Garage Door Company in West Anaheim, CA

The area went by a number of names such as “Lorara”, “Manchester”, “Lincoln Park”, “Magnolia Tree” and “WestGate” as the western gate to Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County boundary is in nearby Buena Park. The former US Route 101 crossed there, was named Manchester Avenue. The area was settled in the 1860s to 1890s by Midwestern and East Coast Americans, although Germans and the Dutch established farms (many were diary operations and horse ranches), groves and orchards with some grape vineyards but oranges fared better. West Anaheim was named in 1877 when the Southern Pacific railroad established a station west of Anaheim because the city refused to pay subsidies. A post office was established at West Anaheim from 1900 to 1907 by the name of Loara.

Prior to 1960, newly annexed West Anaheim mostly consisted of orange groves before Disneyland opened in 1955. The Walt Disney theme park became a success and brought a lot of business to Anaheim, and with it, a need for residential development. From 1955 when the theme park opened to 1961, Anaheim’s population increased from about 14,000 people to 104,184 people, and a lot of that population growth took place in West Anaheim. Between 1955 and 1970, orange groves were cleared away to make way for new streets and new houses moving westward.

The neighborhood went through great deal of suburbanization into one of California’s largest cities by population. Urban blight followed in the 1980s and 1990s, and immigrants from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East settled in large numbers. The area of West Anaheim is now mostly lower-middle class and working class. There are sections and business strips representing Arabs, Koreans and other Asians, Hispanics/Latinos, African-Americans and white Anglos. One of the blocks is called Little Gaza named for Palestinians residents since the early 2000s.