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Home | Settlement B | Bellflower, California
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The city derives its name from the bellefleur apple, which was grown in local orchards during the early 1900s. Originally settled by small communities of dairy farmers of Dutch, Japanese, and Portuguese descent, Bellflower and neighboring Paramount served first as the apple and later the milk production centers for Southern California until soaring post-World War II property values and threatened annexations by Los Angleles led by real-estate syndicates, forced most of the farmers to move several miles east to the Dairy Valley/Dairyland/Dairy City area (now the cities of Cerritos, La Palma, and Cypress). These farms were in turn divided up into large housing divisions for Los Angeles growing population of middle class White American population which worked in the regions high-tech and skilled industrial and service positions. During this period from the 1950s through the late 1960s, Bellflower Boulevard, the city's main thoroughfare, was a thriving commercial strip for shopping. Numerous retail and franchise restaurant firms began on this street which also featured middle and high end boutiques, arts and crafts shops, and other small shopkeeps as well as larger department stores and banks. |
![The ultra-rare delivery of octuplets to a California couple took only 5 minutes: the doctors share. [JAN 27 2009] Octuplets born in California doing 'very, very well' : BELLFLOWER, CA (AP) — The octuplets born to a mother in Southern California are doing "very, very well" and breathing on their own, one of their doctors said Tuesday. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, told ABC's "Good Morning America" the eight babies were in stable condition. Two of the newborns — the second live octuplets born in US history — were initially put on ventilators, but their breathing tubes have been removed. "Only three babies need some sort of oxygen through the nose right now but they are breathing on their own," Gupta said. "The babies are doing actually very, very well." The mother, who was not identified, gave birth Monday to the six boys and two girls weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces, and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. The eighth baby was a surprise to the parents and doctors who had been expecting only seven children. "It is quite easy to miss a baby when you're anticipating seven," said Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine and one of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants who delivered the children by Caesarean section. Just five minutes after the first birth, the unexpected eighth baby came out at 10:48 am "My eyes were wide," said Karen Maples, chief of the department of obstetrics and gynecology. Maples said the mother was "very <b>...</b>](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EgPFCUpUNkw/0.jpg)
