Reader Report: Max von Strobel had the right idea for creating O.C.

The official date of Orange County’s incorporation is Aug. 1, 1889. If you dig deeper, you’ll discover it could have happened nearly 20 years earlier.

Sometime between 1870 and 1889, one enterprising fellow by the name of Max von Strobel, Anaheim’s first mayor, tried to convince the California Legislature to establish the county as a stand-alone entity.

Thinking he had enough supporters in Sacramento, von Strobel hosted a lavish party the night before the vote. That was his first mistake. The second was getting so drunk at his own party that he couldn’t wake up the next morning in time for the vote. As a result, his initial efforts failed.

As it was originally intended, the proposed county line was drawn at the San Gabriel River, but the line was moved south to Coyote Creek to help gain support in Sacramento. This change angered Anaheim and some of the other northern communities that had hoped to be near the center of the new county. They voted against the bill. But the rest of the area voted overwhelmingly for the separation between Los Angeles and Orange County. Santa Ana was selected as the county seat, and Orange County was born.

I’m not sure even von Strobel himself could have predicted the growth of Orange County in its first 100 years, but grow it did.

Here’s a brief recap of O.C.’s early years, according the the Orange County Historical Society:

• Between 1904 and 1910, the Pacific Electric Railway built three branches to serve Orange County with its “big red cars.” This spurred development from Seal Beach to Corona del Mar. The Santa Ana line prompted the founding of Cypress and Stanton. And the La Habra line ran all the way to the new community of Yorba Linda.

• In the 1910s and ‘20s, new highways led the way to new communities. In 1915, California’s first state highway was completed across Orange County, running from La Habra to San Juan Capistrano. Several small communities later developed along Beach and Manchester boulevards. The completion of the Coast Highway in 1926 brought new growth to Laguna Beach and Dana Point.

• Freeway construction began in the 1950s with the opening of the Santa Ana Freeway, and continued almost unabated into the 1970s.

• During World War II, a number of important military bases were established in Orange County, including the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Los Alamitos Naval Weapons Station and the Santa Ana Army Air Base. At the end of the war, many veterans decided to settle in Southern California. The region began to grow at an unprecedented rate.

• By the mid-1950s, Orange County’s farms were being replaced by tract housing. Between 1953 and 1962, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, La Palma, Garden Grove, Cypress, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos, San Juan Capistrano and Villa Park all voted to incorporate. In 1963, the county population topped 1 million.

• Tourism, manufacturing and the service industry began to dominate the local economy. The opening of Disneyland in 1955 made O.C. an international tourist destination. In the late 1950s, aerospace firms and light industry began expanding here, and the increasing population meant more and more jobs at hospitals, restaurants and stores.

• South County began to grow in the 1960s, with master-planned communities such as Irvine, Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel. Today, the county is home to more than 3 million residents, or roughly 1% of the nation’s population.

So approximately 100 years after the county was incorporated, O.C. was an economic and political powerhouse. That was made clear in 1980, when Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign for the presidency at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley. Not surprisingly, he did it again in 1984.

Interestingly, 1979 and ’80 also proved to be the right time to honor Orange County’s (almost) favorite son, Max von Strobel. Seeking to create a nonpartisan group among the county’s growing young professionals, Mike Stockstill, Tom Fuentes, Eileen Padberg, Bob Nelson, David Stein, John Hanna, Dan Young, Phil Bettencourt and yours truly helped found the Von Strobel Breakfast Society. Meeting monthly at the old Saddleback Inn in Santa Ana, the group quickly added the likes of Linda Moulton Patterson, John Erskine, Susan Trager, Stan Oftelie and many other political and business young turks.

Guest speakers were invited to address the group. Among those who attended were political heavyweights of the day Ross Johnson, Dan Lungren, Bruce Nestande and Bill Honig, plus the Rev. Robert Schuller, entrepreneur Bruce Vorhauer and countless others.

As Stockstill, who to this day still is referred to as Baron, recently reported, “Thanks to Max von Strobel, we were networking before anyone knew what the word meant.”

While the breakfast group no longer meets today, members have warm feelings about breaking bread with political opposites. One of the most valuable lessons they learned was patience. Being young at the time, most were anxious to change O.C.’s political or business climate as quickly as possible.

While that didn’t happen, they did gain insight into how government worked and how businesses reacted to changing times. In short, many went on to become civic and executive leaders in their own right, something I am sure the enterprising Max von Strobel would have liked.

DENNY FREIDENRICH first moved to O.C. in 1970. He is credited with having helped create two major young professional fundraising groups in the county, namely the Contemporary Club at the Newport Harbor Art Museum and Center 500 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. He lives in Laguna Beach.