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It rained hard and long during the winter and spring of 1884 in Anaheim…and those extraordinary rains turned out to be harbingers of the first recorded serious disease epidemic in California vineyards. A new and mysterious malady of the vines, later to be known as Pierce's disease, dealt damaging blows to the grape industry established by German settlers around the little town southeast of Los Angeles, and local wineries had to close down as more than 35,000 acres of vines disappeared over the following decade.