Here's the
Disneyland-Alweg Monorail swooping over the
Disneyland Hotel parking lot, in the 1960s. (I'm sure you car fanatics already have the date figured out down to the month.)
Don Ballard's first book about this place,
Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years, 1954-1988, has just been reprinted. Often such one-man's-quest/self-published books end up rotting forlornly in their authors' garden sheds. But this
reprint is a real testament to a beautiful and well-researched book that's contagious in its appeal. If you weren't interested in the subject when you picked up the book, just give it a few pages. (He also has a sequel out now, which I unfortunately haven't seen yet.)
Join the
Orange County Historical Society on its second "
History Hike" on April 15th, at 9am. This time, our hike leaders and historians will take us through the historic oil fields and vanished town of
Olinda, near
Brea. For some reason, the event isn't on the Society's website yet, but the chair of the Society's hike committee, has the
information posted on her blog. The hike will also include a visit to the
Olinda Oil Museum, which I
wrote about when it opened four years ago. The photo below shows a scene of Downtown Olinda in about 1920.
The
Heritage Museum of Orange County (the Kellogg House people) have a shiny new
Flickr account, and it looks like our friend
Jason Smith is filling it up with interesting photos and other materials from their collection. The photo below shows the
Maag House in its original location (now part of
Fairhaven Cemetery) around 1900. The house is now on the grounds of the museum.
And don't forget,... There's a whole
Orange County History group on Flickr that always seems to have new and interesting things being added by its over 250 members. Check it out, or join and add your own photos!
