The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Introduction

As part of my research into Fullerton history, I have created a number of mini-histories that will eventually be integrated into a larger narrative. Some mini-histories I’ve written so far cover such local topics as Hawaiian Punch, Hughes Aircraft, Cal State Fullerton, Maple School, and more.

I have recently completed writing a history of the Fullerton Police Department. The first source I read was an official history of the department published in 2002 by the Fullerton Police Officers Association. While this gives a broadly accurate narrative and includes lots of useful facts and notable people, it leaves out anything negative about the department. I have sought to supplement this history with news articles I obtained in the Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library, and others online. Another excellent source of information was a memoir written by former Fullerton police officer Phil T. O’Brien called Bullets, Badges, and Bullshit. O’Brien, who worked for the FPD from 1961 to the early 1990s, offers some useful color to a story that might otherwise feel kind of dry. 

My hope is that, by synthesizing these diverse sources, I am able to give a more well-rounded picture of the department over the years. This history is, of course, incomplete, but I’ve tried to include as much information as I could find.

Early Days

In the latter half of the 19th century, prior to the formation of the town of Fullerton in 1887, the area was sparsely inhabited by a few farming families. Anaheim had a town constable, but there was no regular law enforcement presence in the area that would become Fullerton. Crime was limited to the occasional “bandit” roaming the area between Los Angeles and San Diego.

“The only law enforcement for the area was the LA County Sheriff’s office out of downtown Los Angeles,” according to FPD’s official history. “The new settlement of Fullerton was a one-day ride on horseback for the assigned lone deputy.”

For a few years after Fullerton was founded in 1887, there was no law enforcement. Saloons and rowdiness downtown created the push for some police presence.

“A number of roughs, hailing from everywhere, make it a point to come to Fullerton every Sunday, and after imbibing a library quantity of tarantula juice proceed to paint the town a bright, brilliant, carmine tint,” the Fullerton Tribune reported in 1893. “They do this with the knowledge that we have no peace officer in this section, and accordingly they have no fear of arrest. We need a constable and a justice of the peace. Anaheim, a small village a few miles south of here, has two of each.”

Eventually, A.A. Pendergrast was appointed as the town’s first constable. Pendergrast, taking ill with rheumatism, was replaced by James Gardiner, son of pioneer farmer Alex Gardiner. Tragically, James died of pneumonia after risking his life to save a young girl during a flood in 1900. He was replaced by Oliver S. Schumacher.

In 1904, Fullerton incorporated as a city, creating an official government. The first elected town marshal was W.A. Barnes. However, he resigned that same year, overwhelmed by the workload which (at that time) included supervising all roadwork and being on duty from 7am to midnight.

City Council appointed orange and walnut grower Charles E. Ruddock to finish the term for which Barnes was elected. Ruddock was re-elected in 1906. That same year, Fullerton residents voted to go “dry”—and outlaw saloons in town, which had been (and would continue to be) a point of contention and fierce debate.

Ruddock was re-elected in 1908. He expanded the department by appointing four deputies. He “retired” in 1910, and ran (successfully) for Orange County sheriff in 1914.

In 1910, Roderick D. Stone was elected town marshal. He left in 1912 and was replaced by William French, who would eventually become a local judge. It was during French’s term that the title of “marshal” as changed to “chief of police.” William French allegedly joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, along with many other cops and local leaders.

In 1914, Fullerton police got their first official uniforms. 

Vernon “Shorty” Myers was elected police chief in 1918. That year, the first motor cops hit the streets, riding Indian motorcycles. In 1919, a new city jail was built.

The 1920s

Arthur Eeles became police chief in 1922. A former Deputy OC Sheriff, Eells had been a sharpshooter with the 364th Infantry during World War I, surviving a mustard gas attack in France.

In 1925, Eeles was asked to resign following a local controversy involving Ku Klux Klan members conducting their own vigilante raid on suspected bootleggers. Eeles was thought to be in league with the Klan.

