The early history of the city of Pico Rivera began in 1887 when two land developers, J. Fletcher Isbell and W. T. Bone, bought the Rivera town site from Joseph Hartley Burke, Louis L. Bequette, and A. A. Bermudez. Rivera literally means "along the river," and today's city boundaries are the Rio Hondo on the west and the San Gabriel River on the east. Rivera developed when the Santa Fe Railroad came through the southern portion of present-day Pico...