by Nick Popadiuk (Author)
Westminster Colony was founded in 1870 by Presbyterian minister Rev. Lemuel P. Webber. The colony, based on Protestant Christian tenets and temperance, was one of the earliest settlements in what would later become Orange County, California. It developed into an important agricultural area until farmlands gave way to suburban tract homes during the county's population boom of the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1947, it became the background for the important Mendez v. Westminster case, which helped pave the way for the national dismantling of segregation in schools. A little more than a century after the first settlers arrived in Westminster, Little Saigon became the heart of Orange County's Vietnamese immigrant community. This latest group of settlers continues to make notable and unique contributions to this historic city.