Garden Grove, California, United States

🇺🇸 Garden Grove is a city in northern Orange County, California, located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. State Route 22, also known as the Garden Grove Freeway, passes through the city in an east–west direction. The western portion of the city is known as West Garden Grove.

History Garden Grove was founded by Alonzo Cook in 1874. A school district and Methodist church were organized that year. It remained a small rural crossroads and farming community until the arrival of the Pacific Electric Railroad in 1905. The rail connection helped the town prosper with the influx of tourists, visitors and eventually settlers, and it was noted for its crops of oranges, walnuts, chili peppers and later strawberries.

History: 20th century In 1933, much of the town's central business district was destroyed by the Long Beach earthquake, and one person was killed at the high school. The post-World War II boom led to rapid development, and Garden Grove was incorporated as a city in 1956 with about 44,000 residents.

In 1956, Orange County Plaza (now The Promenade) was opened at Chapman and Brookhurst, and upon its expansion in 1959, it had 60 stores, including a J. C. Penney, 2 variety stores and 2 supermarkets, and billed itself as both the largest and the first regional shopping centre in Orange County.

Geography Garden Grove has a rugged set of boundaries with many panhandles. The West Garden Grove neighbourhood is west of Beach Boulevard and is largely separated from the rest of Garden Grove by the city of Stanton, with a small bridge of jurisdiction linking the two along Garden Grove Boulevard. A panhandle in the southern part of the town's borders situated between Westminster's Ward Street to the west and Santa Ana's Euclid Street to the east creates a small border with the city of Fountain Valley. Other neighbouring cities include Cypress and Anaheim to the north, Orange to the east, and the cities of Seal Beach and Los Alamitos to the west.

Economy According to a recent Financial Report, the top employers in the city include: 1 Air Industries Corp.; 2 American Apparel Knit & Dye; 3 Prime Healthcare Services; 4 Walmart; 5 Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics; 6 Office Max Inc.; 7 Hyatt Regency Orange County; 8 GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, Inc.; 9 Kaiser Foundation Health; 10 NBTY Acquisition, LLC.

Arts and culture Garden Grove is home to two stage theaters, the Gem Theater and the Festival Amphitheater. The Festival Amphitheater hosts Shakespeare Orange County, which presents an annual Shakespeare Festival each summer. Both venues are owned by the City of Garden Grove, but operated by outside entities. The Gem Theater is currently operated by Damien Lorton and Nicole Cassesso of 'One More Productions'. The Festival Amphitheater is managed by Thomas Bradac, the producing artistic director of Shakespeare Orange County.

The Garden Grove Playhouse used to be an active theatre, now closed down. It was operated by a non-profit group of the same name.

An annual event held over Memorial Day weekend, the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival is one of the largest community festivals in the western United States, attracting an estimated 250,000 visitors. It began in 1958 and celebrates the city's agricultural past, which includes cultivating crops such as chili peppers, oranges, walnuts and strawberries. Part of the festivities include the cutting of the world's largest strawberry shortcake, carnival rides, food vendors, live music, and a celebrity-filled parade. Numerous Garden Grove organizations, including the Miss Garden Grove Scholarship Program, are part of the Memorial Day weekend festivities every year. In commemoration of Garden Grove's 50th anniversary, the city painted some of its fire hydrants with a design that featured a strawberry, recognizing the festival as a big part of Garden Grove's history.