Named in honor of the majestic trees that seem to once cover it, City of Thousand Oaks is conveniently located 39 miles west of Los Angeles and 12 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. Just incorporated in 1964, the city was custom built by Janss Investment Company within the Conejo Valley, a picturesque, mountain-rimmed plateau, in the notoriously rural Ventura County, southern part of California. Ever since its conception, Thousand Oaks continually ranks as one of the safest cities for its size in the nation by FBI reporting standards.
History
The place that is now known as City of Thousand Oaks was once home to the Chumash Native Americans who dwelled in the Conejo Valley hundreds of years ago. It was first charted in 1542 by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, The area however remained virtually unsettled until the early 1800s. Throughout the 19th Century, early pioneers migrated to the area. By late 1800, the small settlement became a stop on the stagecoach route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This and with the subsequent invention of the motor car and the construction of a highway between those two major cities, the Conejo Valley began to evolve. And then in the early 1900s, the Janss Family purchased 10,000 acres of farm land and with the vision of a “total community” in mind. For their prophetic role in the conception of the city, the family would leave a positive local imprint, and the Janss name remains highly visible in the Conejo Valley.
By 1961 there were already two shopping centers, an industrial park, schools, churches and a four-year liberal arts college in the growing town. In the first years of cityhood, it was already populated by nearly 20,000 inhabitants within the 14.28 square miles of its then newly drawn boundaries.
Destinations
Thousand Oaks is the home of the Jungleland, the nationally famous tourist attraction that was the landscape of such films as “Birth of a Nation”, “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “Tarzan”. It remains to be esteemed by moviemakers until today, depending on the movie material they have on hand.
The city is served by The Oaks Shopping Center, a prominent two-level indoor/outdoor, super-regional shopping mall. Highly accessible from the US Highway 101 Ventura Freeway, midway between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, it is the largest shopping center in Ventura County.
Thousand Oaks annually hosts the Conejo Valley Days which entertains 55,000 or more visitors each year in five days of carnival rides, commercial vendors, arts & crafts, games, food and a wonderful community spirit. It is an annual celebration of the valley’s rich heritage and volunteer spirit, an experience perfect for the whole family.
The Community
The city has developed into a classy community, converging effective planning with citizen involvement. Having grown to 56 square miles, the city remains dedicated to offering an envious family lifestyle to its inhabitants and whoever wishes to make it their home. It is of the same enlightened vision that more than 15,000 square acres have been designated as “Open Space” containing more than 75 miles of trails. This preserved space in effect affords the residents and visitors the same natural beauty that the Chumash Native Americans first enjoyed hundreds of years ago.
For a planned city, Thousand Oaks has evolved from a rural Ventura County settlement into an attractive and desirable Southern Californian city. Thousand Oaks offers the ideal mixture of commercial, industrial, residential and recreational space in an exceptional location. Listed in Money magazine’s Best Places to Live in 2006 and consistently among the top 3 safest city to live in the USA, The City of Thousand Oaks is where your dream should be.
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