Willowbrook

Willowbrook, alternatively named Willow Brook, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Los Angeles County, California. The population was 35,983 at the 2010 census, up from 34,138 at the 2000 census.Willowbrook is the home to the newly renovated Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center. Also located in Willowbrook is the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, which oversees residency training programs, allied health programs, a medical education program (jointly with the University of California, Los Angeles), a medical magnet high school, the area Head Start program, and various centers for health disparities research. Due to severe deficiencies, the former King/Drew Medical Center lost accreditation of several key residency training programs.HistoryWillows and a slow, shallow brook distinguished this portion of the Los Angeles plain long before it was given the name "Willowbrook". A lone-standing streamside willow tree near the present intersection of 125th Street and Mona Boulevard was an original rancho boundary marker in the 1840s.Willowbrook was rich in springs in the early days and winter rains would bring up fine stands of rye grass between gravelly ridges left by long-ago floods of the Los Angeles River. As early as 1820, Anastacio Avila was grazing cattle on the land and by 1843, the Mexican governor had granted him 3599acre. This grant was named the Rancho La Tajauta and it extended from the marshes along present Alameda Street westward to approximately the present line of the Harbor Freeway. All of present-day Willowbrook is within the area covered by Rancho La Tajauta.