Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years, 1954-1988

Don Ballard has written a history of the Disneyland Hotel that provides both interesting reading and abundant eye-candy. Anyone with an interest in the history of Disneyland, O.C. tourism, or the hospitality industry should take a look. Check out Don's website for a sample of what you can expect, as well as some additional images he couldn't find space for in the book.

Link: Magical Hotel (Don Ballard)

Local history news from the O.C. Register

A few items of historical interest, culled from recent issues of the Orange County Register:

• The City of Irvine celebrated it's 35th Anniversary last Friday, Dec. 8th.
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• Lake Forest is celebrating their 15th Anniversary with an essay contest.
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• This weekend's article on famed hot rod artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth noted his connections to O.C., including his years working at Knott's and Movieland's Cars of the Stars Museum. However, the article missed a related twist of history. Five points if you can name the O.C. elected offical whose first job was working with Roth at the Cars of the Stars Museum.
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• Tustin High School is selling old yearbooks for $20 each. Available years include 1968, 1975, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1986, 1994 through 2002, 2004 and 2005. Interested? Call (714) 730-7422.
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• Down in San Juan Capistrano they're having trouble moving the historic Troubleman Cottage to it's new home at 31476 La Calera St. Seems there's an ash tree in the way. The Planning Commission will discuss this tomorrow.

Author's Night at O.C. Historical Society

The Orange County Historical Society's next meeting will be an "Authors' Night." Authors of recent local history titles will disucuss and sign their books. Authors will include Guy Ball, Phil Brigandi, Jeff Delaney, Steve Faessel, Terry Thomas, Christopher Trela, and Doris Walker. (Bowers' renovation explains the temporary venue change.)

Thurs., Dec. 14th , 7:30pm
Trinity Episcopal Church of Orange
2400 N. Canal St., Orange

I also understand that organist Randall Woltz will perform. I wonder if he has sheet music for such forgotten SoCal tunes as "Fullerton, My Fullerton," "Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga Sewing Circle," and "It's Always Orange Day In California."

Links Added

I've added links to most of the O.C. historical organizations and collections I could think of, plus a few other useful sites. If I've forgotten anyone, please let me know.

Weekend Holiday Events

Holiday Open House
Old Orange County Courthouse
Refreshements and schmoozing with nice people. Free.
211 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana (714) 973-6610
Fri., Dec. 8, Noon-5:00pm

Annual Christmas Party
Anaheim Historical Society
Light refreshments, music and fellowship at the historic Woelke-Stoffel House (1892).
418 N. West St., Anaheim
Fri., Dec. 8, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Holiday Open House
Newland House Museum (H.B. Hist. Soc.)
Tours, refreshments, live holiday music and a craft fair. Free.
19820 Beach Blvd, Huntington Beach
Fri., Dec. 8, 4:00pm-9:30pm, and
Sat., Dec. 9, 10:00am-4:00pm

Annual Candlelight Tour
Heritage Hill Historical Park
Over 1,000 luminarias light the way to historic buildings, lit up for the holidays. Live music, refreshments, dancers, and photos with Santa. Admission: $4 adults. $3 children 3-12.
25151 Serrano Rd, Lake Forest (949) 923-2230
Sat., Dec. 9, 5:30pm-8:30pm
Sun., Dec. 10, 5:30pm-8:30pm

(Note: Photo above is from Christmas 2005 at the Newland House.)

A New Blog: O.C. History Roundup

This blog is intended to serve local historians and those who are just generally interested in the history of Orange County, California. Everyone is welcome to participate, comment, or send me relevant event notices.

For the record, anything I write for this blog is based in my own views and is unrelated to the views of any groups I belong to or employers I work for. I'll be working on this blog from home in whatever spare time I may have.

You might well ask: If this is a new blog, where did the earlier entries about Huntington Beach come from?

I started out writing a very different blog, H.B. Outlook, which was usually about current events in Huntington Beach, but which also included some local history content from time to time. After half a year of blogging, it became clear that my history-related posts were garnering the most interest and were more enjoyable to write. Also, my posts about current events were generating more arguments and fewer constructive discussions than I'd hoped for. Anyway, I've saved some of the older history-related posts from H.B. Outlook and included them here.

In most O.C. History Roundup posts, I will try to include an image or two. Today's is the cover of a Nov. 1905 supplement to the Santa Ana Blade (newspaper), depicting the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana.

Southeast Huntington Beach history

Some months ago, I threw together a small website about the history of Southeastern Huntington Beach. This area was once known as the Santa Ana Gap or Talbert Gap (among other things). This river delta between the H.B. mesa and the Costa Mesa bluffs wasn't incorporated as part of the City until the 1950s. The photo above is from February 1960. The camera is pointed West along Atlanta Ave, with the photographer standing in front of the current post office near Magnolia. Today, you'd see the Albertson's and Vons' parking lots on the right, and miles of housing tracts on the left. Link: Talbert Gap

Update 12/20/2022: My Talbert Gap website is defunct, but many of the photos can still be found on my Flickr account.

Remembering Villa Sweden

Anyone who remembers Huntington Beach in the last half of the 20th Century will remember the Villa Sweden smorgasbord at 552 Main St. They were known for their wholesome all-you-can eat fare and reasonable prices.

As a kid, the Swedish meatballs, dark limpa bread and jello deserts were my favorites. Many of their selections would have been right at home at any Midwestern family potluck: From cabbage roll to carrot-raisin salad.

The Backlund family came to America from Sweden in 1951 and opened the restaurant in 1961. It closed sometime between 1984 and 1990. (Anyone have an exact date?) The building now houses the Shore House Cafe.

The image above is from an Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce guidebook, circa 1974.

Link: More photos.