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