In the mid-1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had a large presence in Orange County, including Fullerton. Their members included police officers, city council members, judges, teachers—white protestant men from all walks of life, including many prominent community leaders.

A new chief, O.W. Wilson, replaced Eeles. An academic as well as a law man, Wilson would later go on to become a well-respected pioneer in policing, teaching at Harvard and serving as police chief of Chicago.

But he didn’t last long in Fullerton and left the same year he began. He was replaced by Thomas K. Winters, who served for two years, being replaced by James M. Pearson in 1927, who would serve for 13 years.

In those early decades, police chief turnover was quite high, likely a result of the chief having to run for re-election every two years. It appears that some time during Pearson’s term, the police chief went from an elected position to one appointed by city hall because he was the first in a series of longer-tenured chiefs.

During the 1920s, Prohibition was in full effect, and local law enforcement struggled to control bootlegging.

The Fullerton police department occasionally held a public “booze pouring” events in which they dumped out hundreds of gallons of illegal booze they had seized.

And then, in 1926, something embarrassing happened. Some Fullerton police officers were accused by another officer of stealing wine from the department’s stock of seized liquor for personal use.

After a few public hearings before City Council, the accused officers denied any wrongdoing and were not convicted of any crimes. The whole ordeal, however, caused a shake-up in the department, in which some officers were forced to resign.

Adding to the embarrassment, Fullerton City Councilmember Emmanuel Smith and beloved football coach “Shorty” Smith were both arrested and fined on liquor charges. Neither lost their jobs.

By 1929 the force was made up of eight men: Kenneth Foster, Frank Moore, RC Mills, SR Mills, JH Trezise, John Gregory, Jake Deist, Ernest Garner, and Chief Pearson. 

Prior to radios and walkie-talkies, communications between the police station and officers on duty was conducted by a series of call boxes and lights atop tall buildings downtown—sort of like the Bat signal.

The 1930s

In the 1930s, the Fullerton Police Building and jail was located at 123 W. Wilshire Ave, just behind the fire station. It had three rooms—the chief’s office, the report dest, and the jail cell which had eight bunks.

In 1936, Fullerton Night School began offering a special course for police officers.

That same year, thousands of local Mexican citrus workers went on strike. Hundreds of law enforcement (including sheriff deputies and those from surrounding cities) battled with the strikers in what was the most intense labor conflict in Orange County history.

The FPD made local headlines in 1937 when Ernie Garner arrested two bank robbers who were on the run, although it was mostly just luck. One of the robbers fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the car right in front of Garner a block from the police station.

According to the official FPD history, “In the 1930s, the majority of calls was for drunks, fights, and citrus-related thefts. The patrolmen spent most of his day interacting with the downtown merchants as this was the hub of activity for the small town.”

The 1940s

Chief Pearson retired in 1940 and was replaced by John C. Gregory, who modernized the department with a record-keeping system modeled after the FBI’s.

During World War II, the city established a Police Officer Reserve Corps, air raid wardens, a home guard, and a civil defense council.

After the war, Fullerton entered a period of rapid growth, necessitating more police officers. 

“In the 1940s, the type of calls for service changed dramatically. Crime became more frequent as did the instance of violence. The calls for service started to include robberies and burglaries,” according to the official police history. “Traffic accidents were also on the rise with the influx of the population. The small justice court which was held in the city council chambers was outgrowing the facility. The municipal court system was set up to relieve the pressure of the individual justice courts throughout the county.”

In 1941, Fullerton celebrated the completion of a brand new city hall on W. Commonwealth and Highland Ave. The Spanish-style WPA building also housed the police department. Today, it is completely occupied by the police.

The 1950s

In 1951, police chief John Gregory retired and was replaced by Ernest E. Garner, who had served in the police department since 1928. The department had 21 employees.

In the 1950s, as the city continued to grow, the first police radio cars were put into service.

