Covina highlight
Historic San Gabriel Valley community
The San Gabriel Valley, founded with Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1771 by Father Junípero Serra, has shaped California growth for over 250 years.
The San Gabriel Valley takes its name from Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, established in 1771 by Franciscan Father Junípero Serra and Spanish missionaries. The region was home to the Tongva people for thousands of years before European contact. Mission San Gabriel became one of the most prosperous of the California missions, and the valley surrounding it developed under Spanish colonial and later Mexican authority as a center of ranching and agriculture.
The discovery of oil in the Montebello hills in 1917 by Standard Oil brought rapid industrial change to the valley. By 1920, the region was producing one-eighth of California's crude oil, transforming it from a primarily agricultural area into a center of energy production and manufacturing. Over the following decades, the valley urbanized into a network of 31 incorporated cities and communities, today home to approximately two million people and recognized as one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the United States.
Families who make their homes in Covina inherit that long history of change and growth. Like the valley itself, households here have adapted and prospered across generations—starting jobs, buying homes, raising children. The people you choose to protect financially are building their own chapters in this valley's continuing story, and that's exactly when term life insurance begins to matter.