More about Westminster California

The city of Westminster is located in Orange County and was founded in 1870 by Reverend Lemuel Webber as a Presbyterian temperance colony. The name of the city was taken from from the Westminster Assembly of 1643, which laid out the groundwork of the Presbyterian faith. For many years after the city’s founding, farmers refused to eat grapes because they associated them with alcohol. The city was officially incorporated in 1957 and was known as “Tri-City” because it was made up of three cities: Westminster, Barber City and Midway City. Barber City was eventually absorbed by Westminster, but Midway City remains an unincorporated area that is surrounded by Westminster. The city houses a large population of Vietnamese refugees that came to the area in the 1970s and are now settled in an area known as Little Saigon. Westminster is home to a memorial and final resting place for the victims of the Pan Am flight that was part of the 1977 Tenerife Disaster. The accident occurred on March 27,1977 at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish Island of Tenerife. The collision involved two Boeing 747 aircrafts and caused 583 fatalities. The crash remains the deadliest aviation accident in history and many believe it could have been completely avoided. The stop at what is now Tenerife North Airport was unscheduled for both planes, they were re-routed there after a bomb had been detonated in one of the terminals of the Gran Canaria International Airport. Both planes were taxing down the same runway in opposite directions and due to the extremely heavy fog and a radio interference anomaly known as a heterodyne, the planes were unaware of one another and began to take off at the same time, ultimately colliding with each other. After the crash, those on the Pan Am flight that had survived went out onto the wing on the opposite side of the crash and waited for rescue crews who had not realized the Pan Am flight was involved and were working on the KLM plane that had been involved. Ultimately blame was placed in the hands of the KLM Captain who died in the crash. The city is also home to the Vietnam War Memorial which is located in the Sid Goldstein Freedom Park. The memorial was initiated by the city council in 1997 and completed in 2003.