Brea
California
Brea is a city in Orange
County California. The city began as a center of crude oil
production, was later propelled by citrus production, and is now
an important retail center because of the enormous Brea Mall,
and the recently redeveloped Brea Downtown. The area was visited
in 1769 by Gaspar de Portolà. A historical marker dedicated
to his visit stands in Brea Canyon
just north of town. He noted the local Native Americans as "dirty"
without realizing that they used crude oil bubbling up in the
canyon as topical medicine.
The village of Olinda was founded in present-day Carbon Canyon
at the beginning of the 19th century and many entrepreneurs came
to the area searching for "black gold" (petroleum).
In 1894, the owner of the land, Abel Stearns, sold 1200 acres
to the west of Olinda to the newly-created Union Oil Company,
and by 1898 many nearby hills began sporting wooden oil-drilling
towers. In 1908 the village of Randolph was founded just south
of Brea Canyon for the oil workers
and their families.
|
