Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #63: Olinda School, ca. 1910s

Can't let the year end without at least one more post sharing a historical object connected to Carbon Canyon history, so here's a great real photo postcard, probably from the 1910s, of Olinda School, which was built, as clearly displayed on the structure, in 1909 and was the second iteration of the institution.  The location is at the east end of Olinda Regional Park, south of Carbon Canyon Road and next to Carbon Creek, not far from where the state historic landmark plaque is near the old park entrance.

The opening was a dozen years after Edward Doheny, working on a lease with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was converting its motive power to oil, brought in Orange County's first oil well a short distance away where the Olinda Oil Museum is now situated in the Olinda Ranch subdivision.  The name Olinda came from William H. Bailey's ownership starting the 1880s and came from his missionary family's ranch on the slopes of Mount Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Mau'i.  In turn, the name "Olinda" has Brazilian origins.

Los Angeles Times, 9 April 1899

The Olinda School District was established in the spring of 1899 as the Los Angeles Times reported in its 9 April edition that "the country in the northeastern portion of the county has become so thickly settled the past year" that a new school district was required and "will be known as the Olinda school district."

There was reference in the 19 July 1901 issue of the Los Angeles Times to a $2,000 school house being built in Olinda.  On 4 October, the paper noted that the structure, paid for with bonds approved by residents within the district, was to be on the Charles Victor Hall lease, but the Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company refused to sell or lease an acre centrally located within the community.  The firm of Graham and Loftus and the Olinda Oil Company offered to donate the land and the latter's site was selected so that "the building will be erected near the Hall oil wells at once."  On 2 March 1902, the paper reported that the building was recently finished.

Times, 2 March 1902.

As for the second schoolhouse, the 2 September 1908 edition of the Santa Ana Register reported that $5,000 in bonds were sold to the Los Angeles Trust Company.  In May 1909, the Times noted that it was nearly unanimous to vote for building a new school house, because, whereas a few years before, only one teacher was needed, the upcoming 1909-1910 year required four instructors. the Times of 20 June 1909 reported that the four-room frame structure was designed by A.C. Smith of Los Angeles, who seems to have specialized in school architecture.

The photo shows the main building with its central bell tower surmounted by an American flag and the name and founding date on different sections of the tower.  About ten children and an adult stand or sit on the entrance steps or near it. To the left, or east, is a smaller building with a projecting covered entrance and what may be a completion date of 1910 on the front.  About a half-dozen young trees are planted in front of both structures.  The view is looking southeast with a tall hill looming behind the campus.

Times, 20 June 1909.

The substantial output of crude from Olinda, soon followed by that of Brea Canyon to the west, and both considered part of what was termed the Fullerton Oil Field, meant that there was a growing population of oil workers and their families residing on the various leases, almost always in company-owned rental units.  So, in the 1900 census, 123 persons were counted at Olinda, but, a decade later, the population shot up to well over 1,400—ample reason for the much larger and more impressive school to have been completed the year prior to the 1910 count!

Not only that, but, because school districts were allotted funds based on the assessed value of property within the district, those in oil regions were particularly loaded with dollars and this was especially noteworthy because, per student, the amounts were astronomical compare to bigger nearby towns and cities, like Fullerton or Anaheim.  There is no surprise, then, that the Olinda School was much more handsome and well-equipped than those in adjacent communities.

In subsequent years, with mobility increasing because of the car and with oil workers and their families living away from the field, the student population at Olinda School declined, even if the district's funding continued to be ample because of those property values.  In 1920, there were 950 residents (though a $15,000 auditorium, doubling as a community center, was added to the structure in 1924); a decade later the number plummeted to less than half, at 460; in 1940, another drop of about 50% took place, so that were just above 230 people living at Olinda.  In 2022, the 1950 census will be publicly avilable (the info is released 72 years after the enumeration) and we'll see how much lower the total was.

In its issue of 11 June 1959, the Times ran a feature noting that Olinda School was readying to close at the end of the week as it only had 29 students between the first and eighth grades, and, notably, the article referred to the fact that the structure was two rooms.  The completion of Carbon Canyon Dam that year was also a prime factor in the school's closure.  A photo appears to show the smaller of the two buildings in the featured image here, so the larger must've been torn down as the student body diminished.  The school then operated in space rented from the El Rodeo Riding Club, then located south off Imperial Highway but now across Carbon Canyon Road from the park and original school site.

Times, 11 June 1959.

The remaining building was saved and moved to Brea for community purposes, such as a senior center, until it was demolished.  In 1964, a new Olinda School opened in the recently developed Olinda Village tract east of the old school site, and operated there until 2011 when it was closed and a new school (version 4.0) completed on Birch Street next to the city's just-opened sports park.

Best wishes for the new year and we'll try to offer a few more posts in 2022!

The Gaines and Brown Families of Carbon Canyon, Part 10: Olinda Village Middle School Students, ca. 1913

This coming Monday the 27th marks the first day of school in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District, so this is a good time to highlight another great photograph, courtesy of descendant Joyce Harrington and her collection from the Gaines and Brown families of Carbon Canyon, of students from the original Olinda School.

