Placentia Tutors

About Placentia

Placentia California is a small town, that despite letting go of its historical agricultural roots, remains a quiet, small town, where you can still stroll through a few remaining orange groves, the fruit that gave the city its start.

Juan Antiveros was the first owner of the land that would become Placentia. His ranch was known as Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, and was granted to him by the Mexican government. Daniel Kramer purchased 3900 acres in 1865, the start of this little town. A few year later William McFadden and his wife Sarah Jane purchased an additional 100 acres, and after that pioneers began coming in.

As the community began to grew, churches and schools began to be erected where we see our first Placentia tutors, and the start of what would become Placentia. The first school district was formed in 1878 and was known as the Cajon School District. The story goes that Sarah Jane didn’t like the name, and came up with the name Placentia after a Latin word meaning “a pleasant place to live”. This prompted the change to Placentia School District, and would be where the city took its name from.

As mentioned earlier, Placentia’s claim to fame is the orange groves that used to take up the whole are. Placentia is the first town in Orange county to start producing the Valencia orange, the fruit responsible for how the town got its name. Alfred B. Chapman imported the first orange, and first commercial grove was planted in 1880. Placentia was placed on the map when A.S. Bradford was able to convince the Santa Fe Railroad to re-route through Placentia, shaving time of the trip to Los Angeles, the destination of the train. This created the need for a station, and packing houses were built to help hold the oranges being grown and sold to other parts of the state. This coupled with oil being found on a couple properties gave Placentia a name for itself.

Unfortunately, a disease known as “quick decline” meant the loss of a lot of orange trees, and along with the growing population the groves were soon destroyed to make way for the development of the town.

While the town may no longer be a large producer of oranges, it’s still a great place to visit and the town is very proud of its heritage. The next time you’re finishing up a lesson from your Placentia tutor, maybe take a stroll around town and experience some of the history that Placentia has to offer.