Orange County City of the Week: Yorba Linda

This week's featured city is Yorba Linda, CA. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Yorba Linda:

Yorba Linda is an affluent suburban community in northeastern Orange County, California, approximately 13 miles (21 km) northeast of Downtown Santa Ana, and 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. Yorba Linda is often identified as the richest city in the U.S. by the U.S. Census Bureau that shows a median household income of $121,075, higher than any other city in 2006.[3][4][5]

As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 64,234. Its most famous resident was Richard Nixon, who was born there; however, his father moved the family away before Yorba Linda became a city. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is therefore probably the most well-known and visited site in the city.

Yorba Linda is known for having large residential lots[6] as well as 30 horse trails,[7] which are 100 miles (160 km) in aggregate length.[8]

In 2005 CNN ranked Yorba Linda 21st among the best places in the U.S. to live.[9] Similarly, in an article by CNN Money, Yorba Linda was one of the richest U.S. cities and the richest in Orange County as reported by the Census data, showing a median household income of more than $120K: "Among towns of between 65,000 and 250,000 in population, Yorba Linda, California, where six-figure incomes are the rule, had the highest median income at $121,075"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorba_Linda,_California

Huntington Beach, CA

This week's featured Orange County city is Huntington Beach. Here's a little history:

The area of Huntington Beach was originally occupied by the Tongva people, also known as Gabrielinos, whose lands stretched from what is now Topanga Canyon through Aliso Creek in Laguna Beach.  European settlement can be traced to Spanish soldier, Manuel Nieto, who in 1784 received a Spanish land grant of 300,000 acres, which he named Rancho Los Nietos, as a reward for his military service.  The Stearns Rancho Company ran cattle and horses and raised barley crops on what is now the city of HB.  In the early 1800’s a portion of property was sold to Col. Robert Northam, who raised and sold barley to surrounding ranchers.  By 1889, the city was called Shell Beach and consisted of a small group of settlers.  In 1901, Shell Beach was changed to Pacific City when P.A. Stanton formed a local syndicate and purchased 40 acres along the beach with 20 acres on each side of Main Street.  Stanton’s dream was to build a town on the Pacific Coast which would rival Atlantic City on the East Coast.

Photo Credit: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g32513-Huntington_Beach_California-Vacations.html 

Source: http://huntingtonbeachca.gov/about/history/

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This week's Famous Face From Orange County is Ashley Hartman. According to famouswhy.com:

Ashley Hartman was born on August 31, 1985 in Orange County, CA. She is an actress and fashion model.

Biography and Career:

When she was four years old their parents divorced and she lived with her mother and two sisters.

She attended classes of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, CA and there was a cheerleader, a cross-country participant, and President of her class.

She tried her luck and went to Hollywood to participate in American Idol and got into the second season's top 32 finalists. After this, the directors of FOX series The O.C. remarked her and that's how she got a role in that series.

She also played a role in the horror movie Abominable.

As a model she appeared in Maxim, SG, Newport Health and Electric Visual.

 

Source: http://people.famouswhy.com/ashley_hartman/ 

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Orange County City: Brea

This week's featured Orange County city is Brea, CA. Here's a little bit of history about Brea:

Nestled in the foothills on a plateau at the northern tip of Orange County, Brea was known as a place where tar seeped from the hills.  The word "Brea" means tar in Spanish. In early history, Indians and pioneers used chunks of the oil-soaked earth for fuel and domestic purposes like heating their homes and waterproofing their roofs.  Then came the big oil boom!
In 1894, the Union Oil Company purchased 1,200 acres of land to be used for oil development.  They struck it rich in 1898 when the first oil well, Olinda Oil Well #1, came in - thus creating an oil boom in the hills of Brea and Olinda and paving the way for the thriving city that Brea is today.
An actual town did not develop until 1911 when businesses and small industries sprang up to serve the oil field workers and their families.  The official founding date for the town of Brea is January 19, 1911, when the old map of the town of Randolph was refiled under a new name.  The City of Brea became incorporated on February 23, 1917, with a population of 752.

Source:  http://www.ci.brea.ca.us/article.cfm?id=3109

Famous Faces From Orange County: Social Distortion

This week's Famous Face From Orange County is the band Social Distorition because they came together in

(photo credit http://goodbyebabylon.com/wordpress2/2012/10/07/sunday-rewind-social-distortion-live-at-the-roxy/)

Orange County. According to OCWeekly.com 's article:

If Orange County music had an iconic, tattooed, greased-up figurehead, it could only be Social Distortion's Mike Ness. From the first wave of OC punk bands, Social D were initially one of the more ambitious ones, recording several sides of what would become self-defining classics: "The Creeps (I Just Wanna Give You)," "Moral Threat," "1945," "Playpen," and the song (and album) that would've become archetypes no matter what county they were made in, "Mommy's Little Monster." But when punk got supplanted by bland "new wave" in the early '80s (and when evil authority figures kept getting the few punk clubs shut down), Social D disappeared, and Ness tumbled into a black pit of smack addiction. After several stupor-steeped years, he pulled a Phoenix and cleaned up, re-formed his band (with his best Troy High School buddy, the late Dennis Danell), got signed to mega-label Epic, cut a whole slew of new classics ("Story of My Life," "Ball and Chain," "Bad Luck," "I Was Wrong"), and pretty much hasn't let up since. We don't even think the Offspring could sell out as many House of Blues shows as Social D do every year, a testament to not only survival but fan loyalty if we've ever seen one.

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