holding fast as it could be done on relatively small lots. La Crescenta had a reputation for poultry production.

This was the subject of an LA Times article I came across from 1926: “Some Interesting Poultry Ranches of the La Crescenta District.” The article states that sub-dividers had pushed out the larger poultry operations but that in the La Crescenta area many ranches existed ranging in size from a couple of acres all the way down to a single city lot. It went on to describe just four of the dozens in the valley.

On Montrose Avenue, between Rosemont and La Crescenta avenues, were two of these small ranches. The Kitter family were just beginners, only six months into their growing business. They had started by purchasing 80 mature White Leghorn hens and 900 chicks that were just coming into egg production.

Next door to the Kitters on Montrose Avenue was Mrs. Ogilvie’s three-quarter-acre ranch. Her 3,000 laying hens enjoyed perhaps one of the most technologically advanced facilities in the valley. Mrs. Ogilvie’s six chicken houses featured cement floors, running water and large feed hoppers accessible from inside or outside the chicken houses. Two big brooder houses for the chicks were heated and lit by gas and electricity, and the outside runs were shaded by mature trees.

The Gee family at 3027 Mayfield (a property just below CV High that was taken by the freeway) had 2,000 laying hens, housed in two large houses. Modern features abounded at this small ranch, including running water, a huge feed hopper that only needed to be filled once a week, and large yards for chicken exercise. While Mr. Gee went to his day job at a large feed manufacturer, Mrs. Gee was at home raising 3,000 chicks. About half were males to be sold for meat, and the rest layers.

Just west of there at 3241 Mayfield (again, a property on the west side of Pennsylvania gobbled up by the freeway) was the J.C. Burns Ranch, perhaps the most ambitious small chicken ranch of the ones profiled. Mr. Burns, on his two-thirds of an acre, had 1,000 laying hens in production, and a whopping 12,000 chicks varying in age from day-old to three months. His roosters were being milk-fed to be sold as extra tasty broilers. On this tiny lot he had six big chicken houses with outside runs between them. The large runs, 32 by 12 feet, were planted in greens for the growing chicks to eat. A veritable poultry paradise!

Nearly all of these ranches, even the smaller ones, eventually fell to sub-division. When I was a kid growing up on Altura Avenue where the freeway is today, we played in a tumble-down old single-story barn, cement-floored, in the rear of a vacant lot. I now realize that was one of those chicken houses.

Chicken ranches figure into two CV landmarks as well. Many remember Bonetto’s Feed and Fuel, a landmark CV business for many decades. That business was born because Tom Bonetto’s father-in-law wanted to buy chicken feed for his ranch wholesale.

And Henderson Canyon was slated to be a huge chicken ranch. Canyon resident Perry Whiting didn’t want to be surrounded by roosters so he bought out the entire canyon. Thanks to that, today we have Whiting Woods.

We might imagine that the 1920s must have been a particularly noisy period in the valley’s history with constant sawing and hammering from the hundreds of new homes being built. Now, having read this article, we can add to the construction noise the crowing of thousands of roosters, along with the pungent aroma of their waste. Happy valley indeed!

So, if your backyard garden seems particularly productive, as though the ground was mysteriously well-fertilized, you may just be sitting on top of one of La Crescenta’s former chicken ranches.