Main Street Branch Library and Triangle Park

ABOVE: The Main Street Branch Library, a Mid Century Modern building seated on one of Huntington Beach's oldest parks.  It served as the main library from 1951 to 1975.

   Have you heard about the battle for Triangle Park?  This triangular pocket park represents some of Huntington Beach's earliest history and hosts the Mid-Century Modern Main Street Branch Library, once the town's only library.  

   Every now and then, someone proposes replacing the charming little library with some new-fangled idea and locals storm city hall to defend it.  Surf City may be a laid back beach town, but our politics are anything but dull.

Directions to Walking Tour stop #12 and #13: Walk northeast up Main Street toward the historic residential district of the downtown.   The Main Street Branch Library, 525 Main Street, and Triangle Park is located on the northwest side of Main Street between 6th Street and Acacia Avenue.

ABOVE: The City's first library was a used, roofless office building purchased for $50 and moved to the area of present day Walnut Avenue and Main Street in 1909. (Photo, City of Huntington Beach)

The first libraries

   A handful of local citizens and the Huntington Beach Women's Club (which lost their historic building to fire in 2011), called a meeting in February 1909 to form a library association.  It appears local residents were fully on board, as donations of books and items for the library prompted an immediate need for a building.  

  One of the library association's first board of trustees members put up the $50 for a used office building and a local property owner offered his land at the corner of Walnut Avenue and Main Street as a temporary site for a "nominal rent."  The building was moved in 1911 to Walnut and 3rd Street.

   At opening, it was recorded there were "338 volumes in the library, 228 were gifts while 110 had been bought new. The new library subscribed to twelve magazines and held hours of 10 a.m. to noon and 2:00 p.m. to 7 p.m."

ABOVE: The Huntington Beach Carnegie Library housed 2800 volumes, "700 of which were donated by residents of the city." (Image, Wiki Commons)

   As the library collection grew, plans developed to purchase a larger parcel of land and seek  a Carnegie Library grant.  The library association and the City jointly purchased land at Walnut and 8th Street and by 1913 had received $10,000 from the Carnegie Corporation for construction of a library on the site.

   The Huntington Beach Masonic Lodge was called upon for the cornerstone ceremony.  The Huntington Beach Public Library history records the items placed in the cornerstone included "the history of the city, the library, names of all those who had served on the Library Board, city trustees, pastors of the churches, members of the Board of Trade, names of those who had served on the library staff, the name of each child in the schools and a small American flag." 

  Surviving a significant earthquake in March 1933, the Carnegie Library held 42,000 volumes when its doors closed for good in 1951.  Although Huntington Beach city council minutes note the Masonic Lodge and Acacia Lodge attempted to purchase the library, the building was demolished by March 1969.  

   A December 1, 1972, letter on file in the City archives from the Huntington Beach Masonic Lodge No. 380 to the city council reports the Masons "retrieved the Carnegie Library cornerstone sealed strongbox and offers to lay the cornerstone at the new Central Library and new Civic Center."  

ABOVE: Rapid land sales in Huntington Beach meant there were more people arriving daily and not enough hotels or houses.  The tent cities of the early 1900s were a common solution to the problem.  (Photo circa 1906, courtesy Orange County Archives)

Cardboard Alley

   In 1917, while the first libraries were moving further up Walnut Avenue, the Huntington Beach Company officially deeded land blocks #405 and #505 to the City, specifying a public park.  

   A portion of Block 505--the future Triangle Park--was temporarily used for tents to house the constant flow of new residents to Huntington Beach.  Home builders could not keep up.  

   City of Huntington Beach Historical Notes (1975) report "on July 5, 1921, a lease contract was signed with R.E. Wright who constructed small beaverboard houses and rented them for $30 and $35 a month of which $8 a year went to the City.  Bungalet Court, more commonly known as 'Cardboard Alley' was located on the triangular piece of land." 

The Horseshoe Club

   By the mid 1920s, what was now being referred to as the "triangular park" was being seeded with grass, street lights were making their way up Main Street, and the City was planting trees.  By 1925, visitors to Huntington Beach increased with the opening of the Pacific Coast Highway.

   In February 1925, the board of trustees (city council) discussed "with considerable interest" a resident suggestion "advocating the use of Block 505 for a recreation park, suggesting tennis, croquet, and handball courts as being a very desirable form of amusement."   Triangle Park soon became a favorite spot in town, including checker boards, horseshoe courts, and a putting green.

