It's sometimes surprising what people care about, when it comes to historical buildings. But, part of Huntington Beach's history was as an oil town and we cared about the Bowen Buildings.
Three old tin and wood buildings, built in the 1920s, one with a classic Western false front, painted a dusty dove grey. The Bowen Buildings represented the beginning of the oil boom in Huntington Beach, with wildcatters, get-rich-quick schemes, and a radical change in the countryside.
Huntington Beach went from agricultural fields, tules and beach, to bustling town in true California pioneer "Gold Rush" spirit, only this was black gold. Oil worker encampments sprung up, as did the businesses that supported the boom.
The Bowen Buildings are remembered not only as an oil boom business, but as the business of one of Huntington Beach's early mayors, Samuel R. Bowen.
Memories of a Bowen descendant
In 1984, Beverly Bowen Moeller, the granddaughter of Samuel R. Bowen, wrote down her memories of life in the 1930s in Huntington Beach. A typed collection of pages filed away in the Orange County Archives, she titled it Fifty Years Ago in Huntington Beach. It now represents a memory of life in Huntington Beach eight decades ago.
She offered her memories "for the entertainment and edification" of those living in Huntington Beach today, humorously describing how she learned the word "edification" from her grandfather, Samuel R. Bowen.
Samuel R. Bowen was bi-lingual--with Spanish his first language--and well educated. His granddaughter recalls him meeting "with a small group of friends on Wednesday nights to read Don Quixote in the original 17th Century Spanish and laugh at the adventures of the hapless knight."
LEFT: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, first published in 1605. (Photo, Wiki Commons) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
"My grandfather...was proud of saying he was the first civic official to have hired a landscape architect," recalled Bowen Moeller, living in Dallas, Texas at the time she wrote down her memories. "His purpose was to enhance the appearance of the town half covered with oil derricks."
"We could see and smell the activities associated with oil extraction and we could hear the wheezy regular puffs of the condensers from our classrooms at the elementary school," remembered Bowen Moeller. "During the twenties, Huntington Beach was awash in oil revenues."
The earthquake of 1933
Bowen Moeller lived "in the country" on Ellis Avenue, about a quarter mile east of Five Points (near Main/Ellis Avenue and Beach Boulevard today). She recalls the night the field beside her home "became a focal point for scores of frightened people, those from Huntington Beach proper who feared that a tidal wave was imminent, and neighbors who were afraid to stay indoors as the aftershocks continued." It was the earthquake of '33.
"A tent was put up beside our house and a bonfire was lit," describes Bowen Moeller. "Throughout the night, the fire was fed, the time between the aftershocks were noted, and the neighbors took turns telling folk tales from the countries of their origin. There was music and song. Someone had brought an accordion and perhaps there was a guitar and a fiddle."
Caught in amber
Bowen Moeller's memories give us a glimpse into life in the town around the time Samuel R. Bowen was mayor. The five pages of typed memories are not long enough.
"...I could tell about flying in an open-cockpit biplane, grocery shopping at Chamness before supermarkets, fireworks from the pier on Fourth of July, Uncle Somebody who read the funny papers on the radio on Sunday morning," continues Bowen Moeller.
"I remember the nine-hole golf course, the pool hall (where no lady entered but I could go in to fetch my father), Harry Bakre's Golden Bear Cafe, Eader's Bakery, Tovatt's Hardware. Bill Gallienne's Texaco station, McCallen's refinery."
"These memories are akin to the proverbial fly caught in amber, caught and preserved unchanged..."
Fishing for oil
In another memoir of her grandfather as part of the publication, Early Business in Orange County, Bowen Moeller explains the rapid success of his business. He had been operating for a couple years by mid 1922, when there were "seventy-nine oil companies in the field, 118 producing, 142 drilling and forty derricks under construction."
The business of "fishing" came about because "lost pieces of equipment can become wedged in the (drilling) hole and must be 'fished out' before drilling can continue." describes Bowen Moeller. "Fishing is expensive. An authentic field report of a fishing job reads like a saga of frustration." She describes a fishing job that others had tried to finish over a seventeen-day period that was resolved in six hours when Bowen showed up with his fishing tools.
Taking a stand
When Bowen decided to run for office, there were several issues troubling local residents. One was municipal restrictions about where oil drilling could occur and the encroachment of oil drilling in residential areas. There had been an effort in 1922 to remove drilling restrictions in 42 blocks of the downtown area, which Bowen worked to defeat. The residents wanted a cleaner, more attractive community.
Another issue was the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in Orange County. Bowen ran for election in 1928 on a slate of three candidates--including former newspaper man Elson Conrad and pharmacist Bayard Butcher--all of whom took pro oil drilling restrictions and anti Klan positions.
Bowen's mother, Emilia Miranda--married to his father, newspaper man Nathan Streeter Bowen--was Mexican American, Bowen had been tutored by a Belgian priest, and his neighbors were from all over the world. His granddaughter Bowen Moeller recalled in her 1984 typed memories that the Huntington Beach community was a collection of immigrants.
"...I would walk along the high-crowned oil road past the chili pepper drying houses, past an old wooden derrick with the fields of the small farms belonging to German, Japanese and Italian neighbors," wrote Bowen Moeller. "Across the street from our house was my favorite place in my small world, the nearly self-sufficient farm of the Armenian neighbors..."
