Orange County flag and a Tustin blimp hangar

The photo above shows O.C. Supervisor Alton Allen (wearing a tie and glasses) with a county flag that would soon be taken to the 1969 Boy Scout Jamboree. Note the decorative carousel horses at the South Coast Plaza parking lot in the background.
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There's good news for the historic North Blimp Hangar at the old Marine Corps Air Station Tustin. According to Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell,...

"The Board [of Supervisors] directed OC Parks to prepare a concept plan to establish a regional park at the former Marine Corps Air Station Tustin and to preserve the North Blimp Hangar. In conjunction with the concept plan, a number of analyses will be completed, including:

• A re-evaluation of the requirements necessary for the public to access the hangar and the costs to satisfy those requirements.
• A recreation demand and market evaluation of potential uses for the park, including the hangar.
• An assessment of the costs to develop park uses adjacent to the hangar.
• Exploration of the financing options available to OC Parks and the County to develop, operate, and maintain the regional park.

"The concept plan and supporting analyses are expected to be completed within a year. Board direction will then be sought to proceed with more detailed planning, design, and financing work and the preparation of a Program of Utilization for submittal to the National Park Service." (My thanks to the Heritage Coordinating Council for passing this news along.)

Saved. Not Paved.

Yesterday, our pal Mike Boeck attended the ceremony at which "Irvine Company CEO Donald Bren [shown above] officially signed over 20,000 acres (31.25 square miles!) of Irvine Ranch land to the people of Orange County. ...It was a beautiful day, just about perfect weather."
The land was given to OC Parks (still known to many as Orange County Harbors Beaches & Parks). Mike also took the photos you see in today's post. In the image above, County Supervisor Bill Campbell signs the document, accepting the land while Donald Bren, OC Parks Director Mark Denny and Supervisors Nelson, Bates, Moorlach and Nguyen look on. In the image below, Bren addresses the crowd.

Normally, I don't post about news events on this blog. But this transfer A) Was clearly an important moment in Orange County history, and B) Includes many historic sites on the land in question.

There's much more coverage of this event, the transfer, and its significance in an article in today's Register.

Orange Countiana returns!

The first issue of the newly-revived Orange Countiana historical journal is finally out, and it's outstanding.
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A couple years ago, I started encouraging the Orange County Historical Society (OCHS) to get back to the business of publishing substantive local history. Thanks to the Society's board and our editor, Phil Brigandi, the long-dormant Orange Countiana was brought back to life -- this time as an annual publication. (The previous five issues were published somewhat randomly over the course of more than 35 years.)
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I'm now on the editorial board -- But honestly, between our great contributors and an excellent editor, there wasn't much for me to tweak. Here are the major articles you'll find inside:

• Eighty Five Years In the Old Courthouse - Lecil Slaback
• Albert Barnes Clark: A Pioneer Community Leader - Paul R. Clark
• The Birth of Orange County - Phil Brigandi
• Orange County's Meandering Boundary: Coyote Creek - Esther Ridgway Cramer
• The Long Arms of the Octopus: Southern Pacific Politics in Early Orange County - Stan Oftelie
• Prohibiton Distills New Business on the South County Coast, Then Depression Pulls the Cork on the Good Life - Doris I. Walker

Some of the contributors will speak and sign journals at the OCHS holiday gathering on Thurs., Dec. 9, 2010, 7:30pm, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2400 N. Canal St., Orange. The meeting is open to the public and refreshments will be served.
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All OCHS members receive a free copy of Orange Countiana. Additional copies, or copies for non-members are available for $20 each. (Hint: Individual membership in OCHS is $20 a year, so you might just want to join!) If you can't attend the meeting and are not a member, feel free to contact me about purchasing a copy.

Joe McCarthy in Orange County

At last month's OCHS meeting, the folks from the Center For Oral & Public History's MCAS El Toro project mentioned something interesting in passing. Several of their interviewees, (including Maxine Wehry,) remembered Joseph R. McCarthy -- the future Senator and "red hunter" -- as "the base legal officer" at El Toro during WWII. I knew Lee Harvey Oswald had served there as a Marine, but the McCarthy story was new to me.
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McCarthy grew up in rural Wisconsin and earned his law degree at Marquette University in Milwaukee. In 1935 he was admitted to the State Bar, and only four years later was elected as a Circuit Judge in the 10th District.
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In 1942, he volunteered for the U.S. Marine Corps, even though being a judge exempted him from the draft. But his judicial position offered him automatic officer status.

As a second lieutenant, he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville. He also flew in bombers as an observer on about 12 missions, and may have served as a tailgunner during a few of those flights. He was in the South Pacific for two tours, from Sept. 1942 to March 1944.

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McCarthy was a Captain by the time he was sent "stateside" in July 1944. According to The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy by James Cross Giblin, sometime in August, "Joe reported to the El Centro Marine Corps Air Station, ...and was soon transferred to the El Toro Marine training base. He knew he would be eligible for another overseas tour of duty early in the new year and decided to try to head off the assignment. He would be up for reelection as a judge in April 1945, and he wanted to get ready for the campaign."