ABOVE: Huntington Beach Horseshoe Club House, circa 1935.  The Club House was used by the Red Cross during World War II.  (Photo by Burton Frasher, Frasher Foto Postcard Collection, Pomona Public Library)

 

ABOVE: Huntington Beach Horseshoe Club at Triangle Park, circa 1935.  (Photo by Burton Frasher, Frasher Foto Postcard Collection, Pomona Public Library)

   City of Huntington Beach Historical Notes (1975) report the Horseshoe Club was constructed in 1931 "on the north east corner of Triangle Park, it was used by several clubs for meetings until 1942…During the war, the American Red Cross set up headquarters in the building where they gave first aid and volunteers rolled bandages.”

Where is the B-17?

   At the close of the WWII years, the City archives note an interesting discussion by the Huntington Beach city council regarding Triangle Park.  

   The May 20, 1946 city council minutes report, “Councilman Hawes recommended that the B-17 owned by the City be placed somewhere near the City airport instead of Triangle Park on account of the many difficulties in transporting the plane to the center of the City.  The matter was referred to the Streets and Parks Committee..."

   Please contact Historic Huntington Beach if you know where the B-17 is located today.  Really.

ABOVE: Main Street Branch Library, circa 2009. The library, designed by Los
Angeles architects McLellen, MacDonald and Marc, features a green marble entrance. (Photo, Chris Jepsen, www.OCHistorical.blogspot.com)

The Main Street Library at Triangle Park

   Delayed by WWII, construction began on the Main Street Library in 1949 and the doors opened in 1951, as the Carnegie Library closed.

   City of Huntington Beach Historical Notes (1975) remark, “When the current Main Street facility (library), consisting of 9,000 square feet, was completed in 1951, it was celebrated for its size and its design.  The Carnegie Library, 8th and Walnut Street, its predecessor, was half as big."  

   "The 1951 structure opened with 40,000 volumes with a budget of $40,000.  The marble façade at the entrance was a real attraction.  The walls were pre-cast, reinforced concrete sections.  The ceiling was acoustical and the heating was provided by radiant pipes embedded in the floor." 

   "The large picture window at the north east end of the building displayed various artwork several times a year…The attractive park site remains a fine setting for the building.”

   Now approaching the century mark, Triangle Park was reaffirmed officially as a public park--retaining its historic name and purpose--in 2010.  

   The Main Street Branch Library, http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/government/departments/library/hours_location/main_street_branch.cfm--now over 60 years old and a veteran of municipal budget wars and development ideas--still provides community library services, free Wi-Fi, and a green lawn on which to lie back and read a good old-fashioned book.  

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.   

Historic Downtown Walking Tour: Shank House

ABOVE: A classic Southern California bungalow, the Shank House is #19 on the walking tour in historic downtown Huntington Beach.  It is located at 205 5th Street, on the southeast corner of Walnut Avenue and 5th Street. (Photo, May 2012) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

-Updated April 2018-

   Constructed in 1913, the Dr. George A. Shank house originally had an ocean view.  It was moved from its original location at Pacific Coast Highway and 10th Street to its present location at 5th Street and Walnut Avenue in 1927, a time when a number of houses were moved out of the City's growing oil fields.

LEFT: The City Redevelopment Agency acquired the two-story bungalow in 1988 and it was provided to the Huntington Beach Police Department as a downtown sub station in 1991. (Photo, May 2012)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   Dr. Shank--one of the City's first medical doctors--served as the City's first health officer in the 1910s and as a member of the Board of Trustees for the City (predecessor to the city council) in 1926.

   It's fitting the bungalow is now used by the City's police department.  Dr. Shank also was responsible for financing the City's first city hall and jail complex, just a few steps away (see Historic Walking Tour #18, the Old City Jail at http://www.historichuntingtonbeach.blogspot.com/2012/04/historic-walking-tour-huntington-beachs.html).

   In August 1916, Shank offered to build for the City a 50' by 50' brick structure, with a 14' by 20' brick structure in the rear for a jail.*  The brick jail cells are still standing in the alley between 5th Street and Main Street, and are worth a stroll up the alley to take a look.  The windowless, brick jail cells--with their iron clad sliding doors--are across the alley from the oldest wooden building in the downtown, the present day Longboard Grill and Pub (built in 1904).  

   Shank later sold the city hall and jail buildings to the City for $12,000, allowing the new City to spread payments over a seven-year period.*  Today, Dr. Shank's home continues to serve the City as a police sub station in the historic downtown.

ABOVE: Huntington Beach police department circa 1920, shortly after Dr. Shank built the City a city hall and jail complex on 5th Street.  History came full circle when the Shank House was rededicated as a police substation in 1991. (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   When John Penner, Huntington Beach Independent, wrote about the Shank House in 1991 (Officials Dedicate Police Substation), he reported that "rumors have persisted for years that the new police outlet at one time housed a brothel."  Unconfirmed.  Although it's a popular rumor for a few of Huntington Beach's historic buildings, due to the undeniably rowdy days of oil discovery in the early 1900s.

