When William A. Clark and his brother J. Ross Clark died (in 1925 and 1936 respectively), management of the Montana Ranch passed to J. Ross Clark's nephew, Clark J. Bonner, a Los Angeles insurance executive. When the Los Alamitos sugar mill closed in 1926, due to declining beet production, Bonner envisioned turning part of the Montana Ranch into an upper-middle-class suburb to take advantage of the local real estate boom due to the discovery of oil wells. The new subdivision was a leisurely commute from downtown Long Beach, removed from the smells and noise of the oil fields around Signal Hill, and 25 miles away from downtown Los Angeles.