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In other words, he wasn't at El Toro very long.

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He resigned his commission on Dec. 11, 1944 and was home campaigning in Wisconsin by late January. He easily won the judicial election and immediately began planning his 1946 Senate race. From day one, he lied regularly about his military record to further his political career.
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The rest, as they say,...

"The weather's fine"

I like the fact that there was once a cottage industry selling postcards like this to Southern Californians specifically so they could gloat to their friends back East about our wonderful winter weather. There are subtler versions, but I like the in-your-face approach of this one.

Christmas at MCAS El Toro, 1945

Christmas is now officially just around the corner, and here's a little companion piece to my recent Thanksgiving post. I lifted (and then colorized) the artwork above from the 1945 MCAS El Toro Christmas dinner menu shown below.

From nose art on bombers to mess hall murals to unit logos, a lot of fun artwork -- both professional and amateur -- was generated as part of the war effort. Today I'm sure this menu would have some benign clip art on the front. But in 1945 we got Santa with a lecherous gleam in his eye.

Once again, this menu comes from the collection of CSUF's Center for Oral & Public History. The food selections bear a striking resemblance to the Thanksgiving menu from that same year.
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Does anyone else wonder why the reindeer has a spear sticking out of him? It seems fairly non-jolly and un-festive.

I cleaned up the back panel a bit in Photoshop and it still looks bad. It was damaged by one of those sticky "magnetic" or "magic pages" scrapbooks.
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Folks,... PLEASE don't use those things. However, if you already have family photos and momentos in one of those books, just leave them there for a couple decades until the glue dries up and they fall out. Otherwise, you're likely to damage the contents during the attempt to peel them off the pages.

Thanksgiving at MCAS El Toro, 1945

Happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm posting images of the 1945 Thanksgiving menu from MCAS El Toro. (As always, click on any image to enlarge it.) This menu comes from the collections of CSUF's Center for Oral & Public History. To get an idea of how busy the base was during the war, take a look at how many mess halls were operating!

It looks like they had quite a spread. Hope it tasted as good as it looked on paper.

You'd think it would be harder to have a spirit of thanksgiving during times of war, economic depression and hair-raising governance. But such times have a tendency to focus us -- as individuals and as a country -- and make us appreciate what's most important. And as one colorful Orange County transplant likes to say, "Tough times never last. Tough people do."

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Among the many things I'm thankful for are my family, my friends, and all the tough people (the Marines most definitely included) who will see us through these hard times.

Heritage Museum of O.C., California Heritage Day

Last weekend, I attended California Heritage Day at the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana. The event celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the original California Constitution, which was ratified in 1848. As Sharon Brown pointed out, "It was published in both English and Spanish. It guaranteed significant rights to the established Spanish-speaking population. Most of these were withdrawn when the NEW 1879 Constitution replaced it."
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Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the photos I took that day. The image above shows Ernie Perez Tautimes Salas of the Tongva people, performing a traditional blessing during the day's opening ceremony. Below is a fellow dressed as the Franciscan padres did during the Mission era.

I don't think enough people know about the Heritage Museum of Orange County (HMOC). It's an especially great place to take kids -- either individually or whole school classes. While they don't have all these reenactors milling around every day, there is a lot to see and do here. Everything from blacksmith demonstrations to panning for gold.

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But the centerpiece is really the Kellogg House -- home of one of Orange County's first surveyors, Hiram Clay Kellogg and his family. This Victorian gem is now a very hands-on museum, where kids can experience what everyday life was like in California around 1900. They can play the pump organ, churn butter, run a foot-operated washing machine, listen to cylinder records and a Victrola, use a stereopticon, pick oranges, try on period clothing, and much more.

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I know I'm starting to sound like an ad. But I believe in this place and really think it deserves extra attention. I actually worked there as a docent when I was in college, and let's just say that the current management and staff have clearly worked their butts off to improve and enliven the place. Oh, yes... Back to the photos: A couple Californios show off their guns, bear skins, and fancy duds in the image above. Yes, those were real knives they had stuck in their belts (and in their boots), but I wasn't intimidated. As you'll see in the photo below, I was carrying a pick-axe.

Yes, that's me, at the "Falcon Mining Co." claim, getting a jump on "Talk Like A Grizzled Prospector Day."

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I also ran into my friend and fellow OCHS board member, Carolyn Schoff, (shown in the photo below,) who I almost didn't recognize in her Early California attire!
All these photos -- plus images of many other historical events and locations I visit (and a whole lotta other random stuff) -- are posted on my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/traderchris/. Feel free to stop by and visit whenever. Note especially the photo sets marked "Orange County History," "Knott's Berry Farm," "Tiki & Polynesian Pop," and so forth.