Monday, August 29, 2022

A recent place name mystery: J G Island

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J G Island outlined in red. Does anyone know what the "J G" means in the placename "J G Island Beach?" The name refers t...
Friday, August 19, 2022

A Lost Place Name: Cañada del Rodeo

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Detail from a sligtly wonky 1912 oil map. (Courtesy Paul Spitzzeri) Cañada del Rodeo (a.k.a. Rodeo Canyon) was an early name for a portion o...
Thursday, July 28, 2022

Holy Jim: The Canyon and the Man

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Jim (right) with two fellow G.A.R. members, circa 1900. A lot of flatlanders were left scratching their heads when fire authorities dubbed a...
Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Spare a thought for Orange County’s bears

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California grizzly (taxidermied) on display at the Old Orange County Courthouse in  2010 (Photo by author) For the modern Orange Countian – ...
Monday, July 18, 2022

Historical facts: Because truth matters

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Clocktower of the historic Spurgeon Building, Santa Ana. (Photo by author) A fellow historian (and all-around good guy) just sent me a link ...
Tuesday, July 05, 2022

A Few O.C. Lawmen of the Late 1890s

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I was recently contacted by Pete K., who just purchased this rare original print of a late-1890s photo of Orange County Sheriff Joseph Nicho...
Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Mystery book cover unmystified

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When Phil Brigandi died in 2019, we (his historian friends) spent countless hours working to appropriately distribute his vast personal hist...
Friday, April 01, 2022

Johnny Eucalyptus

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You may have wondered where California’s many eucalyptus trees came from. They are, after all, an Australian native.  In the early 1850s, ec...
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