Empty cable reels picked up in Santa Fe Springs

What gets made in Santa Fe Springs

Santa Fe Springs has been an industrial city since oil was found there in the 1920s. Its own General Plan puts industrial businesses on 72% of the city's land in 2021, with more than 3,700 local businesses and more than 50,000 workers commuting in. Homes sit mostly at the edges; the middle of the city, between the 5 and the 605 and along Telegraph Road, Florence Avenue and Norwalk Boulevard, is plants, yards and warehouses.

The mix is heavy: metal fabrication, oil-field and pipe supply, chemicals, plastics, trucking terminals and the electrical, plumbing and HVAC wholesalers that serve contractors from Whittier to Downey. That is a good place to look for bolted reels, because industrial maintenance and oil-field electrical work use heavier cable than a house does.

Oil is still part of the picture. Pumping units and small production sites remain scattered through the city, and the service companies, pipe yards and electrical contractors that support them use cable built for rough work. Add the wholesalers that sell to contractors from Whittier to Norwalk and the trucking terminals along the 5 and the 605, and you have one of the densest concentrations of reel-using businesses in the southeast county, all within a few minutes of each other.

Where Santa Fe Springs's empty reels come from

Industrial maintenance electricians

Motor feeds and plant rewires empty 36 to 48 inch reels of heavier cable, often bolted.

Wholesalers and supply houses

Branches along Telegraph and Florence keep stacks of one-way reels that customers bring back or leave behind.

Contractors' yards

Electrical contractors based here bring empties back from jobs across the southeast county and stack them by the fence.

How the Orange County on the 5 run reaches Santa Fe Springs

Santa Fe Springs is the first cluster on the Orange County run: the truck leaves the Gateway Cities on the 5 and stops here before crossing into Buena Park and Anaheim. Stops north of Telegraph Road can also ride on the San Gabriel Valley run if the 605 is the quicker way in. Industrial lots here usually have forklifts, which means bigger reels move fast; say how many 72 and 96 inch reels you have so we can leave room on the deck.

Other stops on the Orange County on the 5 lane: Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Tustin, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach. Reels from Santa Fe Springs can share a deck with any of them.