Arcadia, California

Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, about 13 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is named after Arcadia in Greece and had 56,681 residents at the 2020 census. The site was homeland of the Tongva people for thousands of years, and it later lay within the lands of Mission San Gabriel and the Mexican land grant of Rancho Santa Anita, issued in 1845. In 1875 the businessman Elias Jackson Lucky Baldwin bought 8,000 acres of the rancho for 200,000 dollars, made his home there and began farming and building. A railroad opened through the ranch in 1885, which made a town site practical, and Baldwin oversaw the incorporation of Arcadia as a city in 1903 and served as its first mayor. The city holds adjoining parks, including the Santa Anita Park racetrack and the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.