Dated to 1912 or 1913, the image shows 7th and 8th graders of the school, which served the residents of the Olinda community, largely based around the oil producing areas surrounding the campus.  The view shows 35 students and their teacher Mr. Turley standing (and, in a few cases, seated) at the steps to the open front doors of the school building.

A list of those shown in the photo was also provided and is shown here, including the names of twins Ora and Nora Brown and Aileen Gaines from the two families from which Joyce is descended.  It is interesting to peruse the first names of the students to see how different they are from today's names.  So, we are not likely now to see such examples as Earl, Hattie, Oscar, Herman, Wilfred, Willard, Frances, Myrtle, Bessie, Olive, Edna, Ernest, or Walter!

Reflective of the demographics of the community, only two of the students are Latino with the rest being White.  In 1910, there were just under 1,500 residents of Olinda and 88% were White with 8% being Latino. 

Another demographic point of note is that there were only 14 girls in the class, constituting 40% of the total.  This is a bit lower that the representation of females in the Olinda population at large, which was 44% in the census.  Given that Olinda was an "oil town," this is not that surprising broadly, because many single men worked in the fields, but that doesn't account for the disparity in the student population at the school, so that might just be an anomaly.

It is also interesting to look at how the students were dressed, considering this was probably a very rare "formal" occasion for them.  Note that quite a few of the boys sport ties (one has a natty bow tie) and some have the short pants common for the time.  Yet, a number wear the overalls expected in a working-class and rural community, though some spruced up their look by adding some neckwear.  The young gent at the far right of the top row even thought it good to accessorize his look with his baseball glove on his left hand!

The boys do have some variation in color, but check out the absolute uniformity of the girls, with one notable exception, when it comes to clothing color.  All wear radiant and pure white, while the girl third from the right in the middle row strikes a sartorial note of difference with a long-sleeve dress of a color that is not white.  Hairstyles, though, do vary and a couple of the young ladies did add hair bands to make their appearance distinctive and one girl in the front row set her self apart with her white hose and shoes.

School portraits, from any place in any era, are always interesting to look at in terms of the elements discussed above, but also as comparisons and contrasts to what we see today.

The Gaines and Brown Families of Carbon Canyon, Part 5: Olinda School, 1910s

Because it was located in a district that had extraordinary tax revenues from a booming oil field, Olinda School may have been the best-funded elementary through junior high school in the region.

For the Gaines and Brown families, whose descendant Joyce Harrington has shared many of the family photos, this meant a quality education outside of the established cities in northern Orange County like Fullerton and Anaheim.

When it came to going to high school, Olinda students would make the long bus ride to Fullerton Union High School, which gave a good education, just not with the tax revenues of Olinda!

It seemed particularly appropriate at this point, as our schools have completed their year and students are headed for their summer vacations, including some who have graduated, to post a couple of the images provided by Joyce of the Olinda School.

The facility was located near the banks of Carbon [Canyon] Creek after it flowed out of Carbon Canyon, past the confluence with Soquel Canyon and its creek and headed into what is now Carbon Canyon Regional Park.

The Olinda School, located in what is now the eastern end of Carbon Canyon Regional Park, from a circa 1910s photograph provided courtesy of Joyce Harrington.

Those familiar with the old park entrance, near which is a state historic landmark plaque for the Olinda community, will recognize in one of the photos the steep hill behind the school, which is above the park's eastern edge and where housing tracts in Yorba Linda overlook the park just to the west of today's Diemer water treatment plant operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

At the left of the image, behind a small tree is the covered projecting entrance of the school, situated under a bell tower with arched openings.  Again, this is pretty fancy school for such a rural area.

The other photo shows the graduating 8th grade class of 1917, exactly a century ago, posed on the front steps of the Olinda School.  As with almost all school photos, it is fun to see the varied dress and expressions of the students, some with broad smiles and others are serious, while a few students look away from the camera.  At the bottom left is the mark of Hartsook, a major photography studio with offices in Los Angeles and Oakland.

The 8th grade graduating class of 1917 at the Olinda School.  Courtesy of Joyce Harrington.

The Olinda School operated well after the post-World War II period, even as the residential population of the oil fields diminished significantly from the late 1920s onward, with the rise of the automobile allowing oil field workers to live further from their job site.  When the Carbon Canyon Dam project was completed in the late 1950s, the school was razed.

The name of Olinda School, however, was revived when the Olinda Village subdivision was built further east where the Gaines' Flying Cow Ranch was located.  Olinda Elementary School opened in the mid-1960s and operated until recent years, when new housing at Olinda Ranch and projecting subdivisions in the shuttered oil fields north of Lambert and west of Valencia prompted the move of the school to its current location on Birch Street.

Thanks to photos like the ones provided by Joyce, we can document the existence and usage of the original Olinda School.