"Pioneer Bird Man" Roy Chamness

Ad for Orana Bird & Goldfish Co. in the Anaheim Bulletin, 8-30-1926.

Orange County's "Pioneer Bird Man," Leroy Hood "Roy" Chamness (1890-1947), started out as an auto mechanic in Santa Ana around 1908 and worked on some of Glenn Martin's early airplanes, including his first. Roy was also a locally well-known hunter, regularly bringing down large bucks with a single shot and even capturing a bobcat to keep as a "pet." But neither the experimental airplanes he helped build nor the wild birds he shot were the source of Roy's nickname.

Glenn L. Martin's first airplane, built in an abandoned Santa Ana church (Los Angeles Times 8-4-1910)

Roy married Beatrice May "Bessie" Shaw in 1910. Somewhere along the line, they were given a canary as a gift. Bessie then bought a femalem, and soon they had a little flock. The Chamness' growing love of birds would direct the course of their lives. Throughout the early 1920s, Roy was running Chamness Brothers Bird Yard, at 915 E. Pine Street in Santa Ana, raising "fancy and song birds" with his brother, J. L. Chamness. In July of 1921 Roy and Bessie's son, Charles Herbert Chamness, was born.  

By late 1923, Roy, Bessie, and business partner William Paterson had their own Rare Bird Farm on Newport Blvd near 21st Street in Costa Mesa. While the focus was on their thousands of birds -- from finches, to macaws, to pheasants -- the farm also raised bull terriers, rare water plants, and fish. 

Charlie Chamness with macaws, parrot, and puppies in Costa Mesa. (Santa Ana Register 1-19-1924)

After a big article about the farm in the January 19, 1924 edition of the Santa Ana Register, the farm became quite popular. It was said that film comedian Buster Keaton was looking for a way to use the property in one of his films. 

On May 16, 1925 -- Roy and Bessie sold their interest in the farm to Paterson. They moved north and opened the Orana Bird & Goldfish Co. at the north end of Main Street at Chapman Ave. (Highway 101) in the little community of Orana. They were advertising in the Register in time for Christmas 1925.

Orana Bird & Gold Fish Co., circa 1928 (Courtesy Santa Ana Public Library)

Historian Phil Brigandi described the community of Orana in his book, Orange County Place Names A to Z: "In 1913, local rancher L. E. Smith built a garage  at the southwest corner of Chapman Avenue and Main Street, on the route of the new state highway through Orange County. Smith and his mechanic, Otto Buer, coined the name Orana because the spot was midway between Orange and Santa Ana. A 'scruffy business district' (as Jim Sleeper once described it) eventually grew up there. The name was well-known by the 1950s."

In 1927, the store expanded to include many more aviaries and a lily pond. But in August 1929, Chamness dropped "& Goldfish" from the store's name. It would remain the "Orana Bird Store" until at least 1934. 

Roy (left) and brother J. L. Chamness (right) with three-point buck Roy shot in Verdugo Canyon (Santa Ana Register 10-3-1922)

From 1936 onward, the store didn't even appear in local directories. But it seems Roy was operating a version of his store just up the highway from his old location, across from the Melrose Abbey mausoleum in what's now part of Anaheim. 

Chamness continued to be listed as a seller of birds and/or a gunsmith through at least the mid-1940s. Indeed, hunters from all over the country brought their guns to Chamness for repairs. Roy was already in poor health in September 1945, when a drunk driver crashed into the Anaheim store. The store closed, and Roy died on June 5, 1947. Bessie married widower William Isaac "Will" Donica of Costa Mesa in October 1948. Will died in 1965, and Bessie followed in 1973.