Friday / Weekend Open Lines – Home in Henderson

Friday, September 4th. Today is the 234th anniversary of the founding of Los Angeles by the Spanish governor of California. It was a small village of just 11 families, but was given the name “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.” The town had grown to some 6,500 residents when the Mexican Revolution overthrew Spanish colonial rule in 1821. California was among the territories ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican-American War, and became a state in1850 following the Gold Rush of the year before. At that time, the Los Angeles population was just over 1,600. Now, the city has a population of almost 3.9 million people, while Los Angeles County is home to over 10 million, almost twice that of the nation’s second most-populous county. Profile America is in its 19th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Saturday, September 5th. A device that many of us line up to use every few days or weeks was first unveiled on this date in 1885 — the gas pump. Sylvanus Bowser of Fort Wayne, Indiana made the pump for a customer to dispense a single barrel of fuel for lamps and stoves. As one might expect, the advent of automobiles spurred the development, popularity and distribution of the gas pump. Eventually, the inventor’s name became a generic term for a fuel dispenser, and gas pumps in New Zealand and Australia are still called a “bowser.” Across the U.S., there are more than 112,000 gas stations doing over a half-trillion dollars worth of annual business. Each year, the pumps at these stations dispense nearly 170 billion gallons of gasoline and special fuels, including diesel. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sunday, September 6th. On this date in 1837, the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Ohio became the first college in the U.S. to grant equal status to men and women in degree programs. Now known as Oberlin College, its leadership reasoned that many mothers and sisters often served as the only teachers available on the nation’s frontier — so better educated women would make superior teachers. During its history, Oberlin was the first to routinely admit African-Americans, granted the first degree to a black woman, and was one of the first to have coeducational dormitories. Today, coeducational schools are the norm, and of the 41 percent of the population age 18 to 24 enrolled in college, more than 6.5 million are women, compared to not quite 5.6 million men. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

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