City of Orange history

In the year 1801, Spanish king granted Jose Antonio Yorba 62,500 acres of land.

Juan died in 1806 with the land and grants passing to his son-in-law, Jose Antonio Yorba and his grandson, Juan Pablo Peralta.

On Tuesday, April 7, 1807, the first government was elected at a town meeting.

A proper land grant was filed and on July 1, 1810, the land was granted to Jose and Juan and was renamed Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana.

In 1834, the Mexican government began the secularization of the California missions, restricting the padres to their religious duties, and placing civil administrators in charge of the operation of the missions.

The Morris & Essex Railroad arrived in Orange in November 1836, its first cars drawn by horses.

On October 2, 1837, the first steam locomotive appeared, and the horses were, with minor exception, relegated to pasture.

By 1846, almost all of Orange County was part of one rancho or another.

In 1857, a group of German immigrants living in San Francisco bought a portion of the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana to start a new community, built on wine making.

The area was subdivided, an irrigation ditch dug, and the vineyards planted before the first colonists moved to Anaheim in 1859.

On January 26, 1860, Orange was then incorporated as the Town of Orange.

Trolley cars appeared much later, with the Orange and Newark Horse Car Railroad Company running its first car up Main Street in May 1862.

Since 1864, many Americans started acquiring and developing the lands, they acquired.

In 1868, the rancho was divided among the many heirs and claimants, and towns and farms began to appear.

As late as 1870, a Native American Camp was still thriving where Glassell Street crosses the Santiago Creek, near the Garden Grove Freeway.

The City of Orange was founded in 1871 on part of the old Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana.

April 3, 1872, Orange was officially incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey State Legislature.

In 1873 Richland got a new name.

In 1875, Doctor Seth French, David P. Graves, John E. Stillman, William Hawley, John C. Thorpe, James M. Smith, and Allen Cameron purchased about 5,000 acres of internal improvement land and started the town that became Orange City, FL.

The hotel is now called the 1876 Heritage Inn and is still open for business.

The Southern Pacific built the first railroad through the area in 1877, but missed Orange by several miles.

On August 26, 1882, Orange City, named for the thousands of acres of orange groves planted in and around the city, was incorporated as a city.

In 1887, the Santa Fe arrived, touching off a frantic real estate boom.

Orange town was incorporated in the year 1888, April 6.

Orange County was incorporated in 1889, with Santa Ana beating out both Anaheim and Orange for the county seat.

By 1892, 21 firms were engaged in that trade, employing over 3,700 people in plants valued at nearly $1.1 million.

Years later, since most of these women were also members of the Village Improvement Association, they gave up the WCTU meetings and joined the VIA. Orange City received the Silver Medal, the “highest award that the world can give”, for its pure water at the 1904 St Louis Exposition.

In 1915, California’s first state highway was completed across Orange County, running from La Habra to San Juan Capistrano.

These homes were developed before the year 1920.

Several small communities later developed along Beach and Manchester boulevards, and the completion of the Coast Highway in 1926 brought new growth to places like Laguna Beach and Dana Point.

Mayor Edward B. Alling commissioned the new Town Hall, built in 1928 and designed by Elton J. Moughton, to be built in the style of a New England town hall at a cost of $20,000.

Trommers brewed beer under that label until 1950, when the concern was again sold to Liebmann Breweries, Incorporated, which bottled Rheingold.

The opening of Disneyland in 1955 made Orange County an international tourist destination.

The first freeway (SR 55) came through town in 1962.

In 1963, the county population topped one million.

In 1982, citizens voted overwhelmingly to change the designation of Orange from a city to a township, thereby making it eligible for National Revenue Sharing funds.

In 1985, the State of New Jersey named Orange as a State Urban Enterprise Zone, creating tax breaks and investment incentives.

Orange has made great strides with these resources and in the year 2000, for the first time in fifty years, Orange gained almost 3000 in population; reaching almost 33,000.

In June 2003, the City was once again honored by a Presidential visit, when George W. Bush came to Orange as part of an initiative to highlight the importance of small businesses to community development.