The community of Newbury Park, California is located in the western portion of the city of Thousand Oaks and Casa Conejo, an unincorporated area of southern Ventura County. It is located in the East County area of Ventura County in the Conejo Valley, the northwestern portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Newbury Park abuts the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, with main entrances at the northern edge of the park at Rancho Sierra Vista and Satwiwa.
The area was inhabited by the HEID People about 7,000 years ago, then later by the Chumash. Newbury Park contains many ancient burial sites, most near the Santa Monica Mountains in the Southern portion of the community. Many artifacts have been discovered in the area.
Newbury Park is named after Egbert Starr Newbury, who owned thousands of acres of land in the Conejo Valley in the 1870s.[3] John Edwards[4] Howard Mills[5] and Egbert Starr Newbury[6] bought Rancho El Conejo land. Newbury and his wife Fannie moved to California from Michigan for health reasons in 1871. He became the first postmaster in the Conejo Valley in 1875. The post office was near their house which was located at the current location of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The historic Stagecoach Inn was used by travelers between Los Angeles in the south and Santa Barbara to the north as a stagecoach station.
Along with Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park was part of a master planned community by the Janss Investment Company. Newbury Park, along with parts of Westlake Village became part of the City of Thousand Oaks sometime between the 1960s and 1970s. Newbury Park was formerly controlled by Ventura County, but after a community vote, all but Casa Conejo became part of Thousand Oaks.
Newbury Park has had an increasing population due to the presence of biotechnology firms and technology corporations of the area, such as Amgen (world headquarters), Baxter, as well as numerous other tech businesses.
The community is part of the City of Thousand Oaks, whose economy is based on a small range of businesses, with biotechnology, electronics, automotive, aerospace, telecommunications, healthcare, and financing occupying most of Thousand Oaks' employment sector. The global headquarters of the industrial design and styling department of BMW, DesignworksUSA is located in the community, as are offices for Amgen, Baxter International, General Dynamics Corporation, Jafra Cosmetics, J.D. Power and Associates, and Skyworks Solutions offer many high-tech jobs and have corporate headquarters in the city, while Countrywide, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Volkswagen, Audi, General Motors, and WellPoint manage regional offices. The city was also the former home to the corporate offices of Wellpoint and GTE, which later became Verizon, which relocated in the last decade. As the city is usually considered a suburb, many residents also commute to neighboring Los Angeles. Although some of these businesses are not located in the Newbury Park section of the city, many of its residents are employed through these companies.
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