The land that became known as ‘Mission Viejo’ was bought by John Forster. Although his name was English sounding he was actually a Mexican known better as Don Juan and he provided horses to the U.S. military during the Mexican-American War. Initially used for sheep and cattle grazing the land is a hilly area and because of this was not a great deal of use as farm land. It was Donald Bren who initially drew up plans to turn the area into a town by developing roads and valleys on the hilly land.
It took until the 1970’s for the land to actually become useful as a town and the town itself was developed a planned community, set into the southern part of Orange County. The city now has a population of around 94,000 and is very suburban and mostly residential in its nature. The picturesque tree-lined avenues have received recognition through the NADF—National Arbor Day Foundation—for their landscaped beauty and upkeep.
The Sudden Demand for Housing
Once the master plan was agreed, building started. Houses were so in demand the lumber in Mission Viejo CA was imported from other areas to supply the housing and construction trade with enough to build homes with. Bren had an obsession with Spanish architecture and therefore most of the homes in the area looked like Adobes, with barrel-tile roofing and stucco walls. As another point to boast, the city can actually claim to be the safest city in the United States, according to crime statistics provided by Morgan Quitno, using FBI Data. It was also ranked the safest city in California by the CQ press, another accolade to boast.
As with most of California, the climate is warm most of the year around. Winter temperatures average around sixty and summer averages around eighty degrees. The Santa Ana winds affect the inland hot air and can cause spikes in temperatures from time to time, reaching as high as ninety for a large part of the year. Rainfall is extremely low for the entire State of California and particularly low in the southern part of the state, where the winds are warmer and the temperatures are higher most of the year around.
