The Experimental Southland City

Enjoying wine at a family gathering in Anaheim c. 1860

Nowadays we think of it as the home of the Magic Kingdom, the place where happiness fills every heart and dreams come true. Be that as it may, ninety-eight years before Disneyland arrived, Anaheim began as an experimental colony in 1857, the dream of fifty German-American families.   

The objective of these fifty families (mostly residing in San Francisco, and all ancestrally Bavarian) was to jointly acquire rural land suitable for grape growing and wine making, and to live on it together—a dream in the purest sense, because it seems that none of them were experienced vignerons or even viticulturists. Instead, the families represented a cross-section of trades and vocations. Carpenters, blacksmiths, watchmakers, millers, beer brewers, and merchants, shared the same vision with an engraver, a shoemaker, a poet, a bookbinder, a hatter, and a musician.

After investigating properties throughout the state, they decided to purchase a portion of the Rancho San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana, a 35,971-acre Mexican land grant awarded in 1837 to Juan Pacifico Ontiveros, by Juan Batista Alvarado, at the time governor of California. Since the entire Ontiveros grant was within Los Angeles County, the group’s cooperative venture, formed in February, 1857, was appropriately named the Los Angeles Vineyard Society. With the help of Los Angeles City Surveyor George C. Hansen, the Society purchased a 1,165-acre parcel of the Ontiveros property, on the west bank of the Santa Ana River about 12 miles inland from the coast.

The colonizers named their community Annaheim, a blend of Ana, after the nearby river, with the German heim, meaning home, later altered to Anaheim with just one n; although for years, their Spanish-speaking neighbors called the settlement Campo Alemán, “German Field” in English. George Hansen, born in Austria of German parentage, was the superintendent who perfected and directed the settlement’s design, which divided the tract into fifty 20-acre lots for farms and vineyards, and fifty house lots, with plenty of room left over for community buildings and schoolhouses.

A fence made of 40,000 willow poles, five and a half miles long, enclosed the entire colony. Most of the willows took root, eventually forming a living wall about the settlement. Gates were installed at all four compass points of the colony, with the north gate—on the road from Los Angeles—as the main entrance. Despite the seeming incongruity of its members, and the inevitable early hardships, the Anaheim colony flourished from the beginning, and only one of its original settlers abandoned it. On March 18, 1876, Anaheim was incorporated as the second city in Los Angeles County.     

Initially, supplies came from the Port of San Pedro. By 1864, however, the colonizers had organized the Anaheim Lighter Company and developed a port along the river, with a dock and warehouse. Anaheim Landing, located in what is now Seal Beach, served the entire Santa Ana Valley until the Pacific Railroad arrived in 1875. For 25 years Anaheim was the largest wine producer in California—until 1884, when a fungus infected the grape vines and destroyed the industry. Other crops, including walnuts, lemons and oranges, filled the void.

In time two more towns were founded on the vast Rancho San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana land grant. Placentia began developing in 1865, when the first American settler arrived and others soon followed. Fullerton was founded in 1887. All three communities were part of Los Angeles County until, after much political upheaval and infighting, a portion of it was split off in 1889 to create Orange County.

Anaheim, presently the most populous city plus the second largest city by land area in Orange County, remained largely an agricultural community until Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955.