Temple City is named after its founder, Walter P. Temple, who dreamed of building a community where average people could afford to buy and live in their own homes. After discovering oil on his own property in Montebello in the 1920s, Temple bought the land which was once a part of Lucky Baldwin's Rancho Santa Anita and divided the area into a series of lots facing Las Tunas Drive. He named the streets after relatives and friends: Workman, Rowland, Agnes, and Kauffman.
Today, Temple City has grown beyond a network of friends into a population of 35,600. Like many of its neighboring cities in the San Gabriel Valley, Temple City has a large Chinese community, making up 56% of its racial demographics. It follows naturally then that Temple City offers some of the most famous Asian cuisine in the SGV, as well as some other longstanding traditions that have endured the test of time.