Orange County was named for its favorite fruit, but Phil Brigandi says it might have been called Grape County.

"In the early days, grapes were actually the big cash crop before oranges, and more specifically, before the railroad, when you could dry the grapes as raisins, or make wine from the grapes. In Orange, and areas like that, grapes were a big crop. So we had a Grape Street in downtown Orange."

Brigandi wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z."

"Unfortunately, in the late 1880s, we had a blight come through, a phylloxera as we know now, though they did not know at the time what it was. All they knew was that the grapevines just, almost all of them died in the space of about a single year, in 1886-87. And not long after that, Orange decided they didn't need a street called Grape anymore and it's Grand."

The phylloxera insect, which feeds on grape roots, is native to the eastern United States. It was inadvertently exported to Europe, and by the 20th century, had wiped out two-thirds of all the vineyards on the continent.

(Airdate: 8/9/2008)