Bowen is quoted as mayor, "Our ultimate destiny is to be a city and not an oilfield." He hired landscape architect Richard Beeson, had the gateway arches placed at Main Street and the pier, negotiated with Standard Oil for a municipal golf course, instituted a program for street paving and lighting, worked on lengthening the pier, and perhaps most importantly, led the City effort to acquire beachfront property.
Battle for the beachfront
Famously, Bowen took on the Huntington Beach Company while on the city council. At a September 4, 1928, meeting an incident was described in which City police officers and officials confronted Huntington Beach Company employees who were removing campers from the beach. The discussion is noted in the minutes as a "confabulation."
"About three years ago, we executed a lease covering ocean front property between Third Street and Main Street, to be used by the City of Huntington Beach and its guests as a playground only, for a consideration of One dollar per year," J.S. Lawshe, Huntington Beach Company is reported as stating. "At the time of the execution of these agreements, there was also a verbal agreement to the effect that the city council would pass an ordinance restricting the use of closed tents, cooking and housekeeping on our property for the reason that it is unsanitary and conducive to immorality. We do not want people to camp on our property."
Bowen responded, "Word came to me about noon Saturday that the Huntington Beach Company employees were ordering people from the area between mean high tide line and low water mark, whereupon I advised the Chief of Police to consult with the City Attorney and act according to the Attorney's instructions."
Bowen is reported at a later meeting to have publicly asked the city attorney about the City's powers in acquiring the beachfront land, to which the attorney replied the City's powers were "absolute." The negotiations to acquire the land proceeded.
Clearly, Bowen had a vision of what Huntington Beach might become, once the oil boom subsided.
Where the Bowen Buildings once stood
Today, where the Bowen Buildings once stood, is a small bronze plaque along the sidewalk at Yorktown Avenue and Lake Street.
Inscription on the monument:
Three industrial buildings were located at 1980 Lake Street and were operated by Samuel R. Bowen and his partner, Sisti Siracusa, as the S.R. Bowen Company and the Bowen Fishing Tool Company.
The S.R. Bowen Company remained in Huntington Beach until the mid 1950's when they moved to Santa Fe Springs, CA.
RIGHT: Monument for the S.R. Bowen Buildings at the southeast corner of Yorktown Avenue and Lake Street. (Photo, August 16, 2013) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The S.R. Bowen industrial buildings were locally significant because of the elaborate, interior exposed wood truss roof supports and corrugated metal ("Tin"), exterior siding and roofing. The buildings contained machine, welding and blacksmith shops, warehouse space and offices. The buildings were constructed in 1920-1928 and dismantled in July 1989.
Samuel Redman Bowen was born in Martinez, CA and spent his early life in the San Francisco area. he came to Huntington Beach from Coalinga, CA in 1920. In 1928 he was elected Mayor of the City and served one term.
He was a veteran of World War I and a member of the Huntington Beach American Legion Post. He was also a past president of both the Huntington Beach Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce. Samuel Bowen died August 6, 1944.
Presented to the City of Huntington Beach by the Huntington Beach Company - 1989
Special thanks to the Orange County Archives for the wealth of historical records they save for research and future generations.
© All rights reserved. No part of the Historic Huntington Beach blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.
As the great-great grandson of Samuel Bowen and the grandson of Beverley Bowen Moeller, I was happily surprised to find this record of my family history online. I'm so glad she took the time to write down her memories; by the time I was old enough to hear and remember them, they were much sketchier. Thank you very much for preserving her words.
ReplyDeleteHi Eric, Thank you for writing and I'm very happy to hear you like the feature on your great-great grandfather! Send me an email at SurfCityWriter@yahoo.com and I would be happy to email you a copy of Beverly Bowen Moeller's typed memories for your family records. Best, Mary
ReplyDeleteMy son alerted me to this article and I'm so pleased to see it! My mother, Beverley, has a Ph.D. in History, and had a keen love for her family's history. Her written memories, however, are much more detailed than the anecdotes she told us. I knew about her Armenian neighbors and the earthquake, and that the Huntington Beach school district was the wealthiest in the country at that time- from her point of view, there was no Great Depression. Her elementary school had a swimming pool and swimming was taught to all students in public school!
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful article. Thank you so much.
How wonderful it is to hear from the Bowen family! One of the benefits of historical research is meeting the history-makers and pioneer families of Huntington Beach. I'm delighted you like the feature on Samuel Bowen. He left a significant legacy and he is remembered. Best, Mary
ReplyDeleteWhile metal detecting around the Courreges Ranch in Fountain Valley on May 22, 2016 I found a copper disc tool check tag from S.R.B. Co. . The property owner, Ron Courreges said his father and uncle worked for S.R. Bowen Co. during WWII. The tag is now in possession of the Courreges family. I have a photo of it if you would like to see it. email : inlandempirerelichunters at yahoo dot com
ReplyDeleteWhile metal detecting around the Courreges Ranch in Fountain Valley on May 22, 2016 I found a copper disc tool check tag from S.R.B. Co. . The property owner, Ron Courreges said his father and uncle worked for S.R. Bowen Co. during WWII. The tag is now in possession of the Courreges family. I have a photo of it if you would like to see it. email inlandempirerelichunters at yahoo dot com
ReplyDelete