When Was Covina Founded?

[Please note: Thanks to newly-discovered historical documentation, this article has been edited from its original form and may yet be revised further. A separate post on these new findings is pending, so stay tuned!]

For people born in centuries past, it was not uncommon to not know one's precise birthday, and the same applies to historical places, even Covina!

Covina's founder, Joseph Swift Phillips (1840-1905).

Various sources have claimed with authority that Covina's origin date was 1882, 1884, 1885 and 1886. So, which of these is correct? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer is... complicated.

What have academics had to say about the town's genesis? Unfortunately, our principal historians have themselves been partly to blame for the confusion.

In his book Covina (1964),¹ Donald Pflueger has a chapter entitled "Mr. Phillips Founds a Town" in which he recounts some important formative events that took place during 1884 and 1885, but nowhere in the book does he give the reader an actual date for Covina's founding.

Barbara Ann Hall^2,3 was similarly noncommittal. In Hall (2007), the only reference to a year for Covina's beginning was in the wording of her first chapter "The Predecessors before 1886." Hall (2011) was more specific, stating that 1882 was the year Phillips acquired the land and founded Covina (p.15).

Can we maybe come up with a more definitive date ourselves? As I've pointed out here many times, when analyzing history, it can be useful to construct a timeline of relevant events, and I've done so as follows.

Fall, 1876 – Julián and Antonio Badilla settle the first farmstead⁴ in the previously uninhabited northernmost section of Rancho La Puente.⁵

September 13, 1881 – Recording date of the conveyance agreement between J. E. Hollenbeck and J. S. Phillips for 2,000 acres of ex-Badilla land in Rancho La Puente.⁶ Phillips thereby takes possession of the land, however Hollenbeck remains owner in fee⁷ until Phillips pays Hollenbeck the agreed-upon $30,000 plus 10% annual interest.

Hollenbeck and Phillips made their land deal in 1881, not 1882.
Los Angeles Herald, September 14, 1881, and The Daily Commercial, September 15, 1881.

December, 1884 – Future Los Angeles mayor Frederick Eaton completes surveying and subdividing Phillips' planned tract. On his plat map, Eaton labels the town site "Covina."⁸

December 12, 1884 – Newspaperman H. N. Short and associate J. R. Conlee arrive in Covina to start the Covina Independent newspaper, and soon after erect the new town site's first structure–their print shop–at the southwest corner of Citrus and Badillo.¹

January 8, 1885 – Phillips borrows $40,000⁹ to pay off his debt causing Hollenbeck to execute a trust deed in accordance with said loan. This is the legal genesis of the Phillips Tract.

January 20, 1885 – The first published mentions of "Covina" and the "Phillips Tract" appear in the Los Angeles Times, p.2.¹⁰

October, 1885 – J. P. Culver drafts the official map of record of the Phillips Tract.¹⁰ (Link to PDF file here.)

April 8, 1886 – The Culver map is recorded with the County of Los Angeles.¹¹

October 13, 1934 – The City of Covina celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding,^12,13 however neither local paper states which specific historical event in 1884 is being commemorated.

April 8, 1986 – The City of Covina celebrates its centennial on the 100th anniversary of the recording of the Culver map.¹⁴

The present day – The current city government's website states 1882 was the year of Covina's founding. No reference for that date is provided.

The arguments For and Against each year:

1882

For: "The history books" say 1882 was the year J. S. Phillips acquired the tract of land which would later become Covina.^1,2,3

Against: The Hollenbeck/Phillips conveyance agreement was actually signed in September, 1881,⁶ and the Phillips Tract itself, so-named, did not come into being until Hollenbeck deeded away his title to the land in January, 1885.^7,9

1884

For: The name "Covina" appears on a map for the first time, and the rudiments of a new settlement are in place: a grid of streets, a school, at least one commercial building, and a newspaper.¹ Additionally, the city fathers in 1934 declared that year was the 50th anniversary of the town's founding.^10,11

Against: Not enough residents or commerce yet to consider it a viable town.

1885

For: The first newspaper articles and ads for Covina were literally birth announcements to the wider world. In 1885, Covina gained a general store, a blacksmith, a butcher shop, and held its first church services.¹ Covina was then an actual town where people could live, work, learn and worship.

Against: The town site's first structure and commercial enterprise were already there the year prior.

1886

For: The date is based upon the filing of an official document of record.

Against: 1886 is merely the year that a map was recorded, not the year the town itself came into being. Covina had already existed as a real place for 15 months by the time Phillips got around to recording his tract map. Additionally, the year 1886 isn't mentioned a single time in any Covina newspaper from 1901-1958 as being of any general historical significance whatsoever.

So why did Covina choose 1986 as the year of its 100th anniversary? Reading the cited article in the Los Angeles Times,¹⁴ basing it on the 1886 map gave the city government a specific date and even a specific time of day to kick off its centennial celebration–which was convenient for the purpose of scheduling, but in doing so it misrepresented and even obscured the actual historical events it purported to commemorate.

In conclusion, considering the factual evidence presented above, what then is our verdict? My own opinion is that a credible case can be made for either 1884 or 1885 as founding years for Covina, but no others can truly satisfy if historical accuracy is one's primary consideration.

References:

¹ Pflueger, D. H. 1964. Covina: Sunflowers, Citrus, Subdivisions. Castle Press, Pasadena, California, 372pp.
² Hall, B. A. 2007. Covina: Images of America. Arcadia Publishing, San Francisco, California, 127pp.
³ _______. 2011. Covina Valley Citrus Industry: Images of America. Arcadia Publishing, San Francisco, California, 127pp.
⁴ "Hollenbeck and the Badillas," Covina Past weblog, September 7, 2021.
⁵ "Coffee Ranch Days," Covina Past weblog, May 18, 2025.
⁶ Los Angeles Herald, September 14, 1881, p.3, and The Daily Commercial, September 15, 1881, p.3.
⁷ Los Angeles Herald, January 20, 1894, p.8.
⁸ Map of the Phillips Tract, Rancho La Puente, Los Angeles Co., Cal., Fred Eaton, surveyor. Renshaw Lithographic, 15 Downey Block, Los Angeles, December, 1884.
⁹ Los Angeles Times, January 20, 1894, p.7.
¹⁰ Los Angeles Times, January 20, 1885, p.2.
¹¹ Map of the Phillips Tract, Rancho La Puente, Los Angeles Co. Cal., Surveyed December 1884 by Fred Eaton, Prepared for record and drawn by J. P. Culver, October, 1885.
¹² Covina Argus, October 12, 1934.
¹³ Covina Citizen, October 19, 1934.
¹⁴ Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1986, p.252.