Here in West Covina, we love our pets! West Covina’s most famous fictional resident famously sang about getting, let’s just say, a whole lot of cats, but the alter-ego of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” lead character Rebecca Bunch is a dog person as well. Rachel Bloom, who created and starred in the cable television show for four seasons, filmed a 2019 public service announcement for the Humane Society of the United States in which she plays and practices lines with her dog, Wiley.
Bloom did a lot to promote West Covina, too, while “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” enjoyed its run on The CW from 2015 to 2019. Although she got one detail wrong—a song called West Covina “the pride of the Inland Empire” when it’s actually part of the San Gabriel Valley—locals say the show put their community on the map with a loving portrayal of life in the Los Angeles suburb.
West Covina is the 13th biggest of Los Angeles County’s 88 incorporated cities with 106,311 residents. It’s located about 20 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles and south of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Angeles National Forest is about a half-hour north of the city. The Pacific Ocean at Seal Beach is about an hour south of West Covina or, as Bloom’s TV character exaggerates, “four hours with traffic.”
There are plenty of days to spend at the beach or enjoy other activities outdoors. West Covina has a dry-summer subtropical climate described as Mediterranean. Three-quarters of its days are sunny, and yearly rainfall totals are less than half the national average. Temperatures get above 90 degrees just 44 days per year; average highs are in a range from 68 to 81 degrees for nine months of the year.
West Covina’s roots are agricultural. Early inhabitants were drawn by its fertile soil and numerous streams, and Spanish and Mexican ranchers raised cattle. The area was once called Pumpkin Center and then Walnut Creek because of predominant crops.
Residents chose the name West Covina—there’s an older, now-smaller city of Covina nearby—in 1909 and became a city in 1923 to prevent a sewage farm from locating in the area. Between 1950 and 1960, the population of West Covina grew from less than 5,000 to more than 50,000.
Companies headquartered in West Covina include Concorde Battery Corp., which manufactures aircraft batteries. The company employs 245 people. Jollibee, the Philippines’ top fast-food chain, is locating its U.S. headquarters in West Covina.