Before I give myself a little Christmas vacation from blogging, I'm posting an assortment of images from Orange County Christmases past. The image above shows the parlour of the Keech House at 201 E. Washington St. in Santa Ana in about 1910. It remains one of the city's most attractive homes even today. Among his various accomplishments, E. E. Keech was one of Orange County's first prominent attorneys. He also founded the Orange County Law Library, was a president and founding member of the Orange County Bar Association, and trained a young Earle Stanley Gardner (creator of Perry Mason) in the law. I'm sure I'll be writing more about Keech and his interesting family in the coming year..
The next photo shows the Irvine family home (current site of the Katie Wheeler Branch Library) at Christmas 1944. James Irvine's beloved hunting dogs are asleep under the tree.
The third photo, (below,) shows the Church of Reflections (next to the Lake of Reflections) at Knott's Berry Farm at Christmas in 1963. Both the church and the lake were recently removed, although bits of the church have been incorporated into a new version of the building on the other side of Beach Blvd. This removal, along with the removal of the Little Chapel by the Lake, meets the Constitutional requirement of separation of church and theme park.
My final image for today, (below,) shows Santa Claus visiting the Orange County Board of Supervisors at the County Hall of Administration in December 1988. Supervisors Tom Riley and Don Roth are contributing gifts to a toy drive. Later, Roth resigned in a scandal that involved him accepting gifts.
If I don't post again before the 25th, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas! 