Due to this location, the area has served as a historic travel stop dating back to the indigenous peoples of California.

Tens of thousands of motorists travel through Gorman daily on the Golden State Freeway (Interstate 5) since the highway's completion in the mid-20th Century.

The U.S. Census Bureau does not break out separate population figures for this small place, but in 2005 Gorman had only 15 homes and approximately a dozen registered voters.

[4] Historian Frank F. Latta noted that the Johnsons' daughter, Isabel, was the only girl to study at the historic Escuela Normal of Los Angeles in the 1860s.

In 1857 a woman was killed on his ranch when the great Fort Tejon earthquake struck the area and collapsed the roof of his adobe house.

The Butterfield Overland Mail ceased in 1861, but was replaced later by the Telegraph Stage Line, which stopped at most of the former stations, including at renamed Gorman's, where the horses were changed.

[7] It was next bought by David W. Alexander, the sheriff of Los Angeles County, who sold the place to James Gorman Sr. in 1867 or 1868.

On May 7, 1873, Gorman died on the ride home from Los Angeles after he fell out of his supply wagon and was run over by its own wheels.

(The community today is served by a contract postal unit in the local market, but delivery is through the Lebec post office.)

"Being located on the busiest highway in California," wrote historian Kane, "the people of Gorman knew well the need for an ambulance, as so many of the injured were brought to their homes.

"[4] Aviator Charles Lindbergh established a camp in 1930 on the northeast side of the Gorman Hills, where he tested and flew a folded-wing glider called the Albatross.

"The Umbrellas," a site-specific art installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, surrounded Gorman and Tejon Pass in late September and early October 1991.

Reasons cited for the proposal included red tape and zoning regulations restricting development in Los Angeles County.

[17] Accounts differ as to the origin of Gorman Elementary School, although the pioneer Ralphs family certainly played a role in its founding.

She remained a friend of the family after she left to be married, and would visit Gorman, taking her son, George Dale Beasley with her.

Esther Pereira wrote in the Mountain Enterprise, however, that the Ralphs family "founded the school originally as the Quail Lake District.

"We knew that if the bill passed, our children would probably be sent to the Quartz Hill School District on the outskirts of Lancaster and almost 50 miles (80 km) away.

"[20] In November 1978 the district was threatened when funding was curbed by the passage that year of California Proposition 13, placing a limit on the rate at which property taxes could be raised.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education had warned a year earlier that the district might be dissolved if it did not find a way to solve its problems.

[21] But a land developer, Centennial Founders, in the meantime stepped forth with the desire to save the school district until it could build a proposed 23,000-house planned city east of Interstate 5 on Tejon Ranch property along Highway 138.

[21] In December 2010 Superintendent and Principal Martin Schmidt said that the district was at that point entirely a "school of choice" which had more than doubled its enrollment to 98 pupils and increased its Academic Performance Score from 679 to 784, with 800 being the goal for achievement.

[24] In order to bring in additional average-daily-attendance funds from the state, the district before 2008 took on responsibility for the Gorman Learning Center charter school in Redlands, 129 miles (208 km) away (Google map).