He eventually became known as one of the largest and most successful sheep raisers in southern California, and as a result, he closed his dentistry practice and invested heavily in real estate in Los Angeles.

The telephone network helped to connect the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas such as Burbank, making it easier for people to move around and do business.

[32] Joseph Fawkes called the trolley his Aerial Swallow, a cigar-shaped, suspended monorail driven by a propeller that he promised would carry passengers from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles in 10 minutes.

Local civic and religious groups sprang into action and contributed with food as homeless camps began to form along the city's Southern Pacific railroad tracks.

In the 1930s, Burbank and Glendale prevented the Civilian Conservation Corps from stationing African American workers in a local park, citing sundown town ordinances that both cities had adopted.

[40] Sundown towns were municipalities or neighborhoods that practiced racial segregation by excluding non-white individuals, especially African Americans, from living within the city limits after sunset.

Air ducts disguised as fire hydrants made it possible for the Lockheed-Vega employees to continue working underneath the huge camouflage umbrella designed to conceal their factory.

[55] Following World War II, homeless veterans lived in tent camps in Burbank, in Big Tujunga Canyon and at a decommissioned National Guard base in Griffith Park.

During World War II, many of the movie studios in Burbank were used for war-related production, including civil defense-related films, and the city experienced a population boom as a result of the increased job opportunities.

As the war came to an end, the movie studios in Burbank returned to their primary function of producing entertainment films, but the city had permanently changed as a result of its wartime experience.

[67] However, in April 2013 NBC confirmed plans for The Tonight Show to return to New York after 42 years in Burbank, with comic Jimmy Fallon replacing Leno as host.

In 1999, the city managed to gain Cartoon Network Studios which took up residence in an old commercial bakery building located on North 3rd St. when it separated its production operations from Warner Bros.

In 1993, Warner Bros. bulldozed the Burbank-based sets used to film High Noon and Lee Marvin's Oscar-winning Western comedy Cat Ballou (1965), as well as several other features and television shows.

In a real estate deal announced in April 2019 Warner Bros. plans to open a series of two new Frank Gehry-designed office towers near the former NBC Studios lot that have been described as "like icebergs floating alongside the 134 freeway.

The Verdugo Fault, which can reach a maximum estimated 6.5 magnitude earthquake on the Richter Scale, is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the city of Burbank's civic center.

When the city refused to pay for a street connecting the subdivision with the Cahuenga Pass, real estate developer and daily farmer Earl L. White did it himself and called it Hollywood Way.

[109] The financial success of The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool enabled Warner Bros. to purchase a majority interest in First National in September 1928 and it began moving its productions into the Burbank lot.

From 1949 to 1952, the St. Louis Browns, a Major League Baseball team, selected Burbank as their destination for spring training to escape the harsh winters of the Midwest.

As the players donned their uniforms and stepped onto the field at Olive Memorial Park, they not only honed their baseball skills but also forged a special bond with Burbank and its Hollywood luminaries.

[113] While the stadium, originally dedicated in 1947 to commemorate the soldiers lost in World War II, saw its stands razed in 1995, the fields themselves endure as an integral part of the Olive Recreation Center.

[116] Population growth was influenced by Burbank's expanding employment base, high-quality public schools, and access to regional transportation routes and metropolitan Los Angeles.

Many companies have headquarters or facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Legendary Pictures, The Walt Disney Company, ABC, The CW, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast headquarters of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, New Wave Entertainment, Insomniac Games and West Coast Customs.

[143] One bright spot in the otherwise bleak job market during the late 2007 into 2009 recession was Kaiser Permanente's decision to relocate some administrative offices near the Burbank airport.

In 1979, the Burbank Redevelopment Agency entered into an agreement with San Diego–based Ernest Hahn Company to build a regional mall known as Media City Center.

In January 1989, Burbank began Media City Center project negotiations with two developers, the Alexander Haagen Co. of Manhattan Beach and Price Kornwasser Associates of San Diego.

The new mall helped take the strain off Burbank's troubled economy, which had been hard hit by the departure of several large industrial employers, including Lockheed Corp.

In September 2021, as the drought worsened, Burbank proactively moved to Stage II in an effort to comply with the governor's challenge to reduce water use by 15% from 2020 levels.

[164] A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that prayers referencing specific religions violated the principle of separation of church and state in the First Amendment.

[183] In December 2008, a slowdown in passenger traffic led the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to curtail spending plans, including deferring multimillion-dollar construction projects.

[184] In 2000, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flight with 142 persons aboard overshot the runway and went through the east fence, coming to a stop on Hollywood Way near a Chevron gas station.