For a generation it worked beautifully. Anaheim's vineyards became the largest in California and its wine shipped across the country — for nearly twenty-five years this was the state's leading wine district. Then, in the 1880s, a mysterious blight now known as Pierce's Disease moved through the vines and killed them by the hundreds of thousands. By the late 1880s the vineyards were beyond saving. It could have been the end of the colony. Instead the growers pulled out the dead vines and planted citrus — and Anaheim reinvented itself as the Valencia Orange capital of the nation, its crate labels carrying the town's name to fruit stands all over the country.
Before any of the famous stuff, there was a vineyard. In 1857 fifty German families stepped off a wagon road, fenced a square mile with living willow poles, and planted the biggest vineyard in California — naming their square of valley Anaheim: "Ana" for the Santa Ana River, "heim" for home. Home by the river. When a blight took the grapes they planted oranges and made the place the Valencia capital of the nation. The Mother Colony House still stands. This is the orange-grove California underneath it all — and this page tells that story.
Why People Visit Anaheim California
- Tour the Mother Colony House (1857), the oldest wood-framed building in Orange County.
- Walk Founders' Park beneath the Landmark Moreton Bay fig and the recreated 19th-century grounds.
- Browse the Anaheim Packing House, a restored 1919 citrus-era packing building turned food hall.
- Stroll the Center Street Promenade and the historic downtown colony grid.
- Relax at Pearson Park, with its lawns, amphitheater, and shaded neighborhood paths.
