The Puente Hills are a chain of , one of the lower Transverse Ranges, in an unincorporated area in eastern Los Angeles County, California, in the United States. The western end of the range is often referred to locally as the Whittier Hills. The eastern end is in the city of Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.
Geography
The Puente Hills lie to the south of the San Gabriel Valley and the
Pomona Freeway (State Route 60), to the east of the San Gabriel River Freeway (Interstate 605), to the north of Whittier Boulevard, and to the west of the city of Diamond Bar and Chino Hills. To its north are the City of Industry, Hacienda Heights, and Rowland Heights. To the south are Whittier, La Habra Heights, La Habra and Brea. The
Puente Formation underlies the hills, and the Brea-Olinda Oil Field, discovered in 1880 and still producing in 2025, is in the southernmost portion of the hills adjacent to the city of Brea.
Flora
The Puente Hills are in the California chaparral and woodlands
ecoregion of the California Floristic Province. The remnant California native plants here are in the
chaparral and oak woodland
plant community, with stands of
California native grasses.
Vascular Plants of the Whittier Hills, a floristic study, was completed by Julie A. Schneider Ljubenkov and Timothy S. Ross (2001), and published in
Crossosoma. It built on the work of Bob Muns.
Landmarks
Rio Hondo College is located at the foot of the western end of the hills, and the Puente Hills Landfill is nearby, which was one of the largest landfills in the U.S. before shutting down in 2013.
Rose Hills Memorial Park occupies portions of the northern area. The highest point in the western hills is Workman Hill, named for the pioneer Workman family. The Puente Hills Mall is located north of the hills. Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, the largest
Buddhist temple and monastery in the Western Hemisphere, is located in the hills.
Parks
- Puente Hills Native Habitat Preserve
Puente Hills is home to the Puente Hills Landfill, the country's largest landfill, which closed in 2013. The high-tech landfill has begun offering tours.
[ www.npr.org "The Nation's Largest Landfill Beckons Tourists"- access date: 6/7/2010][ Puentehillslandfill.org . access date: 6/7/2010] The Puente Hills Landfill Native Habitat Preservation Authority directs the acquisition, restoration, and management of open space in the Puente Hills for preservation of the land to protect the biological diversity and provide opportunities for outdoor education and low-impact recreation, and scheduled hikes are offered.
[ Habitatauthority.org: Puente Hills Native Habitat Preserve homepage + activities access date: 6/7/2010][ Habitatauthority.org: park map ][ Habitatauthority.org: image . access date: 6/7/2010]
- Hellman Wilderness Park
Hellman Wilderness Park is located in the western Puente Hills ("Whittier Hills") with trailheads in Whittier.
[ LAMountains.com: Hellman Wilderness Park] It is managed by the Puente Hills Habitat Preservation Authority.
[ Puente Hills Habitat Preservation Authority website] It has trails into native coastal sage scrub
, and up to vistas of the Los Angeles Basin.
[ Hiking Around Turnbull Canyon Trail in Hellman Wilderness Park, Whittier.]
- Schabarum Regional Park
Schabarum Regional Park is partially in the eastern Puente Hills, in Rowland Heights, eastern Los Angeles County, California. It has equestrian and hiking trails in the hills.
[ Schabarum Regional Park Support Foundation]
Oil drilling
A commercial discovery was made in 1897, for what would become the Whittier Oil Field, when a well was drilled to a depth of 984 feet. The location was in the central area of production. By 1903, about 100 wells were in operation and by 1924, there were 163 commercial wells in operation.
There has been a long history of oil drilling in the Puente Hills. In the early 20th century, several companies drilled, including Simon Murphy's Murphy Oil Company. Recently,
/ref>
History and legends
Powder Canyon, near La Habra Heights, was named after some explosion tests took place by a company experimenting in blasting powder. The venture failed during World War I, but the name remained.
In the early 1930s an unsuccessful high-voltage experiment was made at Turnbull Canyon (near Skyline Drive) in an attempt to Rainmaking.
A Robin Airlines Curtiss C-46 passenger plane crashed in the Puente Hills near Turnbull Canyon, killing all 29 passengers on April 16, 1952.
It was one of the sites for Project Nike in the 1950s till the late 1960s.
In the 1985 film Back to the Future, Doc Brown introduces the iconic Delorean time machine in the parking lot of Puente Hills Mall.
The October 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake revealed a previously unrecognized fault line under the Puente Hills Area.[Etheredge, E. C.; Porcella, R. L. (1987), Strong-motion data from the October 1, 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, Geological Survey Open-File Report OSMS 87-616, United States Geological Survey, pp. 1, 3]
From the 1970s to the early 2000s a Hillside letters with initials "L.A." were cemented on a hill in Hacienda Heights, (west of Palm Avenue and Beech Hill Avenue, bordering the Puente Hills Landfill). It was made by students from Los Altos High School. The letter has slowly disappeared over time.
Nearby ranges
See also
External links
