Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Browning Tustin, CA

Tustin was founded in 1868 by Columbus Tustin, a carriage maker from Northern California, who bought 1,300 acres of the former Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana for about $1.50 an acre and laid out a town he called Tustin City.

Lot sales were so slow at first that Columbus Tustin gave away free lots to anyone who would build a home, and his town lost the Southern Pacific depot battle to rival Santa Ana, leaving Tustin a quiet farming backwater for decades.

Tustin incorporated on September 21, 1927, with a population of only about 900 people, electing Byron Crawford as its first mayor.

Tustin is the third oldest city in Orange County, and its Old Town still preserves commercial buildings dating to the 1880s along Main Street and El Camino Real.

During World War II the Navy built a lighter-than-air base at Tustin whose two blimp hangars at the later Marine Corps Air Station Tustin ranked among the largest wooden structures in the world; the base closed in 1997 and its land is now being redeveloped as the Tustin Legacy neighborhood.

Tustin had a population of 80,276 at the 2020 census, living in about 27,600 households averaging roughly 2.8 people each.

Forbes magazine once named Tustin one of the top 25 places in the United States to live well.

Tustin's agricultural roots show in its history as a center for apricot, walnut, and orange groves, watered in part by natural artesian wells that first attracted settlers to the area.

The city's Tustin Tiller Days festival, held each fall at Columbus Tustin Park, celebrates that farming heritage and marked its 67th year in 2025.

Tustin's annual Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off was once named the world's largest one-day chili festival by the International Chili Society.