All across America, people in cities big and small will celebrate the nation’s 247^th birthday this week with parades, picnics, parties, and patriotism.

Old Glory, fireworks, food, and fun, and it’s been that way since 1777—when the first event took place in Philadelphia a year after the Declaration of Independence was, well, declared.

But who needed an invitation or even statehood to join in the revelry? Certainly not California, which held its first Fourth of July event in 1847—three years before joining the Union. This happened at Fort Moore Hill in the small town of Los Angeles—yes, small town of Los Angeles—where only about 1,000 people lived at the time.

To provide some context of time: California’s first Independence Day celebration happened 68 years before Universal Studios opened to make silent movies in 1914; 73 years before CalVet closed its first home loan to a veteran (1922), on a small home in what is now East LA; and it happened 111 years before the Dodgers moved to town.  

That day in 1847, soldiers from the fort stood at attention for a sunrise flag-raising on the day the Stars and Stripes flew with 29 stars for the first time following the addition of Iowa to the Union. They fired off a 13-gun salute.

Six months later, on February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the United States’ war with Mexico that began with the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846. The treaty added California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming as U.S. territories. Mexico also agreed to surrender all claims to Texas and accept the Rio Grande river as the boundary between Texas and Mexico.

All, of course, became states and that small town of Los Angeles grew into America’s second-largest city with a population today of 3.8 million. The Army closed Fort Moore in 1853, and the hilltop property later became home to Los Angeles High School.

In 1949, much of the remaining fort was torn down to build the new Hollywood Freeway. On July 3, 1958, the city dedicated a monument that told the fort’s story, including its Fourth of July importance, and featured a 47-tall foot waterfall. They turned off the water in 1977 due to drought, and the monument was all but forgotten.

In 2019, it reopened again following a $6 million restoration to what the Los Angeles Times called the “rebirth of what has been called ‘the most historically and geographically important monument that nobody knows about.’”

SOURCES: LA Almanac, NPS.gov and Los Angeles Times