The Torrance Press

The Torrance Press started as the Peninsula Press in 1949 and ending in a 1964 merger with archrival the Torrance Herald. The Press was a hard hitting, almost tabloid type of newspaper that pulled for the "little guy". The Torrance Press is an invaluable historical resource chronicling Torrance during the time of the city's greatest growth. The Torrance Press is provided through the courtesy of the Torrance Historical Society.

Torrance Herald

 The Torrance Herald was the city's newspaper of record from 1914 to 1969. The Herald started as an advertising sheet
singing the praises of the new "modern industrial city" and evolved into the premier newspaper of the rapidly developing
city. In it's pages is the story of the people, places and events that made Torrance what it is today.

Classified CITY Directory

City directories are not simply phone numbers. In the older directories, one may find the occupation, address, and other
surprising information on an individual. Many times one may trace an individual from residence to residence, job to job
during a span of decades. The library has a collection of city directories from Torrance and South Bay area dating from 1922 to 1975. The city directories are provided through the courtesy of the Torrance Historical Society.

About the Collection and Historical Documents

The Torrance Public Library is proud to debut a unique collection of historical documents vital to the
preservation of our local history. Many of the resources now available through this project have never
been so accessible or easily searchable. This project is the result of the generous support and collaboration
of the Torrance Historical Society, the Friends of the Library, and the City of Torrance.

These collections feature over 100,000 digitized images from local historical newspapers and directories.
Originally housed in more than one location and not readily accessible by the public, these historical
documents were degrading rapidly becoming brittle and eventually unreadable. As a result, the visual
quality of the images may vary widely from document to document. While we attempted to present to our
patrons the best possible representation of these resources, image quality is limited by the condition of
the originals. Torrance Library is proud to be the only library in the South Bay to have over 80 years of
hometown newspapers online.

All areas of the Torrance Historical Documents allow for full text searching by keyword. Full page images
of original newspapers are viewable in PDF format. We invite generations of residents and researchers to
enjoy this excellent collection of articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements, historical
advertisements, and other news items from this superb historic collection.

This project has been sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Torrance Historical Society.