Peoples Temple

===Urban expansion===
{{Main|Peoples Temple in San Francisco}}
[[File:Peoples Temple.jpg|thumb|upright|Peoples Temple headquarters, 1859 Geary Blvd., San Francisco, 1978]]
Because of limited expansion in the Redwood Valley-[[Ukiah, California|Ukiah]] area, it eventually seemed necessary to move the church's seat of power to an urban area.<ref name="raven164" /> In 1970, the Temple began holding services in [[San Francisco]] and [[Los Angeles]].<ref name="kilduff">Kilduff, Marshall and Phil Tracy. [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=14025 "Inside Peoples Temple."] ''New West Magazine''. August 1, 1977 (hosted at Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University). {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/newWestart.htm |title=Jonestown |access-date=2006-10-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217064220/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/newWestart.htm |archive-date=December 17, 2010 }}</ref> It established permanent facilities in those cities in 1971 and 1972, respectively.<ref name="raven164">Reiterman 1982. p. 164.</ref> In San Francisco, the Temple occupied a former [[Scottish Rite]] temple at 1859 Geary Boulevard in the [[Fillmore District, San Francisco|Fillmore District]]. At the time, the Fillmore district was a majority Black neighborhood and a stronghold of Black culture on the West Coast.<ref>Chidester, David. 1988. Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Bloomington: Indiana University</ref> In Los Angeles, the Temple occupied the former building of the [[First Church of Christ, Scientist (Los Angeles)|First Church of Christ, Scientist]] at 1366 S. Alvarado Street.<ref>Chidester, David. 1988. Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Bloomington: Indiana University</ref>

By 1972, the Temple called Redwood Valley the "mother church" of a "statewide political movement".<ref name="raven164" /> From the start, the Los Angeles facility's primary purposes were to recruit members and to serve as a waystation for the Temple's weekly bus trips across California.<ref name="raven164" /> The Temple set up permanent staff in Los Angeles and arranged bus trips there every other week.<ref name="raven164" /> The substantial attendance and collections in Los Angeles helped support the Temple's inflated membership claims.<ref name="raven164" /> The Los Angeles facility was larger than San Francisco's.<ref name="raven164" /> Its central location at the corner of Alvarado and Hoover Streets permitted easy geographic access for a large black membership from [[Watts, Los Angeles|Watts]] and [[Compton, California|Compton]].<ref name="raven164" />

Recruiting drives in Los Angeles and San Francisco helped increase membership in the Temple from a few hundred to nearly 3,000 by the mid-1970s.<ref>Reiterman 1982. p. 156.</ref> Later, when the Temple's headquarters shifted from Redwood Valley to San Francisco, the Temple convinced many Los Angeles members to move north to its new headquarters.<ref name="raven164" />