A SPECIAL REPORT: O.C. HISTORY

A QUIZ: Year’s end brings thoughts of the future, and a look at the past (B1). Test your knowledge of Orange County:

Q: American settlement of the area that is now Orange County began in what city? A: San Francisco. A wine dealer there advertised for buyers of plots near the Santa Ana River to grow grapes and make wine. The new settlement was named Annaheim, which is German for “home by the (Santa) Ana (River).” The extra n was dropped.

Q: The county’s first Democrat in the state Legislature was elected in 1892. When was the next one?

A: In 1936, 44 years later. From 1889, when Orange County was formed, to 1956, just three Democrats were elected to the Legislature and just one to Congress.

Q: What party controlled the Anaheim City Council in 1924?

A: The Ku Klux Klan. Four-fifths of the council, most of the police force and the publisher of the major newspaper were Klansmen.

Q: True or false? The man who set the solo flight record across the ocean was from Orange County.

A: True. In 1912, Glenn Martin, above, flew from Newport Beach to Santa Catalina Island, the longest flight over water. Charles Lindbergh’s was longer but 15 years later.

Q: True or false? Santa Ana was the second name the Spaniards gave to the local river. A: False. It was the third. The first was by the original Spanish explorers, who christened it El Rio del Dulcissimmo Nombre de Jesus (River of the Sweetest Name of Jesus). The next day, after four terrifying earthquakes, they tacked de los Temblores (“of the Earthquakes”) to the end. The foot soldiers were more practical. They simply called it Santa Ana after the local mountains.

Q: What was the biggest sports event in county history?

A: Just one event drew a crowd bigger than the county’s population. It was an 1892 horse race between two trotters--Silkwood, a local favorite, and McKinney, from L.A. County--at an oval track just south of Santa Ana. The rivalry and the $1,500 purse attracted 14,000 spectators.