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Eagle Rock is a neighborhood in northeastern Los Angeles, California. It is bordered by Glendale on the north and west, Highland Park on the south, and Pasadena on the east. Major thoroughfares include Eagle Rock and Colorado Boulevards and Figueroa Street. The Glendale and Ventura freeways run along the district's western and northern edges, respectively. A massive boulder at the district's northern edge contains an indentation which casts a vaguely bird-shaped shadow on the rock at certain times of day; the neighborhood derives its name from this geological feature.
Eagle Rock is the site of Occidental College, which relocated there after a fire destroyed its original campus in Highland Park.
History
Prior to the arrival of white settlers, the secluded valley in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains that is roughly congruent to Eagle Rock's present boundaries was inhabited by the Tongva tribe, who hunted the game that watered at its springs. These aboriginal inhabitants were displaced by Spanish settlers in the late 18th century, with the area incorporated into the Rancho San Rafael. The arrival of American settlers and the growth of Los Angeles resulted in steadily increasing semi-rural development in the region throughout the late 19th century, culminating in Eagle Rock's incorporation as an independent city in 1906. However, the arrival of Owens Valley water via the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the concurrent depletion of the young city's wells ultimately led the city fathers to agree to annexation by Los Angeles in 1923.
In the 1940s and 1950s, construction of the Arroyo Seco Parkway (now Pasadena Freeway), the Ventura Freeway, and a large landfill severely reduced the neighborhood's desirability, and it gradually became a low-income Latino community. The Southern California real estate boom of the early 2000s, however, has made Eagle Rock--with its natural beauty, relatively central location, and high-quality public schools--a hot neighborhood for young professionals seeking alternatives to the suburbs and the West Side.
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