Saving history: The Main Street Branch Library on Triangle Park in Historic Huntington Beach

ABOVE: Interior of the first library in Huntington Beach at Walnut and 3rd streets, circa 1913.  In a donated building, the library moved around a bit before finding a permanent home. (Photo, Huntington Beach Public Library)

   "From the beginning the Huntington Beach Public Library has been an illustration of citizen concern for the community and its future generations...some local organizations and the Huntington Beach Women's Club called a mass meeting on February 15, 1909, to form a library association."
                                                              History of Huntington Beach Public Library 

   Huntington Beach received a pre-holiday gift this year with our City Council's unanimous endorsement of the effort to list the Main Street Branch Library on the National Register of Historic Places.

   We took a look at the history of this little library--sited in a historic park--in August 2012, Historic Walking Tour #12 and #13: Main Street Library and Triangle Park,
http://www.historichuntingtonbeach.blogspot.com/2012/08/historic-walking-tour-12-and-13-main.html

   Establishing a library was one of the very first acts taken by early pioneers as they set about creating a community.   Huntington Beach was a dusty seaside town with unpaved roads, not much of a water or sewer system, and the entire community pitched in with whatever was needed.  It was a time of big dreams for the community and for the future of California.
   

ABOVE: At the same time residents were creating the first library, others were trying to harness the power of the ocean. See "Masters of the Ocean Waves" http://www.historichuntingtonbeach.blogspot.com/2012/05/masters-of-ocean-waves.html (Image, Los Angeles Herald, December 19, 1909)

   When early residents formed a library association, they enlisted the help of librarians from nearby Long Beach, paying their lunch and traveling expenses.  At the time the first library opened in 1909  "there were 338 volumes in the library, 228 were gifts while 110 had been bought new. The new library subscribed to twelve magazines..." (History of Huntington Beach Public Library).

    As the community grew, the need for library services grew, eventually leading to the opening of the Main Street Library on Triangle Park in 1952.  Today, Huntington Beach is lucky to have a Richard Neutra-designed Central Library, sited in Central Park.  This was another effort by the community to create centers of culture and learning for residents and future generations, just like the first effort in 1909 and all those in between.

Left: Interior of the internationally acclaimed Huntington Beach Central Library, designed by Richard Neutra, in the City's 350-acre Central Park.  The Central Library holds the largest children's library west of the Mississippi. (Photo from the Italian magazine, Architettura, vol. 22, no. 250-251, 1976)

      The effort to list the Main Street Library on the National Register of Historic Places is a call to action for both Huntington Beach newcomers and descendants of our farseeing pioneers.  The first step is to enlist the nominating support from the California Office of Historic Preservation.

By January 8, 2013, send a LETTER or EMAIL supporting the historic listing of the Huntington Beach Public Library at 525 Main Street to:

William Burg
State Historian I
Office of Historic Preservation
State of California  
1725 23rd Street, Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95816
William.Burg@parks.ca.gov

 About the Main Street Library on Triangle Park:
   The Main Street Library, 525 Main Street, is sited in the original 3.57-square-mile townsite, which contains the National Register-listed Helme-Worthy Store and Residence (http://www.historichuntingtonbeach.blogspot.com/2012/08/historic-walking-tour-6-me-helme-house.html), Huntington Beach Elementary School Gymnasium and Plunge (1931), and Newland House (1898), as well as many locally designated and eligible properties.

   Five blocks north of Pacific Coast Highway, the property is near the historic site of the Huntington Beach Municipal Pier, surrounded by eclectic residential neighborhoods. As a neighborhood park including a number of nearly ninety-year-old palm trees, Triangle Park (1912) provides the setting for the 9,034-square-foot Main Street Branch Library (1950-1951), a locally designated City Landmark. 

   The Main Street Library was designed in the "International Style" of early post-World War II period of the Modern Movement. Municipal restoration efforts over the last 30 years have returned Triangle Park to an authentic mid-1920s period, and the park and library remain as both the earliest and latest components of the community's early Civic Center.

  National Historic Register criteria for listing include properties that embody a significant contribution to broad patterns of the City's local history, in the area of community planning and development, as well as properties representative of unique architecture. 

   Established as a recreational park in 1912, just three years after the incorporation of Huntington Beach, Triangle Park became part of the City's early-20th century Civic Center campus.  The Library's architecture represents the principles of postwar Modern design and the distinctive characteristics of site-cast, concrete tilt-up construction from the Mid Century  period, particularly that of public libraries. The Main Street Library is the work of masters, James Edward "Ted" McClellan, Denver Markwith, Jr., and Jack Hunt MacDonald.

A little mid-century inspiration. (Image, guardian.co.uk)

UPDATE: California Historical Resources Commission on February 8, 2013, voted unanimously (7-0) to recommend that the U.S. Park Service list on the National Register of Historic Places the Main Street Library on Triangle Park.  As of April 2013, we await word on the national listing.

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.   

