The moment you step into the stately brick building, you know it's old.
The musty smell, like mothballs or a grandparent's home, tells you so. Take another few steps and the boards creak underfoot - another hint.
Of course the brass plaque out front, designating the Anaheim Museum's home a site on the National Register of Historic Places, could have told you that. But then you would have missed all the details inside that reveal this building's birth more than 90 years ago.
Built with a $10,000 grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation near the turn of the 20th century, the building has led several lives: first as a public library, later as the city's personnel department and finally as a historic museum. It is the only Carnegie Building remaining in Orange County, which once had five, and boasts an architectural pedigree of near royal status -- at least among Southern California buildings.
Its was designed by John C. Austin, of the Los Angeles City Hall, Shrine Auditorium and Griffith Park Observatory fame. Not bad company to be in. Yet had it not been for the local Historical Society, the building might have been razed in 1973 as part of a redevelopment effort named, ominously enough, Project Alpha. The group had the building listed on the National Register in 1979, and partnered with the city to restore the decaying building. It re-opened as a museum in 1987.
The rest, as they say, is history. Photographic displays and exhibits inside detail the city's 140-year history, from its inception as a vineyard for Los Angeles winemakers in 1860 to its being wired with state-of-the-art fiber optic cables in the 1990s.
On the upper level, the north and south galleries exhibit works of art by contemporary artists. The rest of the main room, though, details historic landmarks such as the Fox, Grand (later the Garden) and Fairyland theaters -- all demolished -- and the best-known site, Disneyland.
Old orange crates and their distinguishing art help illustrate the city's transition from a vineyard (destroyed by a grape blight in the 1880s) to a walnut and citrus producing area.
Signs from old stores and steel stamps from cement makers seem to speak from the past. Some of the imprints, such as the one that reads "P. Hutain Contractor," can still be found along city sidewalks on the 700 block of N. Pine and Resh streets.
Another curious display is an antique baby scale, a double-beam scale topped by a wicker basket. The scale belonged to Dr. John W. Truxaw, said to have delivered more than 3,500 babies in Anaheim.
Surely some current resident's parent or grandparent once rested on this scale.
A samurai warrior suit of armor may seem an incongruous display at first, but look closer and you'll realize it's a gift from one of Anaheim's two sister cities, Mito, Japan. (The other is Vitoria Gasteiz, in northern Spain.) Downstairs, a children's gallery focuses largely on space exploration and technology, but does not ignore the past with displays of antique phone booths (one rescued from the old Pickwick Hotel lobby before it fell to the wrecking ball in 1987), manual typewriters and a Kelsey Printing Press.
Taken together, the museum's collection offers a window to the past of Orange County's most prominent city - associated nationally with the Angels, Mighty Ducks and Disneyland.
Now, imagine a time when the city's roads were unpaved and its largest housing tract consisted of a few homes on Zeyn Street.
Aside from a handful of historic homes, the Anaheim Museum is one of the few remaining buildings to have lived through it all.