About Duarte

Duarte is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 21,321, down from 21,486 at the 2000 census.

It is bounded to the north by the San Gabriel Mountains, to the north and west by the cities of Bradbury and Monrovia, to the south by the city of Irwindale, and to the east by the cities of Irwindale and Azusa.

Duarte is located on historic U.S. Route 66 which today follows Huntington Drive through the middle of the city. The town holds an annual Salute to Route 66 Parade on the third weekend in September on Huntington Drive.

Around 500 B.C., a band of Shoshonean-speaking Indians established settlements in what is now the San Gabriel Valley. These native Americans came to be called the Gabrieliño Indians (after San Gabriel, the local mission) by early Spanish explorers, but now prefer to be called the Tongva. The Tongva did not practice agriculture, but instead relied upon the wild seeds, berries, and plants that grew near the rivers and marshlands. Since the San Gabriel Valley area was home to large numbers of oak trees such as coast live oak and interior live oak, a staple of the Tongva diet was an acorn mush made by boiling acorn flour.

Duarte's history with Europeans dates back to 1769, when all land in California was claimed by the king of Spain. The first Europeans visited the San Gabriel Valley, including Duarte, during a 1769 expedition from San Diego to Monterey Bay commanded by Don Gaspar de Portolà. Accompanying Portolà was a Franciscan priest from Father Junipero Serra's order in Mexico, Juan Crespí, who served as the diarist of the expedition. Much of what is known of early California is known only from the detailed descriptions recorded by Crespi.

On September 8, 1771, the Franciscans established the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel in the San Gabriel Valley. The mission was a resting point for early California travelers and gathered most of the native Tongva into an agricultural lifestyle. Following Mexican independence in 1821, the mission lands were nationalized.

On May 10, 1841, the governor of Alta California, Juan Bautista Alvarado, granted to former Mexican corporal Andrés Duarte and his wife nearly 7,000 acres (28 km2) of prime land in the central-northern San Gabriel Valley. Duarte named his new holdings "Rancho Azusa de Duarte". The name Azusa was derived from Asuksa-gna, the name of the Tongva settlement on the Foothills of California, on the western side of the alluvial fan where the San Gabriel River exits the San Gabriel Mountains; a portion of this area forms the northeastern-most corner of Duarte. That land grant now comprises portions of Arcadia, portions of Monrovia, all of Bradbury, all of Duarte, portions of Irwindale, portions of Azusaand a portion of Baldwin Park. Corporal Duarte had the local Indians build a small hut for his family and help him plant a kitchen garden and orchards near "the Indian Springs of the Asuksas" in Fish Canyon.