In 1950, after the Lakewood Park Company had set-up shop on land that would soon be in Lakewood, CA., then the owners of that company wanted to invite war veterans to visit Lakewood, California. The Company builders were at that time constructing new homes at a rate of 50 per day. The Park Company hoped to sell those homes to the men returning from World War II, the men who would be getting GI loans.
At that time there was much of interest in Lakewood, CA. At that time one could witness there the creation of the first U.S. housing development that included all of the technology developed during and immediately after the Second World War. The development's 17,500 homes, stretching over an area of 3, 500 acres, was probably the first place in the U.S. where one could see rows and rows of rooftops with T.V. antennas.
Still the developers knew that word of those rows of antennas would not motivate large numbers of GIs to visit Lakewood, California. The developers thus hired men who knew how to market property. Those marketing experts soon invested in the creation of many new ads, ads that said things like "Lakewood-My Home Town" and "Lakewood, Tomorrow's City Today."
As those ads began to surface in the magazines and newspapers of the U.S., the residents of the area began to see more and more GIs in Lakewood, CA. The ads did what they were supposed to do; they got large numbers of GIs to come to the new development just 10 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Those GIs and their wives admired the new shopping area, Lakewood Center. They stared in wonder at the large, 50 meter pool, a facility next to Mayfair Park and named Mayfair Pool.
Much of what the GIs saw in Lakewood, CA was the first evidence of what can be created through intensive development efforts. Much of what they saw was, like the Lakewood Center, a foretaste of the future. None of what they saw provided any hint that the land under Lakewood, CA had once been a sugar beet farm.
By 1954 enough GIs had purchased homes in Lakewood, CA, and had thus moved into the area, to allow for the incorporation of the City of Lakewood. That incorporation took place under the provisions laid down in a set of guidelines called the "Lakewood Plan." That "Plan" included the proviso that the residents of Lakewood would have local control of their government, but they would not rely directly on the money in City coffers to fund needed services. Instead the members of the City government would contract with Los Angeles County for County services, services such as road repair, water and sewer lines and units for fire protection.
In many ways this new "Lakewood Plan" gave the City officials a green light to concentrate on further development. Thus the city kept growing. Soon the residents demanded more than a simple shopping center. They wanted to have a mall in Lakewood, CA. That demand led to the creation of the Lakewood Mall.
Today visitors to Lakewood, CA enjoy shopping at the Lakewood Mall. It is a newly-remodeled mall. There shoppers have an excellent chance to relax on the second floor, a floor that is devoted entirely to both sit-down restaurants and fast-food establishments. Diners on that floor eat some foods unknown to the GIs of fifty years ago.