California has always been a land full of natural resources and this is the place where many cities' industries began. The area that is now Fullerton first saw European settlers and those from the northern states in the middle of the 19th century with the Gold Rush. About forty years later, brothers Edward and George Amerige, who would have thrived in commercial mortgage lending today, bought up 430 acres of land to start negotiations with those building the California Central Railroad. With this deal came the start of the town of Fullerton.

The next entrepreneur to come to the area was Charles Chapman in 1894, who started an orange orchard on the Eastern portion of the city. During his time this area grew to have more orange groves than any other part of the country. While we have moved on to pneumatic conveying and electronic production you can still see some of the remnants of this industry in the area today in the name of the county. Eventually the soil in Fullerton was proven to also be ideal for growing walnuts and avocados.

It wasn't just about the quality of the ground in Fullerton but also what was underneath it. In the 1880s petroleum was discovered in the Brea-Olinda Oil Field and this started the first economic boom for the city. It lasted through until the 1920s and you can see in many of the buildings that still stand downtown that this was a time of real growth. You might find a keel repair shop or corner store in a Spanish Colonial or Italian Renaissance building that was constructed in this time. This was also the period where the city got a lot of its public works. While they may not yet have been at the level to have city lagoon cleaning they developed a sewer farm and an airport.

After World War II the property prices in the area started to rise rapidly which slowed down the number of new industries coming to the area. A decline continued until the late 1990s when their started to be a resurgence of homes and businesses in the area. Now there is a large entertainment district downtown and the city is seeing more and more businesses thrive and open in the area. These range from a manufacturing firm that makes shrink sleeves to a nightclub right in the heart of Commonwealth Avenue.