Hesperia’s Beginnings
Maximilian Franz Otto Strobel, better known as Max Strobel, was a Bavarian immigrant, surveyor, and land developer who played a significant yet quiet role in shaping Southern California in the late 1800s. He is remembered today as Anaheim’s first mayor and a driving force behind the early movement to create what would eventually become Orange County. But his ambitions stretched even farther—into oil, railroads, colonization schemes, and one particularly bold plan to develop a vast stretch of desert land that later became Hesperia.
Born in 1826 in Bavaria, Strobel was caught up in the political unrest of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. Like many young idealists of his time, he joined in the fighting and had to flee once the revolution failed. He made his way to the United States in 1851, landing in New York and quickly finding work as a surveyor for the U.S. government.
His skills earned him a spot on John C. Frémont’s 1853 expedition to find a transcontinental railroad route across the Rockies. Strobel survived bitter winter conditions and rough terrain to help complete the survey. From there, he briefly joined the infamous filibusterer William Walker in Nicaragua, an adventure that ended in chaos and a narrow escape.
By the late 1850s, Strobel had made his way to California, where he worked on Frémont’s Mariposa Estate before jumping into early oil exploration in Los Angeles County. He drilled in Brea Canyon and helped manage one of the area’s first petroleum ventures—well ahead of its time. Around 1865, he settled in Anaheim, a small German farming colony, and quickly became involved in civic life.
In 1870, Max Strobel became Anaheim’s first mayor. With a vision for local self-rule, he spearheaded a campaign to break away from Los Angeles County and form a new county, which he hoped would be called Anaheim County. He even launched a newspaper, The People’s Advocate, to rally support. The effort failed, but it laid the groundwork for what would eventually become Orange County in 1889.
Around the same time, Strobel participated in a large land deal in the upper Mojave Desert. Acting as an agent for a syndicate, he helped purchase about 50,000 acres near the Mojave River—an area that would one day become Hesperia. The land was chosen with the hope that a major railroad line would soon pass through, boosting land value and attracting settlers. But the railroad didn’t arrive for nearly 15 years. Investors lost patience, and the project was scrapped.
The land later passed into the hands of a German temperance colony—a group hoping to establish a dry, orderly settlement in contrast to the wine-making culture of Anaheim. While this effort didn’t take root, it paved the way for the eventual founding of Hesperia during the land boom of the 1880s, when the Chaffey brothers and their partners attempted again to build a model town. This time, the railroad had arrived, but lasting success was still slow to come.
Meanwhile, Strobel had turned to other ventures. In 1872, he traveled to London to broker the sale of Santa Catalina Island and other California properties to British investors. The deal was close to closing when Strobel died suddenly in his London hotel room in early 1873. The exact cause was never made public, and his death remains something of a mystery.
Strobel died without fanfare, and for decades his name slipped into obscurity. It wasn’t until the late 20th century that local historians in Anaheim began to rediscover his contributions. Today, Max Strobel is remembered as a bold, restless figure—part dreamer, part doer—whose plans didn’t always work out, but who helped lay the foundations of Southern California as we know it.
Sources: Historical accounts from the Los Angeles Times, Anaheim local history archives, and Mojave Desert regional histories have been used in compiling this biography. Notable references include Richard Buffum’s “Father of Orange County Loses Some Mystery” (LA Times, Feb. 22, 1987)latimes.com, the Anaheim Public Library’s records on Strobel (via J. Rubio’s 2014 research)anaheimhistory.blogspot.com, and the Mojave Desert historical report “Once Upon a Desert” (1976) detailing the Hesperia land scheme digital-desert.com, scvhistory.com, among other sources as cited above. Each provides insight into the fascinating, multifaceted life of Max Otto Strobel.