In 1955, the Fullerton Police Benefit Association (a sort of proto-union) was formed to give services to officers, including loans, insurance, and to promote social activities.

Chief Garner retired in 1957 and was replaced by Wayne Bornhoft, who would serve for many years and leave an indelible mark on the department. Today, the Fullerton Police Station is named in his honor.

Bornhoft was instrumental in establishing the Fullerton Police Training School in 1960. He served as President of the California Peace Officers Association, and was appointed by governor Reagan to the California Council on Criminal Justice.

According to O’Brien, Chief Bornhoft “never left any doubt in anyone’s mind was to who was in charge of the Fullerton Police Department. He was an authoritarian figure who ruled with an iron fist.”

Fullerton hired its first female police officer, Geraldine K. Gregory, in 1959. She worked in the Investigation Division in cases involving juveniles and women.

That same year, 1959, the Fullerton Police Training Academy was formed.

The 1960s

In the 1960s, the Fullerton Police Benevolent Association became more like a real union, with its president being the chief negotiator with the city regarding salaries, benefits, and working conditions. 

In response to concern over increased recreational drug use, the FPD established a narcotics bureau in 1967. Ironically, according to officer O’Brien, the drugs of choice for Fullerton Police were alcohol and steroids.

Fulleton in the 1960s was a pretty conservative town. Officer O’Brien, who was hired in 1961, reflected the conservative establishment’s disdain for the hippie and counterculture of the era.

“Long hair on a male soon became a reason for a shakedown,” O’Brien writes. “Probable cause for a car stop, a pedestrian check, or a pat-down search for drugs or weapons was often listed in reports as simply, longhair.”

O’Brien gives a fascinating account of clashes between police and hippies in the late 1960s at Hillcrest Park, which had become a popular gathering place for young people, rock concerts, and recreational drug use.

“The bowl area became a gathering place for dirt-bag hippies and dopers,” O’Brien writes. “They soon began homesteading the park and made it such an undesirable place that families could no longer go there. We would run them out and make arrests whenever possible, but the situation continued to worsen, and the numbers of troublemakers grew.

Eventually, City Council passed ordinances to close the park at night, prohibit camping, sleeping, and/or “protracted lounging.”

Here’s O’Brien’s account of a final confrontation between the police and the hippies in 1969 at Hillcrest Park:

“More and more dirt-bags poured into the park from all over the state. They began to refer to it as ‘The People’s Park.’

The situation came to a head one day after the news media had advertised far and wide, that on that day the Fullerton Police Department SED Squad [a precursor to SWAT] was closing down the park and would arrest anyone who failed to leave. The less than desirable inhabitants of the park looked upon this declaration as the ultimate challenge. The publicity attracted literally thousands, including newspaper reporters and television crews. Also present were the Mayor, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, and several fire rigs, paramedics, ambulances and even a few civil rights groups.

We embarked on the task of routing this mob out of the park. They were in the trees, in the bushes, and had homesteaded every conceivable bit of space…It turned into a snipe hunt, and was soon a matter of officers in terms of two or three going after the most flagrant violators.

We were stormed with rocks, bottles, bricks, metal pipes, etc…The battle that day went on for hours, and extended out of the park, through a residential area, and south of Lemon Ave not the Fullerton College campus. A new line was established at Lemon and Berkeley to keep people from filtering back up into the park.”

Eventually, the “People’s Park” was cleared of “dirtbag hippies.”

Another confrontation between the youth and the police occurred at CSUF in the Spring of 1970, when an appearance by Governor Ronald Reagan sparked a series of student protests that drew thousands, lasted for weeks, and involved the occupation of campus buildings.

“During this same period of unrest throughout the nation, many agencies began to form and train special riot control squads,” O’Brien writes. “Fullerton was among the first, if not the first in Orange County to form what was called the Special Enforcement Detail (SED)—it was a forerunner to SWAT.”

