It resides in the Peninsular Range, nestled between Los Angeles County and San Diego County, and dwells right on the edge of the Pacific coastline. Its dry and sunny land stretches from the Pacific Ocean coast to the Santa Ana mountains, small and yet known as one of the largest tourist, entertainment, and attraction spots in California. Orange County is certainly one of a kind; its namesake being attributed to its legendary orange orchards and farms and consistently a hotspot attraction for non-Californians. Orange County is a land that has constantly adapted to fit the needs of different eras; it also has always been a source of great attraction for others, originally the rancheros and agriculture, now tourism and entertainment.
Orange County is known for its tourist attractions and entertainment. According to EyeWitness Travel: California by James Jensen, it is known as the theme park capital of California, drawing people in to see Knotts’ Berry Farm, Soak City, and the famous Disneyland. The county’s coastline “is lined with wide, sandy beaches and a succession of legendary surfing haunts, marinas, and artists’ enclaves” (231). Its northern shoreline is flat, possessing many diverse beaches. Some of the various known beaches there are: Seal Beach, Doheny State Beach, Bolsa Chica State Beach, and Laguana Beach. The Seal Beach is a long and quiet beach with level sand and some surfers. Doheny State Beach is a marine life refuge, attracting a mix of swimmers, surfers, birdwatchers, anglers, cyclists, campers, and more. Bolsa Chica State Beach is home to flat wilderness sands, oil extractors, and protected wetlands, and in contrast Laguana Beach possesses small, sheltered beaches that is home to an artistic community. It is also known for its summer arts festival. In total, there are approximately eight beaches and moreover, “in the affluent coastal towns, few visitors can resist the temptation to seek out a clifftop bar and watch the sunset” (231). Essentially, Orange County’s beaches each has differing qualities which helps in attracting different kinds of visitors.
Another feature of Orange County’s landscape is its mountains. While the Coast Range and the Los Angeles County is surrounded by San Gabriel mountains, Philip L. Fradkin of “The Profligate Province” in The Seven States of California describes the Santa Monica and Santa Ana mountains as “intermediate rises, ripples in the blade that forms interior valleys” (319). The Santa Ana mountains lies in front of the San Gabriel mountains, and his description of the two mountains provides a visual of them possessing numerous fractures and erosions, with the aforementioned ‘blade’ giving off the appearance that it is “descending on the heads of the Seven Channel Islands” (319). One of the Channel Islands, Catalina Island, lies about 22 miles away from the mainlands. It is acknowledged as “the most accessible of California’s Channel Islands” (Jensen 246), it has a sheltered cove with a beach and a beautiful scenic harbor. Along the bay, there are several hiking trails and good camp sites. Overall, most of the island’s mountainous landscape has remained intact over the years. Understandably, it is also a favorite weekend and vacation destination for many tourists, Californians and non-Californians both.
The area of Orange County has been shaped by its rich history, spanning centuries. For more than 200 years, Spain owned California. It was in 1769 that the first efforts was made to colonize and settle in California. Spain sent forth Spanish soldiers and Catholic missionaries northwards in order to establish a chain of missions and forts, according to Orange County Historical Society. Saint Father Junipero Serra founded Mission San Gabriel in 1771 in what is now Los Angeles County, while Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded by Father Lasuen, on October 30, 1775. However, according to the Mission San Juan Capistrano site, it was a few weeks after the arrival of padres and soldiers that they learned about a revolt occurring in San Diego. Ultimately, they made the decision to go back to San Diego to help, and it was after things had finally settled down that “Saint Serra personally led a party to re-found Mission San Juan Capistrano on All Saint’s Day, November 1, 1776” (Mission San Juan Capistrano 2017). That mission was the seventh out of 21 missions that would be founded in Alta California; they were established with the purpose of spreading territorial boundaries of Spain and also to spread Christianity to the native people. It grew in population, buildings, livestock, and prominence in the next 30 years. Orange County Historical Society notes that the missions had claimed much of what is currently known as Orange Country– with cattle, horses, and sheep grazing there until approximately the 1830s. By 1806, San Juan Capistrano mission had over 1,000 people and over 10,000 head of cattle, but it was after 1812 that it began to decline due to different factors: earthquake, declining birth rates, death from diseases, inadequate supply of goods and protection from the Spanish government, and more. Eventually, the Spanish rule over Mexico and California would be no more.
