Burbank California History

The real history of the city began when a New Hampshire dentist headed west with the thousands of Americans seeking new opportunities. This was at a time when men like Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Van Nuys were changing the face of the San Fernando Valley.
 
Dr. David Burbank was active in Los Angeles real estate when he purchased portions of both ranchos in 1867. He combined them into a large ranch where he raised sheep, built a ranch house (on what was later Warner Bros. back-lot) and occasionally sold off small plots of land.

Realizing that bringing in the railroad would increase the value of his ranch, Dr. Burbank sold the Southern Pacific Railroad a stretch of right-of-way for one dollar. The first train passed through Burbank on April 5, 1874.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a movement from the Hollywood entertainment industry to relocate in Burbank. The National Broadcasting Company moved its network television headquarters and by 1962, NBC's multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art complex was completed there.

Aviation in the mid-1920's was still in its infancy when the Lockheed Aircraft Company built a plant for the production of its planes.

By the time the United States entered World War II, Lockheed had some 94,000 employees producing 19,000 planes. Burbank's prominence in the aviation field was evident during the War when Lockheed's Burbank-built planes helped win the Battle of Britain. The wartime effort of the aviation industry had pushed Burbank's population to over 50,000 in 1943.