O’Brien was on the original SED squad sent in to quell the CSUF protests.  

“When we arrived on campus there was a crowd of about 2,000 people,” O’Brien writes. “During the exchange that took place after we moved into the crowd, several officers were injured, but none seriously. A number of students and other participants were also injured.”

Click HERE to read more about the 1970 student protests at CSUF.

As a member of the SED squad, O’Brien was also called in to quell such countercultural events as a hippie festival at Disneyland (including the legendary “Pot Day on Tom Sawyer’s Island”), and the massive 1970 Laguna Rock Festival.

The 1970s

The Department established a “community relations bureau” in 1971, which eventually included the D.A.R.E program instructors, School Resource Officers (SROs), and the Neighborhood Watch program.

In 1974, the department was expanded with a $1.4 million building.

Chief Bornhoft encountered some controversy when he ordered the investigation of an alleged bribery attempt from a housing developer and a City Councilmember, which prompted the council member to try to get the chief fired.

“I have no apologies to make to anyone,” Bornhoft said of the investigation. “That’s the way government should function. There should be checks and balances. I don’t believe that just because an official is an elected official and he is possibly involved in a criminal offense, I can walk away from it and let someone else do it. I feel it is my responsibility to investigate it.”

According to a 1977 LA Times article, Bornhoft’s reign “has been marked by controversy. A sizable segment of the community has supported Bornhoft, seeing him as a conservative, iron-willed, law-and-order chief. His supporters contend that the streets have been safe and the crime rate has held at a modest level. Others however contend that Bornhoft was not sensitive to the problems of minorities and unable or unwilling to communicate with the people.”

Bornhoft retired in 1977, and was replaced by Martin Hairebedian, a 23-year veteran of the LAPD.

By the 1970s, the Fullerton Police Officers Association was becoming a more powerful union which negotiated with the city for higher pay, benefits, and working conditions. 

“In 1979 the association fought for and won a 30% single year increase,” according to the FPOA history. “The members not only walked the picket line in front of city hall but they also rallied the business community.”

The 1980s

In 1983 the FPBA changed the name to the current Fullerton Police Officers Association.

When Martin Hairabedian retired in 1987, Philip Goehring became chief of police. He had worked for the department since 1961. He got a law degree in the 1970s and taught police science courses at Fullerton College.

“The department had a bad reputation in the community,” Goehring said upon taking over the department. There had been 75 citizen complaints registered against officers the year he arrived.

While he was chief, Goehring created the first written policy manual and oversaw automation of police records.

The 1990s

In 1990, tragedy struck the Fullerton Police Department when undercover officer Tommy De La Rosa was killed in Downey in a drug bust gone bad.

Thousands attended De La Rosa’s funeral and years later a street was named in his honor.

During the 1992 LA riots, some FPD officers were sent to assist the LAPD and the National Guard. Ironically, the LA Riots began because an all-white jury acquitted the LAPD officers who were caught on tape brutally beating Rodney King.

In 1991, Chief Goering became engulfed in controversy when it was revealed that he had written a letter to the District Attorney on behalf of his friend’s son, who had been convicted on a drug charge.

“With the memory of Tommy de La Rosa, a popular Fullerton narcotics detective murdered in an ambush this past summer in Downey still fresh in their minds, Goering’s rank and file officers were outraged when the letters became known,” the Fullerton News-Tribune reported.

Despite an official apology, Goering’s officers had begun to lose faith in him, and he retired in 1992.

In the early 1990s, the Fullerton Police Department created a program called “Operation Clean-Up” which was (initially) focused on improving quality of life in a few Latino-heavy neighborhoods in south Fullerton that were experiencing the impact of local gangs.

Initially, the program involved sending officers on mountain bikes into the neighborhoods to attempt to build a better rapport with the community. This was an attempt at “community policing.”

Lieutenant Tom Bashan told the Fullerton News-Tribune, “When I first started [police work], it was ‘we against them.’ That attitude is gone. You get to know who the people are, you know most things about them, you start developing other ways of handling people besides strict enforcement.”