   Dr. Shank helped found the Huntington Beach Masonic Lodge #380 in 1906.  Local historian Jerry Person wrote about the City's early Masons in a 2006 Huntington Beach Independent column, Looking Back, when the Lodge was marking its century anniversary.  Person reports the City's Masons had to travel to the Lodge in Santa Ana by horse or buggy, taking up the better part of day.

   "Because the Santa Ana River bed that separates our town from Santa Ana was too soft to cross directly, one would have to travel up to Westminster and then out to Santa Ana," writes Person, "It was in January or February of 1906 on just such a trip that a group of masons were leaving that lodge in Santa Ana to return to their homes in our town.  The prospect of a long, cold, rainy ride back got the men to thinking about forming a lodge in Huntington Beach that would be easier for them to reach."

ABOVE: Mounted police on Walnut Avenue near the Shank House, an image reminiscent of a century ago when Walnut was an oiled roadway and horses outnumbered automobiles.  Nearby on Walnut north of 5th Street, is the National Register-listed M.E. Helme House Furnishing Company--now an antique store--which still has a few hitching rings out front.  (Photo, July 5, 2014) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   Shank was a key force on the City board of trustees when appointed in 1926--the year before he moved his house to its present location--serving on five committees, including finance, streets and parks, health and sanitation, music and promotion, and water.  By then, he was an old hand on city business and had lent his Ocean Avenue and 10th Street home's garage as a polling place in local elections. The Santa Ana Register had noted in May 1908 that, "Dr. Shank deserves the gratitude of the community for his interest in public matters, which takes in everything for the public good".

   As a country doctor, Shank had treated everything from gunshot wounds after a fight over a woman at the cannery, to an accident at the Holly Sugar factory where a worker dropped a lead pipe on his foot, to the 1909 case of a seven-year-old boy finally coughing up a tack he had swallowed a year earlier (Shank kept the tack in his office). Many of his unusual medical cases were reported in the Santa Ana Register as news of local interest. 

   The architect for the Shank House, British-born Frederick Harry Eley, also was affiliated with the Masons.   He is the architect of record for the Masonic Building and Lodge in Anaheim in 1913.  

ABOVE: Interior of the Ebell Club, 625 N. French St., in Santa Ana, one of pioneer Orange County's many buildings designed by Frederick Eley.  It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. (Photo courtesy of Chris Jepsen, OC Historical Roundup)

   Eley is noted as the first registered architect in Orange County.  In addition to designing the Santa Ana Fire Station #1 on Sycamore Street, Eley is credited with "24 main school buildings...at least a dozen churches and Sunday School buildings. Most of the buildings at the Orange County Hospital and Poor Farm were of his design. Commercial buildings, a theatre, a Masonic Temple, the Santa Ana Valley Ebell Club, the Santa Ana Register building, the Pavilion at Irvine Park, and a post office were among the many well-designed buildings he has to his credit."**

ABOVE: Huntington Beach's City Gym and Pool, designed by Frederick Eley, was restored and rededicated in 2000. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo courtesy of Chris Jepsen and City of Huntington Beach archives)

   Eley also designed another of Huntington Beach's treasures, the Huntington Beach Elementary School Gymnasium and Plunge, 1600 Palm Avenue, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

   Eley worked largely in Santa Ana, but is credited with the design of approximately 125 buildings in Orange County, according to the Pacific Coast Architecture database.  Of the 49 residential structures he designed, the Shank House in Huntington Beach stands as one of the examples of his love for interesting design.

LEFT: George Shank passed away in May 1930, after spending three decades helping the Huntington Beach Township establish itself. His wife, Cora--who had helped organize the women's club in Huntington Beach--died less than a year later. (Santa Ana Register, May 20, 1930)

   Historian Diann Marsh writes about an elderly Eley's return visit to Orange County from England in 1967 "to help celebrate the 70th Anniversary of Irvine Park. He had designed most of the major buildings at the park, including the Dance Pavilion."

   "I stood there (in front of St. Paul's Cathedral in England)," Eley commented, thinking about modern architecture, "and thought if some of the young architects today could spend ten minutes looking at this beautiful cathedral, they'd realize there is more to architecture than putting up a packing case and punching a few holes in it for doors and windows."**

ABOVE: The Shank House is a Craftsman, or American Arts and Crafts Movement domestic architectural style, popular from the late 1800s to the 1930s. (Photo, May 2012) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*City of Huntington Beach, archival records for the Huntington Beach Board of Trustees, predecessor to the City Council.
**Diann Marsh, Santa Ana, An Illustrated History, 1994, Heritage Publishing

© 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.