Today's photos show Camp Bonita, which was an old cattle camp on the Irvine Ranch. The first image is a 1937 postcard I scanned from Tom Pulley's collection. I took the other two photos recently. Three of the camp's building still stand, along with a cluster of old trees. I was surprised to find so much left. The camp's site is now just off California Ave., south of Adobe Circle Rd., and adjacent to UCI's big new sports building. If you look closely at the older photo, you can see Turtle Rock in the distance. (Which is how I figured out this site was from Irvine.) .
The City of Anaheim and the Anaheim Public Library will sponsor a "Victorian Christmas Open House" at the historic Woelke-Stoffel House (the Victorian "Red Cross House"), at 418 N. West St., Saturday, Dec. 13, noon to 3pm. The Mother Colony House next door will also be open for viewing.
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As an archivist, I find it hard to convince some people that lengthy research among stacks of government documents can lead to extraordinary things. But a YouTube video I saw recently, "Laurel & Hardy On Location," made the point better than I can. It's about a man who used various government and historical records to create a 3-D digital model of Culver City as it appeared in the films of Laurel and Hardy (70 years ago). Granted, this is not Orange County history, but you could do this anywhere, and take people on virtual tours through time.
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And speaking of YouTube, also check out this video about the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society's tours, featuring Guy Ball.
