Orange County's Original Courthouse

Orange County's Original Courthouse is a California Historical Landmark in Santa Ana, Orange County.

211 West Sixth Street, Santa Ana · location approximate

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Built in 1900 of Arizona red sandstone, this is the oldest existing county courthouse in Southern California. Significant and far-reaching court decisions were handed down here, including the "Whipstock" case, which dealt with slant oil drilling, interpretation of farm labor law, and the Overell trial resulting in law regulating explosives.

1971 register text, presented as a historical document. It uses the period's terms for Native people; the state's landmark listings still carry most of this wording, and the California Office of Historic Preservation maintains the program's current texts.

Many of these plaques have since been recast or their texts revised. The California Historical Landmarks program and its current texts are maintained by the California Office of Historic Preservation. California Office of Historic Preservation ↗

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection

Historical maps covering this location

1880 · Los Angeles & San Bernardino topography. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1902 · Corona, California (USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection)
1912 · Lines of the Pacific Electric Railway in Southern California. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1926 · California Nevada, City of Santa Ana (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1927 · Pacific Electric Railway In Southern California (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

California Nevada, City of Santa Ana, 1926, covering the location of Orange County's Original Courthouse, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — California Nevada, City of Santa Ana, 1926, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours and the location is approximate.

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For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

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Marker data: State of California, Department of Parks and Recreation, California Historical Landmarks (1971)

More markers nearby

On the National Register nearby

Orange County Courthouse100 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.