Good morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day. I'm Times California columnista Gustavo Arellano, writing from my native Orange County.
Anaheim loses one of the last vestiges of its Teutonic roots
For nearly 50 years, drivers exiting the 91 Freeway at Harbor Boulevard toward Anaheim were greeted by a pair of wooden signs that spoke to my beloved hometown's past and present.
At the northwest corner of La Palma Park, three stone columns were connected by wooden planks that bore seals of the local chapters of do-gooder organizations like the Lions Club, Rotary International and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
The top boards read "Wilkommen in Anaheim 1857" and "Welcome to Anaheim" in white, somewhat-Gothic letters, a nod to the city's founding by German immigrants who wanted to create a winemaking colony but instead started the best damn city in Southern California (sorry, Bradbury).
Built in 1976 with money raised via garage sale, the "Wilkommen" sign stood as Anaheim transformed from a working-class white town to one with large populations of Middle Easterners, Romanians, Pacific Islanders and especially Latinos, who now comprise the majority of the city's residents.
The "Welcome" guidepost embodied a city where multiculturalism was embedded from the start. It became one of the last public vestiges (besides streets named after pioneers) of Anaheim's Teutonic origins after the last local German restaurant closed in 2021 and the long-standing Phoenix Club moved up the 57 Freeway to Brea.
This past fall, the sign was removed.
I figured city workers stored it somewhere while La Palma Park — the second-oldest in Anaheim, and one where I grew up in because it was down the street from where I grew up — underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation. But when I drove down Harbor earlier this week, an ugly replacement now occupied the sign's location.
The new marker, which went up last month, reads "La Palma Park" in sans-serif script. The front of each letter is painted gray; their sides alternate between lime green and turquoise tones. That color scheme is so jarring that I thought my eyes were short-circuiting. The whole thing sits on a slab of concrete, in a planter currently surrounded by wood chips.
A white sheet of paper has more personality than this weak-salsa excuse meant to greet people entering Orange County's largest city.
A new sign at La Palma Park off Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim. It replaced another that proclaimed "Wilkommen in Anaheim" for nearly 50 years as a nod to the city's German founders. (Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
Whenever I have a question about Anaheim, I always reach out to Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava, who represents the district where La Palma Park is located. My fellow Anaheim High Colonist (she's class of 1996, I'm class of 1997) told me residents complained to her the moment the "Wilkommen" sign was removed. City staff did an internal review shortly after that to determine if it was worth keeping.
They determined it wasn't.
"I'm disappointed that the original sign wasn't saved," Rubalcava said, acknowledging "some gaps in communication, including with my office." She added that the city is working on a public display at La Palma Park that will honor the "Wilkommen" sign and commemorate Anaheim's German heritage. The councilmember also said that she wants to pass a formal policy that will "establish a clear process before removal or alteration of potentially historical items."
I'm glad Rubalcava is trying to make up for something that shouldn't have happened and I'll forgive her for telling me that the new sign "looks good and serves as a welcoming gateway to our beautiful city" — come on, Natalie, you're cooler than that!
And Anaheim does have far more pressing problems than the fate of a collection of old sticks and stones: gangs, housing inequality, the recent sentencing of former Mayor Harry Sidhu for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice, and the ever-influential campaign dollars of Disneyland (did you know the word for "corruption" in German is Korruption? Now you do!)
But the destruction of the "Wilkommen" sign, in a city that usually cares more than most about its past, is just another sign of how folks pay attention to what they cherish in a city only after it's too late — myself included. What did Joni Mitchell sing in "Big Yellow Taxi" again?
Today's top stories
(Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images)
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For your downtime
Installation view, "Jackie Castillo: Through the Descent, Like the Return," Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, April 5-Aug. 31, 2025. (Jeff McLane / ICA LA)
Going out
Staying in
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And finally ... your photo of the day
Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they're important to you.
(Raul Roa/Los Angeles Times)
Today's great photo is from staff photo editor Raul Roa: It's not a total bust for wildflowers. Find a hidden field of poppies right in L.A. County
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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