Orange County Courthouse

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. 20 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1896.

From the record

“The Old Orange County Courthouse, at one point also known as the Santa Ana County Courthouse, is a Romanesque Revival building that was opened in September 1901 and is located in Santa Ana's Historic Downtown District on Civic Center and Broadway streets. The Old Orange County Courthouse is officially recognized as California Historical Landmark No. 837 and is also on the National Register of Historic Places.”
Wikipedia article Old Orange County Courthouse (California), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 136 National Register listings published here for Orange County · listed in 1977 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 211 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana, 92701
When was it listed? August 1977
Category. building
Census division. Anaheim-Santa Ana-Garden Grove
Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 77000321 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1896 to 1983

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 87 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Orange County Courthouse, surveyed 1983

Topographic sheet covering Orange County Courthouse, surveyed 1896

Fires near this property

295 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 295 fires within 5 miles of Orange County Courthouse between 1998 and 2020, burning about 6,237 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 39 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	178
Arson/incendiarism	39
Equipment and vehicle use	23
Smoking	20
Misuse of fire by a minor	19
Debris and open burning	11
Natural	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Orange County Fire Authority	not named
6 September 2009	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
30 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Orange County Fire Authority	not named
30 September 2006	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
28 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
28 September 2005	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
27 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
26 September 2010	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named

Every fire recorded in Orange County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 14 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of Orange County Courthouse: 12 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Mercury, Clay, Calcium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Los Angeles Pressed Brick Co.	Clay	Past Producer
Red Hill Mine	Mercury, Barium-Barite	Past Producer
Santa Ana Plant	Calcium	Producer
Red Hill Mine	Mercury	Past Producer	1927
Cunningham and Son	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Garden Grove Sand & Gravel Co.	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
L. O. Swartzbaugh	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Orange County Rock Co., Inc.	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Orange County

Storms near this property

8 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Santa Ana, the town this property stands in, in 8 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 3 flood, 3 flash flood, 1 heavy rain, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
December 1998	Heavy Rain	Santa Ana	$140,000	no account filed
February 2004	Flash Flood	Santa Ana	$25,000	no account filed
February 2023	Flood	Santa Ana	-	Heavy rain led to flooding early in the morning on February 25 across inland Orange County, centered around the community of Costa Mesa. The Department of Highways reported flooding at the Bristol Street on-ramp on I-405 with vehicles stuck in the floodwaters; street flooding leading to road closures and stranded vehicles; and SR-173 and Campus Drive had 1-2 feet of water in two lanes.
March 2023	Flood	Santa Ana	-	Very heavy rainfall occurred across inland Orange County from the evening on March 14 through the morning on March 15. Rainfall of 1.50-2.50 fell. An MPing report of street and road flooding resulting in road closures and stranded vehicles was reported near Santa Ana early in the morning on March 15.
December 2022	Flash Flood	Santa Ana	-	Swiftwater rescue in the Santa Ana River at Garden Grove Blvd. The area received 0.5 to 1 inch of rain at the time of rescue. An adult male was successfully rescued but taken to the hospital. The main IVT frontal band moved through Southern California 7-10 AM.
September 2015	Flash Flood	Santa Ana	-	A male and a female were in a flood control channel and had to be rescued by the Orange County Fire Department when they were caught off guard by the quickly rising water.
December 1999	Funnel Cloud	Santa Ana	-	no account filed
September 1997	Flood	Santa Ana	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Orange County

Maps showing this location

20 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1896 USGS Anaheim quadrangle1:62500
1898 USGS Anaheim quadrangle1:62500
1901 USGS Anaheim quadrangle1:62500 - 6 printings
1901 USGS Southern California Sheet No. 1 quadrangle1:250000 - 6 printings
1902 USGS Corona quadrangle1:125000 - 7 printings
1904 USGS Southern California Sheet No. 1 quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1932 USGS Orange quadrangle1:31680
1935 USGS Orange quadrangle1:31680 - 2 printings
1942 USGS Anaheim quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1947 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
1949 USGS Orange quadrangle1:24000
1949 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
1950 USGS Orange quadrangle1:24000
1956 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
1959 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1964 USGS Orange quadrangle1:24000 - 5 printings
1965 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
1974 USGS Orange quadrangle1:24000
1983 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:100000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Young Men's Christian Association-Santa Ana-Tustin Chapter	under 500 feet	1993
Smith-Tuthill Funeral Parlors	under 500 feet	1978
Downtown Santa Ana Historic Districts (North, Government/Institutional and South, Retail)	0.1 miles	1984
Rankin Building	0.2 miles	1983
Howe-Waffle House and Carriage House	0.2 miles	1977
US Post Office Station-Spurgeon Station	0.2 miles	1985

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 77000321 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Orange County	All 136 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.