Early years The
Tongva people have lived in the
San Fernando Valley and the
Los Angeles Basin for 8,000 years. The Tongvan settlement
Cahuenga used the springs and marsh in the Toluca Lake locale for water, fishing, hunting, harvesting, and building supplies (
tule plants). After the Spanish conquest in the 1790s of
Las Californias, the
San Fernando Valley, including the "Toluca Lake locale", became the extended property of the
Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After the 1823
Independence of Mexico, the
secularization of missions in
Alta California included the issuing of a
Mexican land grant for
Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The extreme eastern end of the lake was within the 1843
Rancho Providencia grant to Vincente de la Osa. In 1862,
Pío Pico sold his share of the Ex-San Fernando Mission land, the entire southern half of the Valley below Roscoe Boulevard, to
Isaac Lankershim (operating as the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association) in 1869. In 1873, Isaac Lankershim's son,
James Boon Lankershim, and future son-in-law,
Isaac Newton Van Nuys, took over management of the property, including the lake at Toluca. During the 1880s, the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association was succeeded by the Los Angeles Farm & Milling Company. In 1893, a petition was filed with the
U.S. Postal Service for the area's first
post office, to be named "Toluca Post Office". General Charles Forman, a wealthy local landowner and one of the proponents of the petition, later stated that he had chosen the name "Toluca" from a
Paiute word meaning "fertile" or "beautiful" valley. Though part of a larger area traditionally called "Lankershim" after a colonel of the same name—and with a
Southern Pacific Railroad train station named "Lankershim" that also opened in 1893 across from the post office—Forman called his own ranch and the surrounding land "Toluca". One of the wealthiest men in
Nevada, Forman had made his fortune starting from nothing, first in mining, then cattle ranching, and then lumber. Falling in love with and marrying Los Angeles native Mary Agnes Gray, he soon moved to the area in the late 1880s and started the Kern River Company, a power company which delivered electricity from generators at the
Kern River to Los Angeles. He also bought a large parcel of rich farm land, which included much of modern-day Toluca Lake and at least the western portion of the "ancient and historical" marshy pond now called Toluca Lake.
Modern development In 1923, investors bought and developed the land as Toluca Lake Park. This initial venture failed, but a new group soon took over, renaming the firm as the Toluca Lake Company. With a "vision of creating a first '
bedroom community' for Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley", the company formally changed the name of the community to simply Toluca Lake and adopted as their logo the "swan on rippled water" image associated with the community today. By 1927, the lure of Hollywood inspired local merchants to launch a campaign to change the community's name to North Hollywood. The original town site of Toluca is now part of Toluca Lake. The Lakeside golf course was designed in 1924 by Max Behr. This attracted actor
Richard Arlen, who became one of Toluca Lake's first residents, and eventually its honorary mayor. Entertainer
Bob Hope moved to Toluca Lake in the late 1930s, and lived there until his death in 2003 at the age of 100. In the 1938
Little Rascals film
Three Men in a Tub, the kids hold a regatta on the lake, which was largely surrounded by open country at that time. Actors
Bette Davis,
W. C. Fields,
Dorothy Lamour,
Billie Dove,
Dick Powell, and
Bing Crosby also moved into the community. Notable residents have included
Steve Carell,
Miley Cyrus,
Kirsten Dunst,
Melissa McCarthy, and
Octavia Spencer. In 2021,
Kelly Clarkson purchased an original 1936 colonial-style mansion on a Toluca Lake property. ==Geography==