The Rich Family History Behind the Establishment of Yorba Linda

A child runs up the steps of the Yorba Linda Library and Cultural Arts Center in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Nov. 30, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

The City of Yorba Linda has a rich history stemming from the original Yorba family, who traveled to California and began enriching the area to form a community. The city is known as the “Land of Gracious Living,” a phrase that has remained true since its founding.

Development in the Yorba Linda area by the Santa Ana River in 1966. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives (CC BY 2.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/])

In the 1800s, the community that would become Yorba Linda consisted of farmers and ranchers, planting citrus groves and building large ranch houses. The Yorbas were the first to establish these farmsteads with their arrival in the mid 1700s. They introduced their large families and households of servants and workers, changing the landscape and forming a church, where local residents could congregate together.

The construction of the Pacific Electric Railroad line in the early 1900s between Yorba Linda and Los Angeles gave the town a center located at the railroad station and two packing houses adjacent to it. The railroad provided the community with an efficient way to transport produce to larger markets.

The Pacific Electric Railway Depot located at Imperial Hwy and Lemon Dr in Yorba Linda, Calif., and completed in 1912. (Public Domain)

When the Janss Corporation bought part of the land in 1908 that formerly belonged to the Yorba family, they subdivided the property and named the newly formed town “Yorba Linda” after the family name, and “Linda,” meaning pretty in Spanish. The Yorba family kept an influential presence in the city as it grew in the 1900s.

The city’s population grew by 890 percent to 11,856 during the decade following its incorporation in 1967. As of 2020, the population was 68,103.

Mildred Yorba MacArthur is the great granddaughter of Teodosio Yorba—who was a part of the second generation in the area and the son of Spanish immigrant Jose Antonio Yorba. In May 1960, she wrote a brief history of the Yorba family at the request of a Yorba Linda librarian.

A monument for Jose Antonio Yorba located in the cemetery at Mission San Juan Capistrano in California. (Wikipedia/Mdhennessey (CC BY 3.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/]))

According to Mildred, Jose originally traveled from Spain to present day California in 1769 as a soldier escort for the King of Spain.

In May of 1782, he married Josefa Grijalva, who traveled to California from Mexico six years earlier with her parents. Together they had 10 children including Teodosio and Bernardo Yorba.

Yorba Linda School in Yorba Linda, Orange County, California, circa 1918. The school was built in 1913.(Courtesy of Orange County Archives (CC BY 2.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/])

Jose and his nephew Juan Pablo Peralta were grantees of 48,000 acres from the King in appreciation of their services to the crown. From there, the family continued to multiply and spread, branching out to be farmers or ranchers.

Of the family, Bernardo Yorba is the most documented and influential. He was a rancher with the help of the Santa Ana River, living in a double-story adobe with his family and servants. He married three times with a total of 20 children.

Portrait of Don Bernardo Yorba. (Public Domain)

Bernardo built a church, which was once the only place of worship in Orange County, aside from the Mission San Juan Capistrano. According to Mildred, the children seemed to live a happy life, working alongside their family and attending church services at their home church.

Mildred’s more colorful memories include stories of how she would try to scare the “beloved old” Franciscan friar of the San Luis Rey Mission by speeding with him in the car. Once a month, he came to say mass at the family church, and once a month she would try to scare him without success. She wrote, “The faster I drove the more he smiled out from under the hood of his coarse brown robe.”

A street in Yorba Linda in the 1920s with the post office and a few shops. (Public Domain)

The city demolished Bernardo’s Yorba Hacienda in 1926 to prevent vandals from stripping it to find buried treasure—yet the original site remains a California State Historic Landmark.

The Bernardo Yorba adobe house, also called Hacienda Yorba de San Antonio, in the early 1900s. (Public Domain)

Mildred said she approached the Catholic Church in Orange County in an effort to have Bernardo’s church building restored and preserved. However, they dismissed the plea in order to build the new Placentia Church. The old church building was razed and replaced.

Bernardo’s family and servant cemetery is all that remains of the Yorba’s beautiful era. Historical documents and a family dedication can be seen in the Yorba Linda Library.

For the people who visit the library, Mildred wrote, “I should like to say as did the Yorbas, in the golden era of the ranchos, ‘Nuestra casa es suya,’ which means, ‘Our home is yours.’”

Santa Ana Mountains seen from Hidden Hills Estate in Yorba Linda, California. (Wikimedia Commons/Nandaro (CC BY-SA 3.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en]))