By Francesca Catanese and Samantha Posa

Granada Hills is in the midst of celebrating its 100th birthday with the Granada Hills Centennial 100 Celebration, a year’s worth of festivities and events leading up to the official anniversary in 2026.
A speaker event was held at the Granada Hills Branch Library on August 9. Jack J. Feldman, a former senior manager working for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, spoke about the history of the aqueduct that powers Granada Hills and much of the San Fernando Valley today.
So far, the largest centennial event was the Old Fashioned Fourth of July Picnic held at Petit Park. With over 500 attendees, residents enjoyed family photos in front of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile for family pictures, pie-eating contests, sack-racing competitions, and a live barbershop quartet.
“It was about building community,” Honorary Mayor John Ciccarelli said. “We had families get together to celebrate this important occasion.”
Next up is the annual holiday parade, with this year’s theme being “A Centennial Salute to the Holidays of the 1920s.” Earlier events included the unveiling of a mural, located on Encino Avenue, highlighting the city’s key developments, and a ribbon-cutting at Granada Elementary, the oldest school in the area.
Granada Hills was founded in 1926, as simply Granada, after the Spanish city. Before its establishment, it was a large piece of land known as Sunshine Ranch. In other San Fernando Valley neighborhoods, backyard orange trees are often leftovers from farms and orchards that once flourished here. Its beginnings were humble, with a reputation for horse ranches and rabbit-raising, but Granada Hills quickly became one of the fastest growing towns in the region.
With the onset of the Great Depression, growth stalled, but a postwar economic and population boom brought the town back to life in the early 1950s.
By then, the Granada Hills of today began to take shape, with a wartime name change adding the “Hills,” and our very own Granada Hills High School opening in 1961.
One hundred years later, the Centennial celebrates this history with events hosted at spaces from schools to libraries to parks. The success and scale of the celebration can be attributed to extensive planning on the part of the centennial committee.
“The Centennial has been in planning for eight years,” Ciccarelli said. “We wanted to really have a community wide celebration that encompassed all the spheres: residents, business owners, houses of worship, schools, and more.”
The anniversary highlights the important values of trust and unity through events where the people of Granada Hills can come together to appreciate the town and each other.
Capping off the century in style, a gala will be held at the Odyssey on April 18th, 2026, Granada Hills’ official 100th anniversary date. To see more information about upcoming events, visit the Centennial’s official website at granadahills100.com