Anaheim, Orange Co., CA - German Settlement ------------------------------------------------------------------ USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contri- butor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This information is from: "The German settlement at Anaheim" by Dorothea Jean Paule. 1952. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Southern California, 1952. Scanning and OCR by Joy Fisher. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Anaheim, California, today is a modern, prosperous city of over 17,000 inhabitants.[1] It is the world's largest exporting center of Valencia oranges and citrus by-products, and in this post-World War II period is rapidly adding industrial enterprises to its economy. Less than two centuries ago the area in which Anaheim is located was first visited by white men in the party of Gaspar Portola who in 1769 led a band of sixty-three men from San Diego in search of Monterey. Later men whose names are famous in California history crossed the territory in their treks up and down the state in missionary, colonizing, and military endeavors-Father Junipero Serra, Father Fermin Francisco Lasuen, Juan Bautista de Anza, various Spanish and Mexican governors, John C. Fremont, "Kit" Carson, Commodore Robert F. Stockton, General Stephen W. Kearny, and many others. The land upon which this future city was built was a part of a Mexican rancho, Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, granted to Juan Pacifico Ontiveras in 1837. It is in 1857 that the story of this paper begins, when the first Americans, men and women of German descent, settled on the rancho. There were only two American settlements in southern California when the German-Americans came to Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana. Many individuals or family groups had come to southern California, but none had formed organized colonies until in 1851, when immigrants from Texas coming to California over the southern route had formed a settlement twelve miles east of Los Angeles on the San Gabriel River which they named El Monte. El Monte became a successful, though small, agricultural community noted especially for its ruthless methods of ridding the community of lawbreakers. A few months after the founding of El Monte, a party came through Cajon Pass from Salt Lake City to establish an outpost of the Mormon empire at what was to be San Bernardino. This community, based in its physical organization on Salt Lake City, also became a thriving agricultural and small-scale industrial settlement, until 1859, when Brigham Young, the great Mormon leader, recalled the colonists to Salt Lake City. [2] Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo were Spanish centers of population at this time. [3] The German colony at Anaheim was an unusual one for southern California -- or for anywhere for that matter. To begin with, it was cooperative in nature. A group of individuals, few, if any, of whom would have been able independently to afford the purchase of a farm the size of those granted through the cooperative venture, banded together, pooling their resources in a stockholding enterprise and established a wine-producing community. None of the participants were agriculturists by occupation, nor were any familiar with irrigation practices which were to prove essential in maintaining their economy. Another unusual feature is that members of the company bought shares in the project without first seeing the site of the proposed colony and continued to purchase stock for two years or more before taking possession, during which period the. colony was in process of establishment by a paid manager elected by the shareholders. There was no common religious tie for the colony as had been the basis for settlement in so many colonization schemes throughout the United States. The people involved were hard-working, determined individuals who knew they wanted to leave San Francisco, where most of them had been living, and establish an agricultural community. This is the story of how that community was built and how it progressed for a period of approximately a quarter of a century when a mysterious disease struck its vineyards and destroyed the basic economic activity. If there is a disproportionate amount of material here on the Los Angeles Vineyard Society period, it is for two reasons: (1) the source material available to the writer was more abundant, and (2) the writer found this chapter of the city's history more interesting because of its uniqueness. [4] FOOTNOTES [1] Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide, 83rd edition, 1952, reports 14, 556 as the population of Anaheim, but an unofficial census report released May 1, 1952, by E.B. Lewis, supervisor of special census credits the city with 17,087 persons. [2] Oscar Lewis, California Heritage (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1949), p. 118. [3] No additional communities of consequence were formed in southern California until over a decade later when, after the cattle industry was finally ruined by drought and bankruptcy, many of the large ranches were divided. [4] It will be apparent that one of the most authentic sources of material, the Anaheim Gazette, founded in 1870, has not been consulted except in a few instances, the reason being that the only complete file of the paper, that in the custody of the present owner and publisher, is not available for public use.