Where Did Our Community’s Name Hermon Come From?

Ξ Oct 1, 2010

By Wendi Riser [excerpted from All Things Hermon...10/1/10]

*** So, where did our community’s name Hermon come from?

In the early 1900s the Free Methodist Church decided to build a seminary, or Christian school, in the Southern California area.  Denomination leaders met at a campground meeting in the Sycamore Grove Park area and were looking for land on which to build their church and school.  They were approached by Ralph Rogers, a real estate developer from the area that had a tract of land on the eastern banks of the Arroyo Seco.  Because it was mostly landlocked and more difficult to develop, Rogers invited delegates from the conference to trek across the Arroyo stream to see the open land covered in sagebrush surrounded on three sides by beautiful sloping hillsides. 

Rogers and the church struck an amazing deal -- he would donate every other lot in what would become Hermon to the church and they would sell those lots to pay for building their Los Angeles Seminary.  Rogers was then able to sell his adjacent lots.  Church pioneers began purchasing the lots and camped on them while building homes to live in once their children began attending the seminary.  More than 50 cottages appeared in the first year, 1903. The original school at 625 Coleman Avenue evolved -- from Los Angeles Free Methodist Seminary to Los Angeles Pacific College (LAPC), which also included a small high school -- and in 1965 LAPC merged with Azusa College and moved to Azusa, becoming Azusa Pacific College, later University. 

After the move, a renamed Pacific Christian High School remained on the site until it closed in 2004.  The historic property was sold in 2006 to Anaheim-based Bethesda Christian University, who then leased the high school site to Los Angeles International Charter High School.

Back in 1903, Free Methodist leaders originally named the community “Hermon,” after Mount Hermon mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, the northern boundary of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 3:8) given to the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt. “See, I have placed the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers . . .” (Deuteronomy 1:8 a,b)

The Gospels in the Bible tell of Jesus and his disciples traveling to Caesarea Philippi at the southern end of Mount Hermon where Jesus revealed to them how He would build His church (Matthew 16:18).  Some believe Mount Hermon was the site of the Transfiguration where, according to the account in Matthew 17:1-5, Jesus took three disciples up a high mountain and became as bright as light when a voice from the clouds named Jesus as His son.  Since 1996, a small Lebanese group of various religions have climbed to the top of Mount Hermon (elevation 9,232) every year on August 6 for the Feast of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

Mount Hermon [photo courtesy Wikipedia]

Mount Hermon has snow that covers its peaks most of the year.  Melting water seeps into the rock feeding springs at the base of the mountains forming the headwaters of the Jordan River.  This is somewhat similar to our many artesian wells that engorge Hermon’s aquifer in the rainy seasons (some of which is regularly removed by the City to avoid hillside soil slippage).  In the early days before paved streets, water would erupt from the ground and small streams would tumble down both Redfield and Terrill Avenue and head towards the Arroyo Seco.  The clay mud was well-known and often unintentionally became a messy slip n’ slide for students coming up or down the school hill until, before cement stairs, they built a wooden-cleated walk to get a toehold into the hill.

Many of Hermon’s streets were named after early Free Methodist leaders such as Terrill, Kendall, Redfield, Coleman, and Ebey.  To find out about each of the men go to http://www.hermonla.org/Hermon/History.html  and scroll down to see a picture of the person your street was named after.