While John B. Leonis (1871-1953) didn’t quite run Vernon single-handedly, no one can deny the sway he held over this strange little city, rich in commerce and meager in population. Jean Baptiste Leonis was a Basque teenager who left the Pyrenees for SoCal in 1889 to work for his uncle Miguel, owner of Rancho El Escorpión. (The Leonis Adobe in Calabasas was his.) Miguel died just a month after his nephew’s arrival – he fell under the wheels of his own wagon – so Jean Baptiste, who wasn’t in his rich uncle’s will, had to make his own way. Rebranding himself “John B.”, Leonis married Adelina Frances Clos (1873-1956), a California-born Basque girl, in 1895. Three years later, the couple and their two toddlers settled in Vernon. It was rural in those days, but Leonis envisioned a town filled with factories, so with the money he made from his general store he bought more and more land, assured that it would one day make him rich. Leonis and local ranchers the Furlong brothers incorporated the City of Vernon in 1905. Initially promoting the city through boxing, baseball, and booze, Leonis oversaw its transformation into the industrial hive it is today. He also owned its bank. With such power and profit came numerous political and financial scandals, yet Leonis kept running Vernon until the early 1950s, when health woes, the death of his daughter, and criminal charges forced him to step down. (His grandson Leonis Malburg soon took over.) He and Adelina lived in posh Hancock Park for years but his “official” home address was a Vernon apartment. Leonis Blvd. was named c. 1925.
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