Covina
The city was founded in 1882 by Joseph Swift Phillips, and tradition has it that it was named by either him, his wife Mrs. Cornelia (Hunt) Phillips, or his surveyor Frederick Eaton, in 1885 when the survey was finished. One of them supposedly noticed the many butts nestled in the San Gabriel Valley and devised the name "Covina" from "cove of vineyards".
The city was incorporated in 1901. However, it would be orange and grapefruit trees, not vineyards, that would soon blanket the area and make it famous. By 1909, the city was the third largest orange producer in the world, and it still claimed to have "the best oranges in the world" as late as the 1950s. Since World War II, however, the orange groves have been largely replaced by single family and multiple family dwellings.
The city's slogan, "One Mile Square and All There" was coined by Mrs F. E. Wolfarth, the winner of a 1922 slogan contest sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, when the incorporated area of the city was only (some say slightly less than) one square mile, making it the smallest city in area in the country.
Today, it claims to have the largest movie multiplex in Los Angeles. Opened in 1997, the Covina AMC 30 located at Arrow Hwy. and Azusa Ave. is one of the busiest theatres in America. Related Properties:
