Tustin History

Tustin History goes back to the members of the Tongva and Juaneño/Luiseño nations long inhabited this area. After the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolà, a Spanish expedition led by Father Junipero Serra named the area Vallejo de Santa Ana (Valley of Saint Anne). On November 1, 1776, Mission San Juan Capistrano became the area's first permanent European settlement in Alta California, New Spain.

In 1801, the Spanish Empire granted 62,500 acres (253 km²) to Jose Antonio Yorba, which he named Rancho San Antonio. Yorba's great rancho included the lands where the cities of Olive, Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach stand today. Smaller ranchos evolved from this large rancho including the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana.

After the Mexican-American war, Alta California became part of the United States and American settlers arrived in this area. Columbus Tustin, a carriage maker from Northern California, founded the city in the 1870s on 1,300 acres (5 km²) of land from the former Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. The city was incorporated in 1927 with a population of about 900. During World War II, a Navy anti-submarine airship base (later to become a Marine Corps helicopter station) was established in unincorporated land south of the city; the two blimp hangars are among the largest wooden structures ever built and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and ASCE List of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. Suburban growth after the war resulted in rapid increase in population, annexation of nearby unincorporated land including the base, and development of orchards and farmland into housing tracts and shopping malls.  View original Wikipedia article.