El Segundo, California turn a melon patch into a major international business community? It all started in 1911 when five men stood on a sand dune and looked out over a vast melon patch. The five men were from Standard Oil Company. They were surveying the area as a potential site for their next oil refinery. What they required was an area adjacent to the seashore, so their tankers could have appropriate access. The undeveloped nature of the site appealed to them because they had to keep land costs down. And lastly, the site had to be close enough to populated areas so they could attract enough employees. Well, the melon patch was perfect.

Of course, this new site needed a name. El Segundo, Spanish for "the second," was the name given to the area because the site was to be Standard Oil's second oil refinery. Six years after construction began, on January 18, 1917, the City of El Segundo was incorporated.

The city remained a one-industry town until the 1920s, when Mine's Field, a landing strip used by early barnstormers, was chosen as the site for the new Los Angeles Municipal Airport. Then, in the mid-1950s, Southern California Edison purchased a 43-acre site for a major electrical generating station.

Naturally, the addition of the Los Angeles International Airport, which officially opened in 1930, had a major role in turning El Segundo into a aerospace center. The likes of Douglas Aircraft, Hughes Aircraft, Northrop and North American Aviation (Rockwell) all located in El Segundo during the 1940s and 1950s. Most of these aircraft-related companies would eventually transition into the aerospace/defense industry. In 1960, the creation of The Aerospace Corporation and Los Angeles Air Force Base once and for all gave El Segundo the esteemed title of "The Aerospace Capital of the World."

Today, El Segundo encompasses over five square miles, spanning from the Los Angeles International Airport on the north, to the Chevron Refinery on the south, to the Pacific Ocean on the west and Aviation Boulevard on the east. The city's population has leveled off at approximately 16,500 residents, which has enabled the community to preserve the small town intimacy and charm. The rest, as they say, is history.