Search Historical Torrance Newspapers and Directories Online

Thanks to a partnership between the City of Torrance, the Torrance Historical Society, and the Friends of the Torrance Library, you now have the capability to search the Torrance Herald, Torrance Press (started as Peninsula Press in '49), and the City Directories, online! All three publications are the best sources of Torrance history from 1914 through the 1970s.

Each group contributed $20,000 to digitize and make these historic documents just a click away. Now, you can sit at home at midnight and search for information.

The archives are fully searchable, with additional search functions such as:

• Phonetic Searching (in case you don't know how to spell Zamperini, but know how it sounds)
• Stemming Searching (to find ride, rides, riders, and riding all at once)
• "Fuzzy Searching" (to find with typos and misspellings, such as Isabelle - actually spelled Isabel - Henderson, the first Librarian in Torrance)
• Searching by date range

The launch page is: http://www.torranceca.gov/LibraryArchive/.

The Torrance Public Library presents its "favorite web pages" on history. Here you will find useful links on general history and notes on local history resources available in the library.

The Los Angeles County Assessor's page is the place to check maps and housing records.