By 1916, the community had "10 stores, an apartment hotel with accommodations for 20 people and a high class motion picture theater in course of construction." In that same year, a community celebration, with a torchlight parade, a brass band, "gaily decorated automobiles" and fireworks, was held to commemorate the installation of two hundred ornamental street lights, "set on marbleite pillars." Rubie Henrionnet was selected to reign over the festivities as queen of the carnival. The community lay "just outside the [Los Angeles] city limits" when its first lots went on sale. By 1916, it had its own fire department, under Chief S.O. Ritchey. Angeles Mesa's water supply came from Inglewood, so residents petitioned the City of Los Angeles to provide service instead. In August 1916, the Los Angeles Public Service Commission decided to take no action because "of a large annexation movement" in unincorporated territory to the west of the then-current Los Angeles city boundary. Angeles Mesa voters favored annexation of their unincorporated area by Los Angeles in an election held on April 6, 1917, by a vote of 237 to 200. A month later, the Business Men's Committee of Angeles Mesa, headed by Fred W. Forrester, campaigned in favor of a large annexation into the city of Los Angeles stretching from Angeles Mesa on the northeast to the coastal Los Angeles sewage-treatment plant at Hyperion on the southwest, adjoining El Segundo. Proponents said that any increase in property tax would be more than offset by a decrease in water rates. According to the "Evening Express," Forrester stated it was "of vital importance" that the entire area, with its two thousand residents, be annexed to forestall "at any point down the line [being] converted into a small municipality." The West Coast Annexation area of 7,200 acres, including the southern part of Angeles Vista, was admitted into Los Angeles in a citywide vote of 49,556 in favor and 26,241 opposed on June 5, 1917. On July 29, 1919, Angeles Mesa rejected a proposal to buy the Inglewood Water Company's system at a cost of $80,000 and turn it over to the city of Los Angeles after annexation. The vote was 127 in favor and 103 against, with two-thirds needed for passage. Angeles Mesa voters approved a separate annexation to Los Angeles north of 54th Street on July 21, 1922, by a vote of 174-149.