1851 Police Ribbon

In 1851, Los Angeles began experiencing high crime rates and to address this problem, the City Council authorized the formation of a volunteer police force. They called themselves the "Los Angeles Rangers" and were officially organized on July 12 1851. The first chief of police for the volunteer unit was Alexander W. Hope and one of his first duties was to design a badge or in this case a ribbon to identify the volunteer police force. On July 18, just six day after the formation of the unit, a special meeting was held by the city council to approve the design of the police ribbon. Although we do not know the exact number of the Rangers, the initial order of these ribbons was 100 and the Los Angels Star newspaper was awarded the contract to make the ribbons. You can lean more about Alexander Hope and the Los Angeles Rangers in the "History" section of this Web Site under his name Alexander W. Hope..