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Van Nuys

neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ769446
Source-derived summary

Van Nuys ( van NYZE) is a neighborhood in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, United States. Home to Van Nuys Airport and the Valley Municipal Building, it is the most populous neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.

History

In 1909, the Suburban Homes Company – a syndicate led by Hobart Johnstone Whitley, general manager of the board of control, along with Harry Chandler, H. G. Otis, M. H. Sherman and O. F. Brandt – purchased 48,000 acres of the Farming and Milling Company for $2.5 million. Henry E. Huntington extended his Pacific Electric Railway (Red Cars) through the Valley to Owensmouth (now Canoga Park). The Suburban Home Company laid out plans for roads and the towns of Van Nuys, Reseda (Marian) and Canoga Park (Owensmouth). The rural areas were annexed into the city of Los Angeles in 1915.

The town was founded in 1911 and named for one of its developers, Isaac Newton Van Nuys, a rancher and entrepreneur of Dutch ancestry. It was annexed by Los Angeles on May 22, 1915, after completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, providing it with the water required for further growth. Van Nuys was the first new stop on the San Fernando Line of the Pacific Electric Railway red cars system, which boosted its early land sales and commercial success. From as far as Alhambra, in 1917, day trips were organized for potential buyers of five-acre farms (2.0 ha).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Van Nuys” as neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1909, 1915, 1911, 1917—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1911. The account is most persuasive where Nuys, neighborhood and Fernando can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q769446. VIAF identifies the subject as 129614922. The Library of Congress control number is n82124035. Authority coordinates are 34.183, -118.433. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1915, 1911 and 1917.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Van Nuys”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Van Nuys primary sources, Van Nuys archive and Nuys research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Van Nuys”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Van Nuys” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.