Category: 2014

Mark Hall-Patton – Administrator of the Clark County museum system, and star of TV’s Pawn Stars – will speak on “The Importance of Museums in the 21st Century” at a special Orange County Historical Society program marking the county’s 125th birthday.

This event will be held Sept. 11, 2014, at the Sherman Library & Gardens, 2647 E. Coast Highway, in Corona del Mar. A social hour and optional potluck of appetizers and desserts will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by the program at 7:30 p.m.

The event is open to the public, but space is limited, so please complete an online RSVP form at http://tinyurl.com/ochssept.

As Administrator for the Clark County, Nevada, museum system, Mark Hall-Patton oversees the Clark County Museum, the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, and the Searchlight History Museum. He has been with Clark County for twenty years, and was previously the Director of the San Luis Obispo County Historical Museum and was the first Director of the Anaheim Museum (now the Muzeo). He has worked for both public and private nonprofit museums, and has consulted with numerous start-up and established museums and museum boards.

He is the author of two books, over 400 published articles, and has written and produced 48 local history videos, and is regularly seen on the History Channel’s hit show Pawn Stars as a visiting expert. He has also appeared on American Restorations, The United Stuff of America, America, Facts and Fallacies, and Mysteries at the Museum.

He has been in the museum field for over 37 years, having also worked with museums in California and South Dakota.

The exploration and documentation of the ruins of Bernardo Yorba’s home by Don Meadows in 1919 will be the topic of the next Orange County Historical Society meeting. Historian Phil Brigandi, a longtime friend of Meadows, will tell us about this early adventure in local archaeology. This program will be held Thursday, May 8, 2014, 7:30 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in the City of Orange.

Our previously announced speaker, Jeannine Pedersen, is unable to attend. We apologize for the scheduling error.

Local historian John Olson will discuss the history of the City of Cypress at the Orange County Historical Society meeting on Thursday, April 10, 7:30 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in Orange. Olson’s talk will begin with the little western Orange County town of Cypress in the 1940s, tell the story of its incorporation as Dairy City in 1956, and will, he says, “with any luck get to the wild times of 1960-61” (at which time it had been re-re-named Cypress again).

Although Cypress’ origin dates back to about the turn of the 20th century, by the time it incorporated in 1956, it still only had a population of 1,616 people… and 24,000 cows. Today the 6.61-square-mile city boasts 49,647 human residents and not a single bovine. In place of the old dairy farms are housing tracts, schools, Cypress College, shopping centers, the Los Alamitos Race Course, and the offices of such notable businesses as Vans, United Health Group, Fuji Film USA, Mary Kay, Yamaha Motor Corporation USA, Mitsubishi Motors, Bandai America, and Siemens Medical Solutions. The story of the community’s transition from agriculture to suburbia in some ways reflects the story of much of Orange County, but it also features many curious, unique, and sometimes surprising twists and turns.

John Olson’s interest in researching history began in 1971, after he started a baseball team. When his mother found out he’d named the team “The Baseball Blues” (after a song he liked), she said, “Oh, you named it after your father’s team.”

“My father,” Olson said, “had died in 1954 of a botched surgery when I was just five years old and no one in the family had bothered to tell me much about him, most specifically that he had ever played my favorite sport professionally. I asked a bunch of questions, but basically got no answers. So, I started researching, and I never stopped.”

Thus began his love of ferreting out forgotten stories of the past.

Olson, who holds a degree in Communications from CSUF, was hired in 1986 to create and run a television program for the City of Cypress. He has worked for the City ever since, running their cable access channel and meeting their other video production needs.

“When I applied for the job, I didn’t know where Cypress was,” said Olson. “But after producing hundreds of video programs about the City over the last 26 years, and attending more than 600 council meetings, plus the research habit I developed back in 1971, I got to know a lot about the little town of Cypress.”

Olson is currently working on a book about the history of Cypress—the first of its kind—and has become a familiar and welcome face in Orange County’s local history libraries and archives.

