Lennox, California

Lennox is an unincorporated census-designated place in southwestern Los Angeles County. Part of the South Bay region (the name refers to the southern portion of Santa Monica Bay, which borders the region on the west), Lennox has over 22,000 residents and a land area of a little over 1 square mile. Lennox is near one of the world’s busiest and most well-known airports, Los Angeles International Airport, also known by its international call symbol, LAX.

While Lennox, as a census-designated place, does not have official boundaries, the western limit of Lennox is generally considered to be the San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405) or La Cienega Boulevard. The southern boundary of Lennox is described approximately by the curve of the Glenn Anderson (Century) Freeway (Interstate 105). Lennox’s neighbor to the southwest is the unincorporated neighborhood of Del Aire. Directly south of Lennox on the other side of the Glenn Anderson Freeway is the city of Hawthorne. The eastern boundary of the area runs a jagged course between South Prairie Avenue and South Osage Avenue. The northern boundary is similarly jagged, running east and west between West 103^rd Street and West 104^th Street. Lennox is bounded on both the north and east by the city of Inglewood.

The main industries in Lennox include lodging, food services, and retail.

Lennox’s main artery for business is Hawthorne Boulevard, which runs north to south just east of the halfway point between the eastern and western borders.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is just a few miles west of Lennox. By some accounts, LAX is the second busiest airport in the United States. The economic effect of LAX on the region is great. LAX has served more than 88 million passengers in a single year. LAX generates more than 600,000 jobs with labor income of more than $37 billion. Business revenues from LAX are well over $120 billion annually.

LAX is owned and operated by the Los Angeles World Airports, a department of the City of Los Angeles that does not receive funding from the general fund of the City of Los Angeles. In 2009, Los Angeles World Airports initiated a $14 billion Capital Improvement Program at LAX. Considered the largest public works program in the history of the City of Los Angeles, the long-standing Capital Improvement Program has created thousands of construction-related jobs. Originally built in 1984, Tom Bradley International Terminal serves millions of international passengers annually. Tom Bradley International Terminal is in the process of being modernized. The terminal now features a “Great Hall,” with restaurants, shopping, airline club lounges, nursing rooms, and children’s play areas.

In 2019, LAX commenced its Automated People Mover project. The Automated People Mover is a 2.25 mile elevated electric train system, which will have six stations. Three of the stations will be inside LAX’s Central Terminal Area. The project has created over 2,000 construction-related jobs. The People Mover will connect LAX to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s light rail commuter system as well as to parking and rent-a-car facilities. More than 3,600 tons of steel are being used on the construction of the six bridges for the project at LAX.

LAX has a large contingent of service workers, these include security guards, cabin cleaners, baggage handlers, customer service agents, and food service workers.

A unique aspect of LAX is its role in natural resources management. Los Angeles World Airports manages 307 acres of undeveloped land. 203 of those acres are devoted to the El Segundo Blue Butterfly Habitat Restoration Area (Preserve). Serving as a butterfly sanctuary, the area is entirely closed off to the public, Most of the El Segundo dune system habitat (which once covered about 3,200 acres) that supported the El Segundo Blue Butterfly has been claimed by urban development, oil refining, sand mining, and airport development. The Preserve supports one of the last populations of the butterfly. The butterfly feeds on a single variety of buckwheat endemic to Los Angeles area coastal dunes. Some of this undeveloped land was once part of a coastal development called Surfridge, First developed in 1921, Surfridge predated Malibu as an enclave for the Hollywood elite. In the late 1920s, Los Angeles’ first municipal airport, Los Angeles Municipal Airport or Mines Field, was developed to the east of Surfridge. Built on what had been agricultural fields, Mines Field became Los Angeles International Airport in 1949. Decades later, LAX claimed Surfridge by eminent domain and eventually demolished the structures on the site. LAX was to be expanded into Surfridge; however, the El Segundo Blue Butterfly had recently become the first insect added to the Federal Endangered Species List, and the Surfridge site was one of its chief remaining habitats. Consequently, the area could never be developed for airport use. In 1986, LAX introduced the Dunes Restoration Project. To this day, some of the infrastructure of Surfridge remains, cracked streets, fire hydrants, and light poles. El Segundo Blue Butterfly populations have increased significantly since the introduction of the Dunes Restoration Project.

Lennox began as a small agricultural community shortly after the turn of the 20th century. The area was named Lennox in about 1912, by which time a Pacific Electric interurban transit rail line provided residents with easy access to Downtown Los Angeles and neighboring beach cities. At one time, Lennox was home to a large chinchilla farm at Palm and Oak (now 4957 W. 104th Street), called Chapman Chinchillas. At the time, Chapman Chinchillas was the only chinchilla farm in the world outside the Andes Mountains of South America. Chapman Chinchillas closed in the 1950s. Much of the land area associated with Lennox in those early years has since been annexed by neighboring cities Hawthorne and Inglewood, so that presently Lennox is only about one seventh of its original size.

Lennox Civic Center was dedicated in 1948. The center includes the Lennox Branch of the Los Angeles County Library. The Lennox Branch was later renovated and reopened in 2014. As an unincorporated community, Lennox does not have a central governing body.

Lennox School District began as a single wood-frame schoolhouse in 1910 with 50 students. Lennox School District now educates more than 5,100 students annually at a preschool, five elementary schools, and one middle school.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement services for Lennox.

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