|
This portrait of Columbus Tustin was painted
by master impressionist painter and world
famous artist John Plummer Ludlum while he
was living in Tustin during the mid 1970s.
It is similar to a photograph taken during
Tustin's lifetime.
Tomorrow is the
124th anniversary of the death of Tustin’s
founder and namesake, Columbus Tustin, and the
end of his struggle to turn a plot of land
populated by sycamore trees, rampant yellow
mustard and wild flowers into the city of his
dreams.
Tustin was born
to Samuel Charles Tustin and his wife, the
former Mary Frances Flannagan, in Philadelphia
in 1826. Eleven years later he moved to Marshall
County, Ill., with his parents and eight
siblings. Then, 10 years later, to Oregon where
the family stayed for two years before moving
south to Sacramento, then to Petaluma.
Columbus dabbled
in several businesses. He mined for gold in
Placerville with his brother. He acquired an
interest in Gold Hill, a Nevada quartz mill
which crushed quartz to extract the gold. He
tried farming. Finally, he turned to
carriage-making with a firm owned by N.O.
Stafford and John Fritsch.
Before long he
embarked on another venture, traveling south
with Stafford to look for real estate in
Southern California where the ranchos were being
divided and sold. The two men bought 1,359 acres
of undivided land in 1868 from J.E. Bacon and
Isaac Johnson. Legal battles were raging as
purchasers of rancho land sought formal
partition (division) of the acreage so they
could develop it. The court eventually approved
partition.
Tustin ended up
taking title to 839.9 acres bordered on the west
by what is Lyon Street today and on the east by
Newport Avenue. It is thought that Tustin, after
having surveyed a town site of about 100 acres,
in blocks 300 feet square, divided into lots 150
x 50 feet, formally established Tustin City
about 1870 with a plat map that is no longer in
existence.
Another version
of how the town got its name is credited to
Stella Nau, who told the story that during the
first year or so after C. Tustin bought the land
people would refer to it as Tustin’s land or
they would say, “See Tustin if you wish to buy
property,” thus conveying to the hearer that the
name of the place was Tustin. They came looking
for a town called Tustin and gradually the
settlement became known by that name.
Regardless,
settlers began to congregate here, purchasing
mostly small tracts of five to 20 acres. Many
resold their land, but some stayed and helped to
develop Tustin City.
Tustin set aside
land for a school and soon his five children and
others in the community were attending Sycamore
School. A post office was established with
Tustin as postmaster. Several stores, a saloon
and a blacksmith shop opened. Houses, mostly
shacks, began to appear. Tustin offered a free
lot to anyone who would build a house on it.
Rivalry between
Tustin and William Spurgeon, the developer of
Santa Ana, was intense. They both wanted the
terminal for the extension of the Southern
Pacific Railway from Anaheim. Unfortunately,
Spurgeon outmaneuvered Tustin and Santa Ana got
the depot. Tustin died before Tustin City became
what some called “one of the garden spots of the
county.”
Let’s hope that
wherever he is today he knows that his city
finally achieved success.
|