Fire pits and beach camping

Sea Breeze Auto Camp, circa 1935. (Photo, Pomona Public Library)

   Visitors to Huntington Beach always comment on the pit fires dotting the beach at night.  It's routine for locals to celebrate birthdays, reunions or ordinary get togethers with a circle of friends at a beach fire.  It's also a long tradition, dating back a hundred years to when beach living was a necessity.

One of the tent cities of early Huntington Beach. Tent cities were constructed for early residents and oil workers, until housing construction caught up. Other tent cities were constructed for the annual Grand Army of the Republic reunions, the Methodist tent city, and revival groups.

The Methodist Auditorium and campground at Huntington Beach, circa 1910.  (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

The Grand Army of the Republic annual reunion in 1913, with a tent city stretching from Acacia to Orange streets in Huntington Beach.  (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   "In the early years, before and after 1920, there was a lot of camping on the beach," writes former City Historian Alicia Wentworth in a collection of "miscellaneous historical data" updated in 2005.  "During the oil boom days, there were hundreds of oil workers who couldn't get a place to stay and they had to rent rooms by the shift.  As many as three people would sleep in the same bed because of the shortage of rooms in Huntington Beach." 

By 1940, there was a forest of oil derricks on the coastline of Huntington Beach.  Homes, resorts, restaurants and shops now occupy the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway, while miles of open beach remain.  (Photo, Los Angeles Times)

   Wentworth describes the beach as "covered with cardboard shacks" and World War I army tents.  Around this same time, Bungalet Court--a collection of batten board cottages--constructed in the present-day Main Street Branch Library - Triangle Park site, provided additional housing for early residents.  The temporary nature of the housing prompted locals to call it "Cardboard Alley."

An early 1900s advertisement cheered the new "coast boulevard" which gave travelers an easy route between Los Angeles county and Huntington Beach.

   The demand for beach camping continued into the 1930s, transitioning from needed work-force housing to Americans' new-found love of road travel.  

   Charles Henry Davis, President of the National Highways Association, wrote about our new love affair with the open road in the May 1915 edition of Travel Magazine, "People, like water, must move or stagnate. They must run and play like the brook itself or become sluggish and dull—to themselves as well as to others. Of the seven modes of intercommunication—water, roads, postal, railroad, telegraph, telephone and wireless—only one, roads, is free to all the people of the earth." 

A custom motorhome, early 1900s.  Before the mass manufacturing of motorhomes and camping vehicles, Americans jerry-rigged their own road travel contraptions.  (Photo, Motor Magazine)

   The City of Huntington Beach leased property from the Huntington Beach Company for a campground, adding facilities and picnic tables.  The Sea Breeze Auto Camp was located south of Lake Street, along Ocean Avenue (present-day Pacific Coast Highway) and the railroad tracks to present-day Beach Boulevard. 

   Later, the Huntington Beach Company property was deeded to William S. Ebert after he bought out the City's interest.  Ebert added an oil and gas station at the intersection of Ocean Avenue and First Street in 1928, to accommodate travelers.  At the same time the City was adding "ornamental lights" and traffic control signals at the intersection of Main Street and Ocean Avenue.  Life in Huntington Beach was getting busier.

Pacific Electric Railway "red car" bringing beach-goers to Huntington Beach, circa 1907.  (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   By 1938, Ebert reported to the city council a total of 57,000 registrations representing a total of 140,000 people stayed at Sea Breeze, at an average stay of 16 days per person.  The total number of beach goers that year was 630,000, a ninety percent increase over 1937.  Only three percent of the people reported at the beach were from Huntington Beach.

Girls walking on the Huntington Beach pier, circa 1939, #2 on the Historic Downtown walking guide. (Photo, Pomona Public Library)

    Ebert constructed beach cottages at Sea Breeze and later gained city council approval to install a neon sign at the entrance, still a novelty at the time.

Sea Breeze Auto Camp with beach cabins and palm leaf awnings, circa 1935.  (Photo, Pomona Public Library)

   In an effort to manage camping at the beach, the City constructed a municipal trailer park at the beach in 1933, with a first night fee of 75 cents.  By 1949, the City was charging a whopping $35.00 a month or $10.00 weekly for a trailer beach side spot, $25.00 a month for tents.  Camp sites were equipped with electricity, with a 50-cent charge for a blown fuse.

Beach goers near the saltwater "plunge" next to the Huntington Beach pier, circa 1935. Note the oil derricks in the background. (Photo, Pomona Public Library)

   In addition to the beach, campers enjoyed amusements at the Pavalon next to the Huntington Beach pier which featured live music and dancing, and--as of 1919, an amusement "new to the coast," a dartboard.*  Life at the beach was good.

"Down at the beach," circa 1895, just the beginning of our fascination with Huntington Beach. (Photo, Santa Ana Public Library)

*In April 1919, the Huntington Beach Board of Trustees (predecessor to the city council) listened to a proposal by a Mr. Jacobs regarding installation of a small pavilion with amusements next to the pier, including a dart board--a brand new amusement--for which he would provide the City with "50% of receipts." 

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.