The Mother Colony is the name given to the group of a German-Americans that departed San Francisco in 1857 to start farming grapes in Southern California. Soon the colony's vineyards were the largest in California, but a fungus disease destroyed them in 1885. The colony switched to growing Valencia oranges.

But a group of German immigrants marked the city's first claim to fame more than 100 years ago with wine grapes. Founded in 1857, the Anaheim colony was situated on 1,165 acres. Settlers voted to call the community Annaheim, the "anna" referring to the Santa Ana River and "heim" meaning home in German.

The Anaheim Colony was originally founded in 1857, with fifty 20-acre Vineyard Lots planted with primarily Mission grapes. Having built a successful viticulture industry, the colonists were devastated when an unknown blight (now called Pierce’s Disease) wiped out 400,000 grapevines between 1884 and 1888.

The Tongva people were the first residents of the area that would become known as Anaheim. Most had been forced to relocate by the time modern Anaheim was founded in 1857, when two German entrepreneurs, Charles Kohler and John Frohling, saw the opportunity to expand their San Francisco winery.