Montebello's beautiful hills had adobe, farms, and oil

Montebello means “beautiful hills” in Italian, and the name fits better when you know the older layers under the city. The area grew from pieces of Rancho San Antonio, Rancho La Merced, and Rancho Paso de Bartolo. The Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe still marks part of that older La Merced story.

The city also had a farm chapter before it became dense Los Angeles County. Montebello was known for flowers, vegetables, berries, fruits, good soil, and enough water to support a strong agricultural community.

Then oil changed the pace. In 1917, Standard Oil discovered oil on the Anita Baldwin property. Within a few years, the Montebello oil fields were producing a major share of California crude, and the city incorporated in 1920.

Montebello has a lot of local texture in a small area. It has mission-era and rancho history, an adobe that keeps the old landscape visible, a farm-town period, and an oil-boom chapter that helped push the city into the modern industrial Los Angeles region. The hills are still in the name, but the story underneath them is layered.