Editing Brea, California (section)

==History==

=== Indigenous ===
The area began as part of the homelands of the [[Tongva]], who lived in the area for thousands of years before any contact was made with Europeans.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017 |title=A Condensed History |url=https://www.ci.brea.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/3329/Brea-Condensed-History?bidId= |website=City of Brea}}</ref> The Tongva established extensive routes for travel and trade between Tongva villages as well as with neighboring Indigenous nations. The closest known village site to the city of Brea today is [[Hutuknga]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Koerper |first1=Henry |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/745176510 |title=Catalysts to complexity : late Holocene societies of the California coast |last2=Mason |first2=Roger |last3=Peterson |first3=Mark |date=2002 |publisher=Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA |others=Jon Erlandson, Terry L. Jones, Jeanne E. Arnold, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA |isbn=978-1-938770-67-8 |location=Los Angeles |pages=64–66, 79 |oclc=745176510}}</ref>

=== Spanish era ===
The area was visited on July 29, 1769, by the Spanish [[Portolá expedition]], the first Europeans to see inland parts of [[Alta California]]. The party camped in Brea Canyon, near a large native village and a small pool of clean water.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bolton |first=Herbert E. |pages=142–143 |year=1927 |title=Fray Juan Crespi: Missionary Explorer on the Pacific Coast, 1769-1774 |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000288788 |publisher=HathiTrust Digital Library}}</ref>

[[Image:Brea-oilfields1900s.jpg|left|thumb|[[Oil fields]] of the Brea area, early 1900s]]

The village of [[Olinda, Brea, California|Olinda]] was founded in present-day Carbon Canyon at the beginning of the 19th century. Many entrepreneurs came to the area searching for "black gold" (petroleum).

=== Mexican era ===
The majority of the current city boarders of Brea were within the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Spanish and Mexican Ranchos of Orange County |url=http://egov.ocgov.com/vgnfiles/ocgov/Clerk-Recorder/Docs/Archives/Spanish_and_Mexican_Ranchos.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726003947/http://egov.ocgov.com/vgnfiles/ocgov/Clerk-Recorder/Docs/Archives/Spanish_and_Mexican_Ranchos.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-26 |access-date=May 14, 2025 |website=Wayback Machine}} [http://egov.ocgov.com/vgnfiles/ocgov/Clerk-Recorder/Docs/Archives/Spanish_and_Mexican_Ranchos.pdf Alt URL]</ref> The cessation of territory to the United States in 1848 ushered in a new era of decline for the ranchos as rigorous title-proving processes enacted in 1851 and drought in 1860 caused most owners to sell their land. <ref>{{Cite journal |last=Guinn |first=J. M. |date=1915 |title=The Passing of the Rancho |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41168911?searchText=california+ranchos&searchUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=california+ranchos&so=rel&ab_segments=0/basic_search_gsv2/control&refreqid=fastly-default:d296de09a4b5e8bb8eb0b6ccec0d2078&seq=1 |journal=Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California |volume=10 |issue=1/2 |pages=46–53 |doi=10.2307/41168911 |issn=2162-9145}}</ref>

=== American era ===
The 1880s saw the development of agriculture in northern Orange County the form of [[Valencia orange|Valencia Oranges]] after it was found that the crop grew better in the cool foothills<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Lewinnek |first=Elaine |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2j6xf5f?turn_away=true&searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default:4a39fd6fe4763afc8976cda39dd6d7f0&initiator=recommender&seq=16 |title=A People's Guide to Orange County |last2=Arellano |first2=Gustavo |last3=Vo Dang |first3=Thuy |date=2022 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-29995-5 |edition=1 |volume=4}}</ref>. Additionally, the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad as well as the discovery of oil in the area created an environment that kept winter frost from damaging the plant<ref>{{Cite book |last=Armor |first=Samuel |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoforangec00armo/page/n14/mode/1up?q=brea |title=History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present |last2=Pleasants |first2=J. E. |date=1921 |publisher=Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. |others=Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center}}</ref>. Nearby oil fields provided supply for a process called "smudging", subsequently causing a grimy fog to settle over the area which reportedly caused health issues for the workers<ref name=":2" />. 

In 1894, the owner of the land, [[Abel Stearns]], sold {{convert|1200|acre|km2}} west of Olinda to the newly created [[Unocal Corporation|Union Oil Company of California]], and by 1898 many nearby hills began sporting wooden oil drilling towers on the newly discovered [[Brea-Olinda Oil Field]]. In 1908 the village of Randolph, named for railway engineer [[Epes Randolph]], was founded just south of Brea Canyon for oil workers and their families. Baseball legend [[Walter Johnson]] grew up in Olinda at the start of the 20th century, working in the surrounding [[oil fields]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Dufresne |first=Chris |title=The year the Big Train stopped in Brea, and brought the Babe |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 2, 2008 |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-sp-breababe2-2008jun02,0,3088387.story?page=2 |access-date=June 2, 2008}}</ref>
[[File:Brea City Hall, 1940s (51133288327) (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|The [[Spanish Colonial Revival]]-style former Brea City Hall in the 1940s.]] 
Olinda and Randolph grew and merged as the economy boomed. On January 19, 1911, the town's map was filed under the new name of Brea, from the Spanish language word for [[Bitumen|natural asphalt, also called bitumen, pitch, or tar]]. With a population of 752, Brea was [[municipal corporation|incorporated]] on February 23, 1917, as the eighth official city of [[Orange County, California|Orange County]].

As oil production declined, some agricultural development took place, especially lemon and orange groves. In the 1920s, the Brea [[Chamber of Commerce]] promoted the city with the slogan “Oil, Oranges, and Opportunity.”<ref>{{cite web|title=Brea Chamber History|publisher=Brea Chamber of Commerce|url=http://www.breachamber.com/pages/BreaChamberHistory|access-date=September 26, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914031201/http://www.breachamber.com/pages/BreaChamberHistory|archive-date=September 14, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1950, Brea had a population of 3,208, 641 more than ten years earlier. The citrus groves gave way gradually to industrial parks and residential development. In 1956, [[Carl N. Karcher]] opened the first two [[Carl's Jr.]] restaurants in [[Anaheim, California|Anaheim]] and Brea. The opening of the [[Orange Freeway]] (57) and the [[Brea Mall]] in the 1970s spurred further residential growth, including large planned developments east of the 57 Freeway in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

In the late 1990s, a {{convert|50|acre|m2|adj=on}} swath of downtown Brea centered on Brea Boulevard and Birch Street was redeveloped into a shopping and entertainment area with movie theaters, sidewalk cafes, a live comedy club from [[The Improv]] chain, numerous shops and restaurants, and a weekly farmer's market. It is locally known and signed as Downtown Brea. The downtown area opened in 2000.