Bloomfield's mother is the President of the Artesia Historical Society, which has a small museum located on Alburtis Street. The community center at Artesia Park, next to the library and across from the city hall, is named after him. A collection of his photos was assembled to create a pictorial history of Artesia over the last 50 years.
He was the official city photographer for many years. Longtime resident and Founder of the Artesia Arts Council Veronica Bloomfield told me, "For being such a small city, Artesia has it all." She also told me about her grandfather Albert O'Little. Now the traffic on Pioneer and along the nearby 605 and 91 Freeways is as bad as any place in Southern California. By the end of the 1970s, hundreds of tract homes and the big shopping mall were built in Cerritos, but in the first years she lived in the neighborhood she says Pioneer Boulevard was the only real commercial stretch and it was almost like living in the country. My mother told me that when she moved to Cerritos in 1971 there were still several dairy farms in the area, and on a rainy day the smell of cows traveled across the city. I attended Artesia High and witnessed one of those state championships before I graduated in 1992. Artesia High has become known in the last generation for winning five basketball state championships, and standout players like James Harden, the O'bannon brothers, Jason Kapono, and Tom Tolbert. The mascot of Artesia High is the Pioneers, named for both Pioneer Boulevard and the early pioneers who first developed Artesia in the late 19th Century. Students that live in Artesia either attend Gahr High School or Cerritos High. What's more is that Artesia High School students actually come from East Lakewood, the south side of Cerritos, and Hawaiian Gardens. Lakewood was incorporated just a few years before, and Cerritos was first incorporated in 1956 as Dairy Valley before the name was changed to Cerritos in the late 1960s. Built in 1954, the school was actually established before Cerritos even existed, and the name was chosen because Artesia was the closest city to the campus. Ironically, Artesia High School, on Del Amo and Norwalk Boulevard, is south of Artesia city limits and actually located in Lakewood. There is an exhibit at the Cerritos Library honoring all of the First Ladies in American History. A statue of Patricia Nixon stands next to the City of Cerritos' Senior Citizen Center, on the site of her early home, and the elementary school I attended in Cerritos was named for her. Former first lady Patricia Nixon grew up in Artesia in the 1920s and 1930s, though where her home was in what is now within Cerritos city limits.
The Pacific Electric Red Car had a stop in Artesia, just south of present day Little India at Pioneer Boulevard near South Street. The area surrounding current-day Artesia and Cerritos was known just as Artesia for the first half of the 20th Century. The only link to the Artesian wells remaining is an archaic water tower just east of Pioneer, near 183rd.
The name was originally chosen for the Artesian wells that naturally occurred in the area. Though Artesia did not officially incorporate as a city until 1959, the village of Artesia was first settled in 1875 and remained agrarian for over 80 years. Long before Cerritos changed its name and began transforming into tract-houses, shopping malls, and the auto square, Dutch and Portuguese farmers had settled in Artesia in the early 20th Century, and a commercial stretch of businesses existed on Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia. Artesia has been linked to Cerritos since when it was called Dairy Valley, one of the leading milk-producing regions in the country well into the 1960s. Letters highlights the past, present and future of Artesia, one of the gateway cities on the southeastern border of Los Angeles County.Īrtesia is only 1.62 square miles and surrounded by Cerritos on its eastern, southern and western sides, and Norwalk on the northern side. Long before the neighborhood changed, Artesia was a small town with dairy farms and a stop along the Pacific Electric streetcar. In recent years the small city of Artesia has gained fame for the stretch of Pioneer Boulevard known as "Little India," the development of which has gradually occurred over the last four decades. Pioneer Boulevard, Artesia | Photo: Fred Miller/Flickr/Creative Commons
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