Costa Mesa, California, is a flourishing city of the arts that grew from humble beginnings into a world-renowned center for performance arts displays.
The land now known as Costa Mesa was originally part of Mission San Juan Capistrano, founded in 1776. The fertile grasslands in the area made it valuable grazing land for cattle.
In the early 1820s, an adobe shelter was built there for the cattle herders. Now called the Diego Sepúlveda Adobe, the city restored and transformed it into a museum in Estancia Park. It’s the only building that still stands from that time period.
![The Diego Sepúlveda Adobe, a California Historical Landmark in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Nov. 3, 2013. (Pelle68/Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)])](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F07%2F20%2FScreen-Shot-2022-07-20-at-10.40.37-AM-1200x798.png&w=1200&q=75)
José Antonio Yorba—one of the original members of the family that founded Yorba Linda—acquired the land in 1810 through a Spanish land grant. However, other settlers began buying portions of the land after California was annexed by the United States.
In about 1889, a new town called Harper—named after a rancher—was formed alongside a railroad built between Santa Ana and present-day Newport Beach. The name Harper would officially be changed in May 1920 to Costa Mesa, meaning “coastal tableland” in Spanish, because of the city’s location on a plateau by the coast.
In 1909, Ozment General Store was the first business to be built; it also housed the city’s post office. The little agricultural town became known for its sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes, strawberries, and apples.
Oil drilling was also introduced to the town when the great depression hit. The local bank closed, and the growth of businesses slowed. Then in 1933, an earthquake hit and caused significant damage to businesses and the main school in town. Yet the town continued to push forward and soon rebuilt what had been destroyed.
It wasn’t until June 29, 1953, that the City of Costa Mesa was officially incorporated into the county and a city government was created. At the time, the city covered 3.5 square miles, which would grow to 17 square miles by 1988.
Community leaders in the late 1960s then began to suggest building a world-class performing arts center, as major educational institutes and business headquarters were being established in the area. They knew groups such as the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, founded in 1954 as the county’s first music organization, would need a concert hall.
The center was planned for a five-acre site donated by the Segerstroms, originally a local Swedish immigrant family of farmers who had become successful landowners and entrepreneurs. Construction began in 1983, and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts finally opened on Sept. 29, 1986. Located in the arts center are three theater stages, an arts plaza, four performance halls, and a studio performance space.
In 1999, the city officially adopted the motto “The City of the Arts” and lives up to this name, with the Segerstrom Center hosting some of the most prominent dance and theater performances in the world.
The new Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall was added in 2006—named after the founding chairman and his late wife.
According to the center’s website, today it’s regarded as “one of the nation’s most respected multi-disciplinary cultural institutions.”
Nearby is the 1.6-acre Noguchi sculpture garden—commissioned by the Segerstrom family in 1979 and finished in 1982—showcasing the different geographical characteristics of California with indigenous plants and materials.
The City of Costa Mesa also boasts an art walk, which guides pedestrians to more than 20 pieces of public art around the city—with a free audio tour available online. The walk was also contributed by Henry Segerstrom, with one-of-a-kind displays made by internationally-recognized artists, such as Isamu Noguchi and Joan Miró.
