Today I'm posting three photos of a very rural Fountain Valley in the 1960s. All three come from the Orange County Archives. The first photo (top) is a view looking north up Brookhurst St from Garfield Ave in July 1965. Note the movie screen for the Fountain Valley Drive-In on the horizon. The second photo looks westward along Talbert Ave from the Santa Ana River bridge in 1962. The final image is an eastward view along Talbert Ave from an unspecified point in the Fountain Valley area..
This is the 44th anniversary of the Fountain Valley Fire Department. Their first Fire Chief was H. C. Mickey Lawson.
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Although the name "Fountain Valley" was used to describe this area as early as the mid-1870s, the town was known for many decades as Talbert. However, "Fountain Valley" was selected as the city's name when it incorporated in 1957. (I'm sure I'll post more about Talbert/Fountain Valley at some point in the future.)
Thanks Chris for these photos. I always enjoying seeing old street and freeway views.
ReplyDeleteThese photos came from the County Road Dept files at the O.C. Archives. They took the photos to document construction projects (before, during, and after). However, they also provide some good images of the surrounding terrain that would not otherwise have been captured.
ReplyDeleteI just hope I haven't stirred up a hornet's nest by mentioning Fountain Valley again.
Some of the richest, finest growing dirt in this State lies under the sprawl of FV. I wonder how many people have dug past the 3' or so of junky fill dirt that makes up the grade surface of their tracts to find this rich bounty?
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived in FV we had an amazing garden. My mother grew vegetables, we had several fruit trees, and a grape arbor. We transplanted "stolens" from other people's gardens as they were thinning out their plants or re-doing their landscaping. People used to leave all the trimmings on tarps by the curb and folks would just come along and take what they wanted. We had a whole rock garden of succulents from those. Also, a friend was thinning out her poinsettias -- she gave us the canes and said to put them in the ground -- we did and a few weeks later we had a huge display of poinsettias on the side of our house. There was amazing soil in FV!
DeleteCaptain, it really is unfortunate -all that great, furtile soil that's been covered with concrete. That dirt is like gold.
ReplyDeleteWow!!! I remember this like it was yesterday. Great pictures Chris. Thanks for posting, Richard.
ReplyDeleteI've lived in FV for most of the past 40 years. Thanks for this. I learned how to drive on those dirt roads in the Talbert/SA River area. Now I'm off to find what else you've written about my hometown! You'll always have at least one fan for the FV material! Tom.
ReplyDeleteWow the first picture you have on there of Fountain valley, a picture of garfield and brookhurst shows the before picture of the subdivison Neptune. I grew up in that subdivision. The back of our house was on garfield. Maybe where the sign is that says Big 2 story. I wish I could find more. My parents bought the house back around 1967. I was 3 and can still remember the day we moved in. The house was huge. 5 bedrooms and 2 story.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the photos
I was born in fountain valley in 1963 i remember warner was only a 2 lane road on the corner of brookhurst and warner there was a company called gemco. 405 fwy was still being built. The farm lands the masudas on warner between bushard and brookhurst were like family oh i miss those days i still get flashback of where everything was in the city of fountain valley. I now live in costa mesa but still work in my hometown fountain valley.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this it brings back lot's of child hood mem. I am the youngest Courreges daughters Irene. i lived in Fountain valley for 49yrs then in 2006 move to Kingman Az.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother grew taro and and bananas in our backyard. That's probably still the most impressive gardening feat I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother grew taro and and bananas in our backyard. That's probably still the most impressive gardening feat I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI lived on Ellis..by the first picture: Asparagus field on one side tomatoes on the other. Are back yard was an organic haven of fruit and vegetables.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Garden Grove and we had amazing dirt there too, sad to think all the growing potental of these OC cities is gone forever .
ReplyDeletemy brother and I collected pop bottles from McFadden and Brookhurst all the way to HB state beach back in the 60s, we would walk or ride bikes to the beach, collecting bottles paid for our lunch at Taco Bell by the pier, then on the way back we would collect more on the other side and cash them in at Towne Market on McFadden and Ward, or Alpha Beta on Euclid and Edinger... penny candy was such a treat in those days,
ReplyDeletemy brother and I collected pop bottles from McFadden and Brookhurst all the way to HB state beach back in the 60s, we would walk or ride bikes to the beach, collecting bottles paid for our lunch at Taco Bell by the pier, then on the way back we would collect more on the other side and cash them in at Towne Market on McFadden and Ward, or Alpha Beta on Euclid and Edinger... penny candy was such a treat in those days,
ReplyDeleteThe strawberries as big as your hand and so sweet!
ReplyDeleteI grew up right off of Euclid and Westminster and our dirt was Amazing also I can still see
ReplyDeletethat rich dark soil in my mind. At the end of our street was a field and we used to dig holes
like 6ft. deep and make forts. Now I live in Temecula you would need a backhoe to dig that far down.