Get a “virtual backstage tour” of the Orange County Archives, learn about some recent additions to its collections, and see a new selection of rare historic photos at the OCHS general meeting on Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 7:30 p.m., 2400 N. Canal St. in Orange. Our speaker is OCHS president Chris Jepsen, whose day job finds him serving as Assistant Archivist at the O.C. Archives.

Although its mission is partly to identify, collect, preserve and make available records of the county’s history, the Orange County Archives is more than its name might imply. A central hub for Orange County history, the Orange County Archives is a research center open to the public, and its collections belong to the people of Orange County.

The majority of the Archives’ records come from county government, beginning with Orange County’s separation from Los Angeles in 1889. However, the resolution that created the Archives also provides for the collection of “historical materials which are not official County records but which document the history of Orange County.” This has allowed the Archives to build a collection that is not only extensive but diverse.

The Archives is a division of the Orange County Clerk-Recorder Department, located in the Old County Courthouse, 211 W. Santa Ana Blvd. It is open on weekdays (except holidays), 9:00 a.m. to noon, and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. During these hours, Archives staff members are on hand to help anyone and everyone find their way through more than 120 years of records in order to solve various historical, genealogical, and legal mysteries.

In addition to these duties, staff members also organize historical exhibits, speak in public on subjects relating to county history, and sometimes help provide guidance for historical projects undertaken by county agencies or commissions.

Our speaker Chris Jepsen has served as the Assistant Archivist at the Orange County Archives since 2003. He loves his work, collecting and preserving historically significant materials, and helping people discover the history of their families, homes and communities. Chris, a local historian who is author of the O.C. History Roundup blogspot and the “O.C. Answer Man” columnist of Orange Coast Magazine, is also an avid photographer and president of OCHS since the 2011-2012 membership year.

For more information about the Archives, visit OCArchives.com, call Chris at (714) 834-4771, or just stop by for a visit.

Paul Spitzzeri will give a lecture about Carbon Canyon on Thursday, February 13, 2014, 7:30 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in Orange.

Tucked in the northeastern corner of Orange County, Carbon Canyon is mostly known as a commuter alternative to the busy 91 and 60 freeways to and from the Inland Empire. The canyon and its surrounding areas, however, have a varied and interesting history, dealing with oil development, mineral hot springs, concrete outdoor ski slopes, hippie hangouts, hit jobs, and much more.

While the canyon was certainly a place for native peoples to gather plant material, hunt for game, and serve as a trading spot between coastal and inland regions, little is known about how the area was actually used over time. During the Spanish and Mexican eras, neighboring rancheros used Carbon Canyon as part of the common public land set aside for grazing and watering of cattle.

In the late 1880s, William H. Bailey bought land outside the canyon’s mouth and named his domain “Olinda Ranch,” after his family’s Hawaiian pineapple plantation. Several years later, Edward Doheny, developer of the famed Los Angeles oil field, brought in a still-operating well that inaugurated Orange County’s oil industry.

Oil workers, it is said, used the natural hot springs in the canyon for pain relief, and by the 1910s the La Vida Mineral Springs resort was opened. For nearly a half-century, the Miller family operated La Vida’s baths, pools, motel, and café, and its water was bottled and sold widely. After most of the facilities closed, the La Vida Roadhouse continued operation until the early 2000s. Little remains of the original site to date, except a water tower with the faded “La Vida” logo still emblazoned on it.

In recent years, sub-urbanization has crept into the canyon and has transformed it. Wildfires, traffic and other concerns remain ongoing issues as the area faces an uncertain future in this century.

Our guest speaker is the Assistant Director at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum in the City of Industry, California, where he has worked since 1988. He received his B.A. and M.A. in History from California State University, Fullerton and has published pieces on local, regional and state history in many journals and anthologies. His book, The Workman and Temple Families of Southern California, won the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History in 2009. A resident of Sleepy Hollow in Chino Hills within Carbon Canyon, Paul has blogged extensively on the history of the canyon on carboncanyonchronicle.blogspot.com.