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is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 39,804 at the 2000 census. It is named after the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, one of the original Spanish missions in California.
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish to Alta California, the area that now comprises San Gabriel was inhabited by the Tongva ethnic group, which came to be called the
Spanish colonial history of the City of San Gabriel dates back to 1771 with the founding of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, a California State historical landmark. The founding of the mission establishes San Gabriel as the birthplace of the modern Los Angeles region. The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, "Pride of the California Missions," founded by Father Junipero Serra, is the fourth of twenty-one California Missions, and has long been a center for culture and art.
The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel served a central role in Spanish colonial society, with many of the area's first Mexican settlers being baptized at the mission, including Pio Pico, who was baptised at the mission in 1801 and became governor of California.
By 1852, after American occupation, San Gabriel became one of the first townships in the County of Los Angeles. When the 1860 census was taken, there were only 586 persons listed. The city was incorporated as a general law city on April 24, 1913 with a population of 1,500.
In 1989, Vice-Mayor Frank Blaszcak lost his City Council seat by nine votes after a free-for-all campaign that included allegations of drug dealing and mooning residents at a City Council meeting. Blaszcak ultimately hired renown attorney Melvin Belli and sued eleven well-known city developers and real estate brokers and cleared his name.
The Mission suffered from earthquake damage in the past, but it has undergone a major restoration process over the years. In the 1990s, plans to turn the area on Mission Road into a tourist attraction never took off into becoming as much of a success as anticipated.