Hermon, Los Angeles

Hermon is a small district in the city of Los Angeles, California. It is situated in a half square-mile valley bordered by the Arroyo Seco and the historic 110 freeway to the west, El Sereno to the south, and South Pasadena to the north and east. The community has been part of Los Angeles since 1912, but has retained its own unique identity. It is primarily a residential community, with a small business district in the center, one elementary school, a charter high school, two city parks, and an off-leash dog park opened in 2005.

History
Hermon was established in 1903, when the Free Methodists church group obtained the isolated valley from owner Ralph Rogers to establish a school. The school grew to become Los Angeles Pacific College in 1934, then merged with Azusa College in the mid-1960s to become Azusa Pacific University. Up until 2003, the school campus held a private college prep high school, Pacific Christian. It is now under lease to Los Angeles International Charter High School (LAICHS), a secondary school chartered by the Los Angeles County Office of Education (www.laicharter.org).

Better links were established between Hermon and the rest of Los Angeles with the construction of a bridge across the Arroyo Seco at Avenue 60 in 1926, the Monterey Road pass through Walnut Hill to the south in 1930, and the Hermon Avenue bridge (renamed Via Marisol, over the objections of many community members, by the late Los Angeles City Council member Art Snyder in 1978 to honor his young daughter, Erin Marisol Snyder) to the west in 1939.

In the 115 years since its inception, the neighborhood has grown from 100 small lots into a community of nearly 4,000.

The Hermon Neighborhood Council was certified in May 2017 as the 97th Los Angeles City neighborhood advisory board (Neighborhood councils of Los Angeles).

Education
The Los Angeles Unified School District operates district schools. Bushnell Way Elementary School is in Hermon.

Los Angeles International Charter High School is located in Hermon. It occupies the former campus of Pacific Christian on the Hill. That campus opened in 1904 as "Seminary" and had grades 1 through 12 with a total of 70 students. In 1911 the Seminary added community college courses making it what is believed to be the first junior college in California. In 1934 it became Los Angeles Pacific College, a four-year university. Los Angeles Pacific College merged with Azusa College to become the current Azusa Pacific University in the mid-1960s.

In the 1930s, the Los Angeles City School District operated the Bushnell Way Elementary School in Hermon (known as the "American School" prior to Hermon's annexation by the City of Los Angeles in 1912). On July 1, 1961, the Los Angeles City School District and another district merged, forming LAUSD.