In 1963, as a result of hundreds of complaints phoned and written to the Chamber office, the board of directors recommended that the east-west street numbers be changed to conform with the unified numbering system of the county. Previous to this change, for example, visitors to the area coming out of the streets might find the number suddenly changed from 2800 west to 900 east. Such an incident created a bad image for the city. The change was instituted in 1963 and took a year for completion. During this time, the Chamber donated hundreds of new street numbers to residents and even supplied committees equipped with hammers and screw drivers to change the numbers.

In 1966, there was action to investigate the possibility of industrial development. Northrop Corporation and other companies volunteered the services of several of their executives, and a very efficient program was developed to explore the possibilities. The result of this program revealed that more than 90% of Hawthorne land zoned for industry was already occupied by existing industries, that few if any parcels exceeding two acres were available, so the board concluded that there was little or no room for new industry. While this was disappointing to the board of directors, it brought out the fact that other cities could be envious of Hawthorne's position in this regard. For years the Chamber has given commercial awards to those firms that improve and beautify their premises. The publicity committee "hit the jackpot" in 1967, when one of the recipients took a full-page ad in LOOK MAGAZINE with a copy that modestly boasted about their receiving the commercial award from the Hawthorne Chamber.

Each year since 1959 the Chamber has celebrated the anniversary of the City of Hawthorne at its annual banquet in June. For a number of years the public relations committee selected a man-of-the-year and a woman-of-the-year who were fittingly honored with appropriate awards. Another such program was the "Good Neighbor Award", a program instituted to publicize our slogan, "The City of Good Neighbors". Citizens were requested to participate in the program by sending a letter of commendation about a good neighbor. This program was very popular for several years. The citizen who had nominated him and the good neighbor were guests at the annual banquet.

For many years the Chamber maintained a commercial improvement committee to research and investigate all possibilities for improvement of the commercial district. The committee gave detailed attention to the master plan devised by the city and submitted a detailed report to the city council.

The aviation committee promoted dozens of what they called "hangar sessions" to inspire interest in the use of the municipal airport, which, in the opinion of the board of directors, was an extremely important economic asset to the city.

Even though Chambers of Commerce have existed since the time our nation was founded, for some reason or other, the scope and detailed work of a chamber is unknown to a great portion of the public. The Hawthorne Chamber office will probably receive 2,500 inquiries about our city each year. By phone, mail, or personal visit, people want information on education, taxes, housing, insurance, employment, living conditions, recreation, clubs and organizations and hundreds of other items which space does not permit listing here.