Sylmar, CA is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. The northernmost neighborhood in the city, Sylmar is located east of Interstate 5 and north of the city of San Fernando. Sylmar was once the site of the world's second largest olive groves—hence its name, which means "Sea of Trees".
Some 1500 years before the Spaniards settled, the Sylmar area was inhabited by the Tongva Indians. In 1797, the Spaniards founded Mission San Fernando Rey de España in what is now the nearby community of Mission Hills. Father Iballa, Padre at the Mission from 1820 to 1834, was indirectly responsible for Sylmar’s olives. He recognized the similarity of the climate and soil to those found in Europe where olives had been cultivated for centuries. He sent to Spain for seedlings, and planted them around the mission. San Fernando became a city in 1874, leading to the naming of the unincorporated land surrounding San Fernando to Morningside. The area was renamed Sylmar after incorporation into the City of Los Angeles during the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which passes through the north-west corner. Local stories state that the designer of the old aqueduct, William Mulholland, stood on the foothills near the site of the planned aqueduct and noted that the wind caused the green and silver leaves of the olive farms to look like waves crashing against the mountains.
Sylmar is generally flat with steep hills of the San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. The Valley shares the Los Angeles Basin's dry, sunny weather, with only 17 inches annual precipitation on average. Snow in the San Fernando Valley is extremely rare, though the neighboring Angeles National Forest is capped with snow every winter. Although Sylmar is only 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean, the Valley can be considerably hotter than the Los Angeles Basin during the summer months and cooler during the winter months. The average high temperature in summer is 95 °F, dropping down to 68 °F. In winter, the average high is 66 °F and average low is 40 °F. The smog levels in Sylmar are generally lower than the rest of the San Fernando Valley due to the occasional winds along the foothills. The Valley occasionally suffers from concentrations of smog in the summer due to urban pollution, little precipitation, and surrounding mountain ranges.
The City of Los Angeles Sylmar Recreation Center, which also functions as a Los Angeles Police Department stop-in center, includes auditoriums, a lighted baseball diamond, lighted outdoor basketball courts, a children's play area, a community room, an indoor gymnasium without weights, picnic tables, an unlighted soccer field, and lighted tennis courts. The city also operates the Stetson Ranch Park.
Los Angeles County operates the 79 acres El Cariso Community Regional Park, which was dedicated to a group of firefighters who died in the Loop Fire in 1966. The park has a lighted ball diamond, a basketball court, tennis courts, children's play areas, a community building, horseshoe pits, an indoor kitchen, picnic areas for large groups, picnic tables and shelters, and a swimming pool.
In addition the county operates the 96.5 acres Veterans Memorial Park in an area adjacent to and outside of the Los Angeles City Limits. The site of the park was the site of the a veterans hospital that was built in the 1940s. The Sylmar earthquake in 1971 severely damaged the building. In 1972 the U.S. government transferred the land to Los Angeles County. The former hospital was demolished and new park facilities were developed. The park was dedicated in 1979. The park has barbecue braziers, group camping areas, a community building, a disk golf course, picnic areas, a picnic pavilion, and toilets.