Wednesday, February 02, 2011

From Herman-Miller's 1769 catalog?

Oh, the things you find in old magazines and newspapers when you're researching something totally unrelated. This Spaniard -- presumably Gaspar de Portola -- comes from an ad for Orange Empire National Bank in the October 1964 issue of the late lamented Orange County Illustrated magazine. It has all the elements of 1960s Orange County: Ranch homes amid dwindling orange groves and wind breaks (these appear to be in the Tustin area), a touch of the ultra-Modern (the chair), an attempt at local appeal (the bank's name), and a healthy dose of somewhat hokey faux-Early-California.
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Orange Empire National Bank was based in Anaheim, and collapsed a year after this ad was published. The bank was the victim of some kind of "check writing scheme" that sent financial consultant Samuel A. Longo to prison.
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Portola, on the other hand, died in Spain in 1784.

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