Western Carbon Canyon and Brea Area Map, 1964

Following the recent post that highlighted a United States Geological Map from 1967 showing the eastern portion of the Carbon Canyon Road corridor and the future City of Chino Hills, this entry takes us to the west and the portion of the newly numbered state highway (142) in a 1964 edition of the Yorba Linda Quadrangle.

The map basically covers, from west to east, eastern Fullerton, western Placentia and eastern Brea to Yorba Linda and much of the Chino Hills range and, from north to south, a section of City of Industry, southern Diamond Bar and Tres Hermanos ranch to downtown Placentia and southern Yorba Linda.

Being over half a century ago, there is not much development in Diamond Bar, which was then about a half dozen years old.  Yorba Linda only went as far east as about Fairmont Boulevard and Yorba Linda Boulevard.  The portion of Brea shown, essentially from Placentia Avenue east had no residences at all--everything in this section consisted of oil fields.  Much of Placentia was either oil fields, orange groves, or housing tracts that were plotted out, but not yet built.

This 1964 United States Geological Survey map of the Yorba Linda Quadrangle includes the Carbon Canyon area from the S-curve in what is now Chino Hills west to Olinda and Brea (and a lot more.)  Click on any image to see them enlarged in a separate window.

In the Carbon Canyon area, the dam was about six years old and the regional park was a decade or so from opening.  Olinda Village, which was developed from 1964, is not shown on the map.  La Vida Mineral Springs was still very much in operation.

Sleepy Hollow and the Mountain View Park tract just over the San Bernardino County line were well established, but Western Hills Country Club was still in development and the Western Hills Oaks housing tract was a couple years off yet.

In fact, the Shelly Stoody Ranch, where the golf course would soon be developed is still shown with its airplane hangar about where the clubhouse is today and Stoody's residence, which still stands, up on the hill overlooking the hangar site.  Stoody and passengers were killed when his airplane crashed into a hillside on his ranch a few years before the publication of the map.

This detail shows the area from La Vida Mineral Springs to the S-curve and up to  portions of Tonner Canyon.

As far as Carbon Canyon Road is concerned, it extended from Valencia Avenue north past the junction of Rose Drive and what was then Brea-Olinda Boulevard (now Birch Street) and then went at an angle to the northeast and curved toward the east.  The remnant of this old roadway is still visible to the east of the current Valencia Avenue path before Lambert Road, which not exist at the time.

Once Carbon Canyon Road properly began after this curve, its pathway is almost completely the same as today, except for one little jog on the San Bernardino County portion where it took a sharp curve before ascending the summit where the Carriage Hills tract is now.  That jog also still exists as Ginseng Road, just south of today's road path.

At the S-curve, the current roadway is shown, but so, too, is the Old Carbon Canyon Road, which veered sharply to the right and then ascended down and curved left. This old roadway is also in existence and goes just between the modern road and the Carriage Hills tract before abruptly ending before Old Carbon Canyon Road, which then intersected with today's highway.

A closer detail of the map covers the area from La Vida to Sleepy Hollow and the coming together of the three counties of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino.

Also of interest given recent activity is the area encompassing the Tres Hermanos Ranch in Tonner Canyon north of Carbon Canyon.  The Firestone Boy Scout Reservation is shown at the lower portion of the ranch and the Arnold Reservoir is shown towards the upper end.

In 1964, the heirs of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, one of the tres hermanos (three brothers, who actually weren't siblings, but friends) including William Rowland and William B. Scott who bought the ranch in the 1910s, were still owners of Tres Hermanos.  They were leasing the property, however, to Hal Arnold, who grazed cattle on the ranch.

In 1978, the Chandlers sold Tres Hermanos to the City of Industry, which allowed Arnold to continue the lease until it went to others.  Cattle are, for now, still roaming the ranch pending its future transformation, whatever that entails.

Brea canyon at the left and upper left and Tonner Canyon, including the Firestone Boy Scout Reservation, running from lower left to upper right are notable in this detail.

There are other notable elements, including the old Brea Canyon Road being the only access between Brea and Diamond Bar, several years before the construction of the 57 Freeway.  The old Pacific Electric Railway streetcar line parallels Imperial Highway.

The former Anaheim Union Water Company canal, an irrigation channel that ran from the company's reservoir where Tri-City Park is today off Kraemer Avenue (then Carolina Avenue), ran southeast--this pathway is largely a multiuse trail within the City of Yorba Linda running from about the intersection of Rose Drive and Bastanchury Road (which didn't exist westward past that point and east it was Citrus Avenue) down into the outskirts of downtown and beyond.

In the early 1970s, Frances Klug, who was dismayed by the direction taken by the Roman Catholic Church after the Vatican II transformation, bought some ranch land adjacent to Sleepy Hollow and established St. Joseph's Hill of Hope, but, of course, the only indication of what would be there on this map is an access road to what an earlier ranch.

The upper portion of Tonner Canyon includes the area where Tres Hermanos Ranch is located in and around Arnold Reservoir, which is now just south of Grand Avenue (that roadway did not appear until years later.)  The future of this large ranch of about 2,500 acres is uncertain.

Then there are vast stretches of the Chino Hills that were still largely used as ranch land, including the Rolling M Ranch, which was owned by Christopher Hendra and his Mollin Investment Company until the 1720-acre property was sold to the state for the development of Chino Hills State Park.  There was also the McDermont Ranch, which was discussed in the recent post concerning the 1967 map.

This map and its sister 1967 edition for land to the east allow us to see what the Carbon Canyon area and surrounding regions were like in the transitional period between oil production, citrus growing and cattle raising and spreading suburban development that ramped up increasingly in the decades following the publication of these valuable documents.