Fullerton, California
Fullerton (/ˈfʊlərtən/ FUUL-ər-tən) is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617.[6]
Fullerton was founded in 1887. It secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Historically it was a center of agriculture, notably groves of Valencia oranges and other citrus crops; petroleum extraction; transportation; and manufacturing. It is home to numerous higher educational institutions, particularly California State University, Fullerton and Fullerton College. From the mid-1940s through the late 1990s, Fullerton was home to a large industrial base made up of aerospace contractors, canneries, paper products manufacturers, and is considered to be the birthplace of the electric guitar, due in large part to Leo Fender. The headquarters of Vons, which is owned by Albertsons, is located in Fullerton near the Fullerton–Anaheim line.
History[edit]
Indigenous[edit]
Evidence of prehistoric animal habitation, such as saber-toothed cats and mammoths, is present in Ralph B. Clark Regional Park in the northwest of the city.[7]
The area of the city was a part of the homelands of the Tongva for thousands of years.[8] There was a large village in the area along the Santa Ana River that has since been identified as the Hutuknga.[9][10] The village was one of the largest throughout all of Tovaangar, or the Tongva world. It was connected by marriage ties to other villages in the area, including Genga.[11] Acorns and seeds from grasses and sages were regularly cultivated. Trade connections were established with villages on the coast and those further inland.[11]
Media[edit]
From 1921 to 1984, Fullerton had the largest independent daily newspaper in Orange County, The Fullerton Daily News Tribune. The Fullerton Daily News Tribune circulated 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, in all of Fullerton, Brea, Placentia, La Habra, Buena Park, Yorba Linda, and a northern section of Anaheim. At one point in the 1970s The Fullerton News Tribune reached a peak circulation of 30,000 daily subscribers. Formerly owned, for 30 years, by former Scripps newspaper executive Edgar F. Elfstrom, The Fullerton News Tribune was bought by Scripps Howard Newspapers in 1975. In 1984 the Orange County Register bought the Fullerton News Tribune and converted the daily newspaper to a once-weekly free distribution newspaper.
Fullerton is also one of the few Southern California municipalities to be served by an independent newspaper, the Fullerton Observer. The Fullerton Observer Community Newspaper is an all-volunteer 40-year-old paper that is printed twice a month. It was founded in the late 1970s by Ralph Kennedy, a fair housing and civil rights activist who advocated saving Coyote Hills as an open space. In 2010, the city of Fullerton and the Orange County Register came out in court against the then 32-year-old Fullerton Observer in its request to adjudicate the paper. In response to the city of Fullerton and the Orange County Register's high-powered lawyers coming out against the newspaper, the not-for-profit Fullerton Observer dropped its court case to be adjudicated a newspaper.
