Q: Jared Sidney Torrance
How did the city of Torrance get its name? Is it after a person? I would like a little history on it.
– Adele Nash
Torrance
Torrance takes its name from entrepreneur Jared Sidney Torrance.
The following information on Torrance comes from “Historic Torrance: A Pictorial History of Torrance” by Dennis Shanahan.
Jared Sidney Torrance was born in Gowanda, N.Y., east of Buffalo, on Aug. 3, 1852. He graduated from Yale in 1875 and was encouraged by his father to study law.
Torrance moved to Chicago to study and worked as a clerk at a legal firm, but left as he found “the task of fighting out other people’s quarrels very distasteful.”
Torrance would later organize the Bank of Gowanda and two other banks, and build 30 or more houses in his hometown as well as an opera house and a brick block of stores.
In 1887, Torrance moved to Pasadena during a real estate boom and formed a partnership with his brother Lewis to sell real estate.
Torrance later formed a real estate and insurance partnership with W.D. McGilvray. In 1888, Torrance and his brother bought controlling interest in the Pasadena Electric Light & Power Co. and sold it in 1889 to what would become Southern California Edison.
Torrance served with a variety of civic organizations and for a time was vice president of Union Oil.
While developing what would become his namesake city, Torrance was president of Torrance, Marshall & Co., Dominguez Land Co., Torrance Land & Improvement Co., Torrance Water, Light & Power Co., and was the sole stockholder in Thomas D. Campbell & Co.
Torrance’s Dominguez Land Co. broke ground on his industrial city in the fall of 1912.
Torrance died three weeks before Torrance residents voted for incorporation, 355-11, on April 19, 1921.
– Stephanie Walton
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