City of Lakewood, California :

Lakewood's Anniversary Essay Project

Take Your Place in History: Essays tell of past and present Lakewood

Lakewood residents � new and old � have wonderful stories to tell about their life in our community . . . stories about moving to Lakewood when the neighborhoods were new . . . stories about the achievements that came with a maturing city . . stories about the men and women, boys and girls, and grandparents who struggled to make a new community without a guidebook.

With the generous help of the Macerich Company (owners of Lakewood Center), we collected many of these stories during the city�s �49 and Counting� pre-anniversary celebrations in 2003.

The authors of these essays come from all walks of life. Some are original homeowners. Some only recently moved to Lakewood. We hope that sharing their unedited, heartfelt stories will remind you of the reasons why Lakewood is your hometown.
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Student essays from The Write Stuff program

Not all the revealing, fun and fascinating history of Lakewood has been told by professional historians. In fact, a lot of the best stories of Lakewood are the stories that have never been written down. See them online.
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NOTE: You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the archives.

Take Your Place in History community essays

The archives below list essays received as hard copy paper and those sent to use electronically. Three have titles showing 'A-I' 'J-Q' and 'R-Z' and must be opened and viewed to find a particular essay. The authors who submitted electronically are listed in the archive noting 'indexed by author'. It can be opened and searched in Acrobat Reader using the button.

The Write Stuff student essays

These are scanned documents and must also be read to find the author. They are grouped by school.

Related documents: