Today's photos come from Roberta Reed's new book, Santa Ana, 1940-2007, which I featured in my post of July 25th. Both came from the collection of Rob Richardson. The first image (top) shows the Fashion Square mall, which was built in 1958. It was replaced, on the same location, by MainPlace mall in the 1980s. Fashion Square was anchored by Bullocks and Desmond's department stores. .
The second photo shows the old First American Title headquarters at 241 N. Main St, in 1966. They still use this building, but have a new main office, just off the 55 Freeway in South Santa Ana. In addition to being an old-line Orange County business, First American also has possibly the best collections of local historical photos of the region.
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Huell Howser was in Anaheim last week, and historian Cynthia Ward got to be his tour guide. Among their stops was the enormous Moreton Bay fig tree on West St., which was mentioned on this blog a couple days ago. Huell asked if the tree was on a historic register of some kind. Although the anwer was "no," it was an interesting idea, and the folks in the Anaheim Colony Historic District are starting to discuss what might be done to make that happen. For a glimpse into the Huell-y happenings, see Cynthia's blog, Anaheim Life.