Covina is a city in Los Angeles County, California about 22 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The population was 46,837 at the 2000 census.
Covina is often mistaken for West Covina, which is actually larger in both area and population, located to its south and west. Irwindale lies to the west, Azusa and Glendora are to the north, the unincorporated community of Charter Oak to the northeast, San Dimas to the east, and Walnut to the southeast.
It has been a sister city of Jalapa, Mexico, since 1964. A replica of a giant stone Olmec head, located in front of the city police station, was given to the city in 1989 by the Mexican state of Veracruz.
The small city of Covina, California truly has it all. This Los Angeles suburb offers the charming downtown, traditional values and safe, attractive neighborhoods you’d expect in a cozy small town, but is cradled within a system of freeways and rails that make it an ideal site for business. Los Angeles is just half an hour to the west, and the ocean, desert and San Gabriel Mountains are minutes away. In Covina, you really can get anywhere from here!
It’s a beautiful city, with palm-lined streets, well-maintained homes and neighborhoods, with spectacular mountain views. But Covina is more than just a pretty face. It has an exceptionally strong heritage as a business community.
Covina’s 120-acre town site was established in 1886. Thanks to the strength and endurance of the fruit growers who settled here, planting orange and lemon groves, Covina soon was the No. 1 citrus-producing area in the United States.
As the economy of the East San Gabriel Valley became more urbanized, Covina was poised to change with it. Today, this vibrant, modern city specializes in retail, manufacturing and high-tech industries. This transition has been so successful that Covina now ranks fourth in overall retail sales in the San Gabriel Valley. Solid leadership in government, business and development make Covina a stable place to live, work and invest.
Covina was named by a young engineer who was struck by the way the San Gabriel Mountains seemed to form a cove around the vineyards planted by the area’s earliest settlers. The engineer surely sensed the rich promise this area held. That promise remains today. Covina is a city that embraces its heritage while planning for a bright and prosperous future.
Covina enjoys a superior location in the heart of the East San Gabriel Valley. With four major freeways at its borders, Covina has convenient access to all markets in Southern California, including the growing areas of Riverside and San Bernardino.
The city was founded in 1882 by Joseph Swift Phillips, and tradition has it that it was named by either he, his wife Mrs. Cornelia (Hunt) Phillips, or his surveyor Frederick Eaton, in 1885 when the survey was finished. One of them supposedly noticed the many vineyards nestled in the San Gabriel Valley and devised the name "Covina" from "cove of vineyards".
The city was incorporated in 1901. However, it would be orange and grapefruit trees, not vineyards, that would soon blanket the area and make it famous. By 1909, the city was the third largest orange producer in the world, and it still claimed to have "the best oranges in the world" as late as the 1950s. Since World War II, however, the orange groves have been largely replaced by single family and multiple family dwellings.
The Covina Valley Historical Society maintains an extensive archive illustrating the city's history in the 1911-built Firehouse Jail Museum, Covina's first municipal building, located immediately behind City Hall in Covina's Old Town.
The city's slogan, "One Mile Square and All There" was coined by Mrs F. E. Wolfarth, the winner of a 1922 slogan contest sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, when the incorporated area of the city was only (some say slightly less than) one square mile, making it the smallest city in area in the country.
Learn more about this city.
City of Covina, CA official site
City of Covina, CA Chamber of Commerce
City of Covina, CA newspaper
County of Covina, CA official site
State of California official site