Saturday, February 02, 2008

Anaheim Union Water Co, Black history, etc.

Today's circa 1960s photo shows the "burning settler's cabin" at Disneyland. This scene appeared for decades along the banks of the Rivers of America, but was later changed when political correctness came into vogue. The arrows were removed, the (gas fed) flames were turned off, and the (arguably un-Disney-like) corpse disappeared. Today, we're more enlightened and we all know that pioneer life was easy, that Indi... er... Native Americans were always friendly, and that nobody ever dies.
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The Orange County Historical Society will hold their next meeting Feb. 7, 7:30pm, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., in Orange. Speaker Carl Nelson (former Director of Public Works for the County of Orange) has prepared a PowerPoint presentation on the history of the Anaheim Union Water Co.
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Starting today through Feb. 28, a portion of the proceeds of your purchases at Barnes & Noble can be donated to the Santa Ana Black Historical Society (SABHS). Just bring a special voucher from their website in when you make your purchase.
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In honor of Black History Month, the SABHS will also present an exhibit, "African American Women Trailblazers in Orange County, 1875 to Present," at the Old Orange County Courthouse. The exhibit will be on display throughout February.
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A reader asked if there's anything new to report about the "sign situation" at the Orange Lock & Key building (ca 1914). In a word, no. However, in cleaning out the place before the move, several large and mysterious boxes were discovered in the rafters. Katie Schroeder and Phil Brigandi were on it in a flash and discovered that the large boxes were full of old cigar boxes, which were, in turn, full of documents. Unfortunately, the papers weren't as exciting as we'd hoped. They were mainly receipts from various local businesses in the 1950s. They're definitely worth keeping, (if only for the letterhead) but not exactly buried treasure. Still, it's important to check these things out. "Mysterious boxes in attics" have been the source of some of my best finds.

2 comments:

walterworld said...

I understand that they'll be draining the Rivers of America in the next year or so for some construction work...I'm hoping that they decide to "re-light" the cabin while they're in there.

Hopefully Lasseter will make it one of his pet-projects or something...

Anonymous said...

All the gas pipes for it still seem to be there, it was just hastily disconnected. Strangely, it smells like natural gas around the broken pipe area so it's seeming like it would be a fast fix, well maybe not that fast but you get the idea ;)