Overview
About Cypress Street Barrio
The Cypress Street Barrio covers 85 acres between the Santa Fe line and the eastern edge of Old Towne, with 298 addresses on 3.84 miles of public street across ten named streets. The zoning is mixed in a way few residential neighborhoods are: 17 acres of residential duplex, 14 acres of public institution, 9 acres of Old Towne mixed use and nearly 4 acres of industrial manufacturing, with a median parcel of 0.152 acres. All of the boundary lies inside the city's Neighborhood Preservation District and 74 percent of it inside the National Register historic district.
The city's historic survey covers 184 resources here, 149 of them recorded as buildings in a historic district. Across those 149 the median construction year is 1922 and the range runs 1886 to 2006, with Bungalow the most common recorded style on 63 parcels. Emigdio Vasquez painted El Proletariado de Aztlan across two walls of a garage at 442 North Cypress Street; Chapman University bought the property in 2013 and sponsored its restoration with the Orange Barrio Historical Society, finished in 2014. Veterans Memorial at Depot Park sits inside the boundary. The city's parcel record assigns 173 parcels to Cambridge Elementary, 21 to West Orange and 2 to Sycamore, then every parcel to Portola Middle and Orange High.
View available homes in Cypress Street BarrioHistory
How Cypress Street Barrio was built
Mexican families began settling on Cypress Street in the late 1910s, on the 400 block between Sycamore and Walnut, beside the packing houses built along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line so fruit could be moved straight onto the rails. The colonia filled out through the early 1920s, as Mexican labor became indispensable to the California citrus industry, and it spread north and south along the tracks from there. Most families came from the central plateau states of Mexico, from Jalisco, Michoacan and Zacatecas.
The barrio's largest mark was made in a courtroom. The Cypress Street School opened in 1931 for Mexican and Mexican American children and closed in 1944, and the building at 544 North Cypress is one of the last public school buildings left standing in Southern California that was used as a segregated Mexican school. Three years after it closed, the Ninth Circuit upheld Mendez v. Westminster on 14 April 1947, a case brought against four Orange County districts, one of them the El Modena district here in Orange, which ended school segregation in California and reached roughly five thousand children of Mexican ancestry.
By the Numbers
Cypress Street Barrio by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Cypress Street Barrio lifestyle
The city keeps one park inside this boundary: Veterans Memorial at Depot Park at 100 N Atchison St, 0.3 acres of passive park on the city's own record.
Addresses here fall across ZIP 92866, 92867 and 92868, so mail, school paperwork and delivery windows are not uniform across the boundary.
Schools
Schools serving Cypress Street Barrio
Orange publishes the assigned school on every parcel in the city, which means the campuses below are the ones the city itself sends this boundary to rather than the ones that happen to be nearest. The city's parcel record assigns parcels here to Cambridge Elementary (173), West Orange Elementary (21) and Sycamore Elementary (2) for elementary, every parcel here to Portola Middle for middle and every parcel here to Orange High for high. Enrollment is the 2024-25 federal count.
9-12 · 1,728 students
7-8 · 422 students
K-6 · 415 students
K-6 · 410 students
K-6 · 357 students
FAQs
Common questions about Cypress Street Barrio
What was the 1936 citrus strike?
Citrus pickers across Orange County organized with the Confederacion de Uniones y Obreros Mexicanos del Estado de California and called a strike on 11 June 1936, at the peak of the Valencia orange season. Cypress Street was one of the main organizing centers and the pool hall at 405 North Cypress Street was designated strike relief headquarters. At least 750 pickers joined across the county and 159 were arrested on riot charges on 6 July. Growers settled with higher pay and an end to charges for transportation and equipment but refused to recognize the union.
Is the Cypress Street Schoolhouse still there?
Yes. Built in 1931 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, it is the only formerly segregated school building still standing in Orange County and may be the only one left in the state. It was listed on the National Register on 7 July 2015, and now holds offices for a Chapman University research program.
What is the mural on North Cypress Street?
El Proletariado de Aztlan, painted by the Orange County Chicano artist Emigdio Vasquez across two walls of a single story garage at 442 North Cypress Street. Chapman University purchased the property in 2013 and sponsored the restoration with the Orange Barrio Historical Society, completed in 2014.
How old are the homes in the Cypress Street Barrio?
The city's historic survey records 184 resources inside the boundary, 149 of them as buildings in a historic district. Across those 149 the median construction year is 1922 and the range runs 1886 to 2006, with Bungalow the most common recorded style on 63 parcels.
Which schools serve the Cypress Street Barrio?
Orange publishes an assigned school on every parcel. Here the city's record assigns 173 parcels to Cambridge Elementary, which enrolled 415 students on the 2024-25 federal count, 21 to West Orange Elementary at 410 and 2 to Sycamore Elementary at 357. Every parcel is assigned to Portola Middle, 422 students, and Orange High, 1,728.