Anaheim, the Mills Act, Huell, and a fig tree

I've received a lot of Anaheim news lately, and just haven't been able to keep up. This week I'll try to catch up. To get things started, today's photo is of Downtown Anaheim in June 1956. Nearly everything in the photo - including the Pickwick Hotel - was bulldozed in the 1980s. Click on the small inset image for a super-zoomed-in view.

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Thanks to lot of hard work by people who care, Anaheim is more enlightened today than it was in the 1980s. Case in point: Last week, 28 homeowners in Anaheim received Mills Act plaques and certificates for their restored/preserved historic homes. That's pretty impressive for a single year.

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Huell Howser’s recent visit to historic Anaheim will air on “California's Gold” on Sept 12 at 10pm and Sept 14 at 7pm. His guide, Cynthia Ward writes,

“We hit the Mother Colony House, the Pressel orchard, Pearson Park, and the North Clementine neighborhood… We did the Farmer's Market,… popped in for a surprise visit to the Muzeo and Local History Room, where staff recovered admirably despite no advance warning. We finished up at Linbrook Bowl and Anaheim High School. ...He was scheduled to shoot half an episode here and ended up giving Anaheim a full hour's program since we had so much cool stuff."

In response to a question Huell asked during the tour, there has also been much discussion of nominating the Australian Banyan Fig tree on West St as a historic landmark. Andy Deneau writes,

"The trees are generally attributed to Tim Carroll who [came from Austraila] and established the first major landscape plant nursery in Southern California. His ranch on west Broadway and Mable St is now the Fairmont School and one of the trees is still standing in the front yard of his fine old home. The tree on West St was planted by the Horstmann/Dwyer family as well as the ones across the street to the west… These trees were planted between about 1900 and 1915. Tim Carroll was also an accomplished amateur inventor. He invented a machine/structure for the automatic unloading of sugar beets from field wagons to rail cars. [Ed - This was called a "beet dump."] The patent model was given to the [Anaheim] Historical Society many years ago. Mr. Carroll's brother followed him from Oz and settled further west at Lincoln and Gilbert. That Carroll ranch is now the Ralph's shopping center."