Many of the letters have no street address. They are simply addressed to the Chamber of Commerce, Hawthorne, California, because the people know that the Chamber exists and it is the only place that provides such services.

If there is any event that could be called the most important boost to Hawthorne's economy, it would have to be the establishment of the Northrop Aircraft Company (later the Northrop Corporation). In 1939, with the help of a small group of prominent citizens from Hawthorne and Inglewood who guaranteed a bond of $55,000 to insure the installation of adequate utilities and other preliminary expenses, Northrop opened its offices at the Hawthorne Hotel, a small building on 126th Street near Acacia, and started operations on Broadway between Prairie and Crenshaw. Even before their first building was completed, the company quickly received contracts for military aircraft and hired 50 employees. Engineer Jack Northrop was well known to the war department for his ability to design and manufacture military airplanes. Within a very short time, dozens of firms who had Northrop Subcontracts moved into Hawthorne. World War II began and Northrop parceled out subcontracts to a hundred or more firms. Before the conflict ended in 1945, when General Bedell Smith, the Chief of Staff of General Eisenhower, met with the German representatives at Reims, France, to oversee the surrender of Nazi forces, over 20,000 employees were working at Northrop and other Hawthorne industries.

Many people anticipated a drastic reduction in the work force when the was concluded. President Kindleberger of North American Aviation, in a speech to a combined meeting of the Hawthorne and Inglewood Chambers of Commerce, gave warning this would occur. Fortunately, he was wrong. For five years the American people had been rationed on almost everything ordinarily used in the normal process of living. They had earned a great deal of money and the demand for butter instead of guns quickly asserted itself; industry quickly changed pace to meet this demand. The need for increased community services became quickly apparent and from 1940 until present day the record has been surpassed in the areas of retail sales, building permits, assessed valuation, and industrial development.

As early as 1940 the city council recognized the need for parks and recreation and acquired a 13 acre site at Prairie and El Segundo boulevards. The park contains adequate picnic areas, tennis courts, volley ball courts, and many other types of recreational equipment for public use. During ensuing years seven additional parks were acquired. A unique recreational facility for boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 14 is the Hawthorne youth camp, an area of 33 acres located in Big Pines, about 100 miles from Hawthorne. With contributions from businessmen and residents, hundreds of civic-spirited citizens volunteered weekends of labor to toil on the construction of facilities, and many firms donated lumber, paint, hardware, and other necessary items.

The large increase in industry and population resulted in a need for more and more water. From 1906 to 1972 thirteen wells were drilled; four of these are still producing. Underground withdrawals are controlled by law and limited to one-third of the total demand. The City Water Department purchases about 65% of the total demand from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. All water comes from the Colorado River but in 1972 we received Feather River water through the California Aqueduct System and when the connections are completed the imported capacity will exceed 13 million gallons per day. More than sixty miles of water mains lie in the distribution system ranging in size from four-inch to eighteen-inch. The maximum daily consumption is 7½ million gallons, average daily consumption is 5 million gallons and 9 million gallons are stored in surface tanks. A 1966 article in the Advertiser Press Newspapers provided a vivid description of water needs from the founding of Hawthorne in 1906 until the present.