BREA CA
Date: 09/27/2015
Brea is a city in Orange County, California. The population, as of the 2010 Census was 39,282.
The city began as a center of crude oil production, was later propelled by citrus production, and is now an important retail center because of the large Brea Mall and the recently redeveloped Brea Downtown. Brea is also known for its extensive public art program which began in 1975 and continues today with over 140 artworks in the collection placed and located throughout the city. Brea's public art program has been used as a model and inspiration for many Public Art programs nationwide.
Sunset magazine named Brea one of the five best suburbs to live in the Western United States in early 2006.
History
The area was visited on July 29, 1769 by the Spanish Portol%uFFFD expedition - first Europeans to see inland parts of Alta California. The party camped in Brea Canyon, near a large native village and a small pool of clean water. A historical marker dedicated to his visit stands in Brea Canyon just north of town.
The village of Olinda was founded in present-day Carbon Canyon at the beginning of the 19th century and many entrepreneurs came to the area searching for "black gold" (petroleum). In 1894, the owner of the land, Abel Stearns, sold 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) to the west of Olinda to the newly created Union Oil Company of California, and by 1898 many nearby hills began sporting wooden oil-drilling towers on the newly discovered Brea-Olinda Oil Field. In 1908 the village of Randolph, named for railway engineer Epes Randolph, was founded just south of Brea Canyon for the oil workers and their families. Baseball legend Walter Johnson grew up in Olinda at the start of the 20th century where he worked in the surrounding oil fields as a youth.
The villages of Olinda and Randolph grew and merged as the economy boomed, and on January 19, 1911, the town's map was filed under the new name of Brea, from the Spanish language word for natural asphalt (also called bitumen, pitch or tar). With a population of 752, Brea was incorporated on February 23, 1917, as the eighth official city of Orange County.
As oil production declined, some agricultural development took place, especially lemon and orange groves. In 1950 Brea had a population of 3,208. The citrus groves gave way gradually to industrial parks and residential development. In 1956, Carl N. Karcher opened the first two Carl's Jr. restaurants in Anaheim, California and Brea, California. The opening of the Orange Freeway (57) and the Brea Mall in the 1970s spurred further residential growth, including large planned developments east of the 57 Freeway in the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s. In the late 1990s, a 50-acre (200,000 m2) swath of downtown Brea centered on Brea Boulevard and Birch Street was heavily redeveloped into a shopping and entertainment area with movie theaters, sidewalk cafes, a live comedy club from The Improv chain, numerous shops and restaurants, and a weekly farmer's market. It is locally known and signed as Downtown Brea.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.1 square miles (31 km2). 12.1 square miles (31 km2) of it is land and 0.26% is water.
It is bordered by unincorporated Orange County and Los Angeles County to the north and east, La Habra to the west, Fullerton to the southwest, Placentia to the south, and Yorba Linda to the southeast.
Climate
According to the K%uFFFDppen Climate Classification system, Brea has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.
| Climate data for Brea, California | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high %uFFFDC (%uFFFDF) | 21 (70) |
24 (75) |
26 (79) |
30 (86) |
34 (94) |
39 (103) |
42 (107) |
41 (106) |
39 (102) |
33 (91) |
26 (79) |
21 (70) |
31.3 (88.5) |
| Average low %uFFFDC (%uFFFDF) | 4 (39) |
6 (43) |
8 (47) |
11 (52) |
15 (59) |
19 (66) |
23 (74) |
24 (75) |
21 (69) |
14 (58) |
7 (45) |
4 (39) |
13 (55.5) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 13 (0.5) |
10 (0.4) |
10 (0.4) |
3 (0.1) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
3 (0.1) |
10 (0.4) |
8 (0.3) |
8 (0.3) |
5 (0.2) |
10 (0.4) |
80 (3.1) |
| Source: Weatherbase | |||||||||||||
Top employers
According to the City's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:
| # | Employer | # of employees |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bank of America | 3,000 |
| 2 | Mercury Insurance Group | 1,800 |
| 3 | Beckman Coulter | 1,000 |
| 4 | Albertsons | 900 |
| 5 | Kirkhill-TA | 650 |
| 6 | Brea Olinda Unified School District | 500 |
| 7 | Harte-Hanks | 500 |
| 8 | VPI Pet Insurance | 463 |
| 9 | The Hartford | 450 |
| 10 | Avery Dennison | 392 |
Education
The city is served by the Brea Olinda Unified School District which operates six elementary schools, one junior high school (Brea Junior High School), one high school (Brea Olinda High School) and one continuation high school. Also serving Brea is the Brea Olinda Friends School (Pre-6), Brea Congregational Pre-School, Brea Foursquare Church (Pre-5), Brea United Methodist Pre-School ("BUMPS"), Carbon Canyon Christian School (K-12), Christ Lutheran School (Pre-8), St. Angela Merici Catholic School (K-8), and Montessori of Brea (K-6). Brea is also home to the Southern California College of Business and Law and the Southern California extension of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
School awards
Local schools have won several awards. Brea Olinda High School and Olinda Elementary School have been named Blue Ribbon Schools. Additionally, Arovista Elementary, Country Hills Elementary, Fanning Elementary, Mariposa Elementary, Olinda Elementary, Brea Junior High and Brea Olinda High schools have been named California Distinguished Schools. Laurel Elementary received a Title I Academic Achievement Award.