When Mexico won its independence from Spain and broke away from them in 1821, it was the beginning of a new change. The Mexican government took Alta California with them, and began the secularization of the missions. They divided up the mission lands, and sold them off, authorizing land grants of up to 44,000 acres to Mexican citizens, and “by 1846 almost all of Orange County was part of one rancho or another”. This transformed the society of Orange County; cattle ranching and the rancheros had become the backbone of the local economy. Upon the Californian coast, there was trading vessels coming back and forth from the United States and other countries, the rancheros would go there to trade their cattle hides in return for the manufactured goods. When the famed Gold Rush of 1849 occurred, it created a brand new market of demand for the rancheros’ cattle, which was sold as beef to feed miners. The local economy soared thanks to the increased number of people and higher demand for the rancheros’ cattle. However, Orange County Historical Society notes that many rancheros were eventually driven to ruin due to various factors. These factors included series of droughts, diseases, and floods, along with the struggle of defending the ownership of their lands in American courts. The decline of the rancheros foreshadowed a new change in the economy for the next era.
When the Civil War occurred, sheep ranching replaced cattle and the remaining rancheros were broken up and then sold to various settlers and developers. Several of those settlers were German immigrants living in San Francisco, who bought a piece of a rancho in order to establish a new community that was built on wine-making. This was in 1857, irrigation ditches were dug and vineyards were planted before the first colonists moved to Anaheim, the first American town established in Orange County, in 1859. This led to another drastic change in Orange County’s society and economy: “farming became the backbone of the local economy” (Orange County Historical Society 2017). Orange County became home to the farming of wine and raisin grapes, wheat, barley, corn, and more– which were a great success. It was in the 1870s that more walnuts, apricots, and oranges tree crops were planted, due to new irrigation systems that were built. Agriculture remained an incredibly important part of Orange County’s economy until the 1950s. Other crops had disappeared by then, while citrus only continued to become more popular; it was by the 1930s that Orange County was acknowledged to be “producing a sixth of the nation’s Valencia orange crop” (Orange County Historical Society 2017). In Orange County’s early agricultural days, its land used to be scattered with many orange orchards and farms.
However, while Orange County is still known for its orange orchards and farms, much of it has disappeared to modernization and tract housing, in which groups of identical houses are built on subdivided lands. In the 1950s, many territories were annexed by already-existing cities. It was an era of modern expansion and development of large cities. When Disneyland first opened in 1955 and was beginning to attract its first crowds, the land could be seen as lush and green with orange orchard farms during drives. However, the opening of Disneyland completely transformed Orange County, turning it into an “international tourist destination” (Orange County Historical Society 2017). As a result agriculture no longer dominated the economy of Orange County. It was replaced by tourism, manufacturing, and the service industry– the higher Orange County’s attraction, the more people came in– either as tourists or to settle down. The increasing population of people living in Orange County resulted in the creation of more jobs at various workplaces such as hospitals, restaurants, stores, etc. One could say that in this case, modernization won over centuries of working with nature.
For over 300 years, Orange County’s society and economy greatly valued and depended on labor and nature both: the work of the rancheros and the natural use of their cattle grazing, and then the labor of agriculture and the growth of fruit crops. Rancheros and cattle grazing were extremely important to the economy because of the particular era that they lived in. Thus when the era changed, the land was able to adapt along with it. Its own vitality and fertility were deemed as useful for the next important thing: agriculture. However, when the 20th century came, technology, modernization, and entertainment took off. Work was still valued, but in a different way– instead, work would be spent on modernizing the land. This completely changed the lifestyle and economy of Orange County, and as a result agriculture was left behind in the dust. Orange County has always been a source of some form of attraction for others– first through rancheros and agriculture, which then transitioned into what is currently tourism and entertainment; its land is highly adaptable, changing to fit the needs of each era.