A Brief History of Garden Grove, CA

Garden Grove was founded by Alonzo Cook in 1874 and was created into a small rural crossroad that had already obtained a school district and Methodist church within the first organized year of its existence. In 1905 the railroad was introduced and assisted in the growth of the town as it provided connections to crops of oranges, walnuts, chili peppers, and strawberries. In 1933, much of the town's central business district was destroyed in the Long Beach earthquake. The post-World War II boom led to a rapid development and Garden Grove was incorporated as a city in 1956 containing over 44,000 residents.