The program seemed off to a good start, even winning a Governor’s Award.

In 1993, Pat McKinley, a 29-year veteran of the Los Angeles police Department, was chosen to become Fullerton’s next Chief of Police.

McKinley had been involved in the formation of the LAPD’s SWAT squad, which was the first in the nation. It was created following the 1965 Watts Riots and was an important step in militarizing the police, and ramping up aggressive policing tactics.

It was under the leadership of Pat McKinley that the community policing activity of “Operation Cleanup” took a much more aggressive turn.

The Fullerton Police department conducted an aggressive “sweep” of over 33 homes in the Maple area of South Fullerton, breaking down doors of suspected “drug dealers” and terrorizing families.

Reporting for the OC Weekly, Nick Schou wrote that the department “adopted operations reminiscent of Vietnam: an occupying army bent on separating the ‘bad guys’ from the ‘responsible’ population it claims to protect—and, at the same time, using brutal tactics that tend to punish both groups in equal measure.”

Following the sweep, McKinley faced a room full of angry residents at a meeting at the Senior Center.

An elderly Mr. Alberto Sambrano said, “I have lived here since 1939 and I have never seen anything like this before, the way they treated my 70-year-old wife. They destroyed my garage, a dresser in the house and a tool shed. We were treated like animals. They handcuffed my grandson Jonathan Navarro, who has never been in trouble. They took a gun my dad had given me 50 years ago.”

“Officer #1037 pulled my disabled brother up from his hospital bed and threw him on his wheel chair,” Gloria Hernandez told the chief.

Maple area resident Bobby Melendez said, “Use of stormtrooper tactics by the police and physically & verbally abusing people in their homes is not a minor matter.”

Charges of excessive force also occurred when heavy-handed police tactics were used against mostly Latino students from Fullerton College and local high schools during a protest.

“More than 20 students suffered slight injuries when Fullerton police, assisted by officers from several neighboring cities, used pepper spray and arrested six people, ending a rally and march of about 300 students who were demanding more Latino educators and more Chicano studies in schools,” the LA Times reported.

Apparently the protest, which had started at Fullerton College, turned into a March through Fullerton streets, and ended with a clash with police near Lemon street.

“One of the girls in front of me was hit with a baton and it hit me on the side,” Grace Ruiz, a 15-year-old high school student said. “The police didn’t need to hit us with their batons or spray us with pepper spray.”

In 1994, the Fullerton Police Officer’s Association (the police union) started a Political Action Committee to funnel money to City Council Candidates they felt would support their interests, and occasionally oppose candidates they did not want. This PAC remains an important source of campaign contributions.

The 2000s

In 2000, the FPOA-PAC endorsed Chris Norby and Mike Cleseri for City Council. They were rewarded with a new contract that brought about the “3% at 50 retirement package” and a significant pay increase. In 2000, the FPD got a new a new high-tech crime lab.

In 2002, the FPOA-PAC supported Don Bankhead, Leland Wilson, and Shawn Nelson for City Council. They all were elected.

In the early 2000s, a new subculture caught the attention of the FPD–rave culture.

“Hours after 250 undercover narcotics officers finished an intense Rave Parties seminar at Fullerton City Hall last Friday, local police found signs of the Hollywood club culture at a local nightclub and high school dance,” the Fullerton News-Tribune reported.

“This is one scary culture,” said Fullerton Police Sgt. Joe Klein, president of the Region V chapter of the California Narcotics Officers Association, sponsors of the two-day workshops.

Apparently, Fullerton club In Cahoots came under fire for hosting rave nights.

Following 9/11, the North Orange County Regional SWAT team was organized.

In 2004, the Fullerton Police Department got a $12 million renovation.

Chief McKinley retired in 2008, and was replaced in 2009 by Michael F. Sellers.

“I have always told my officers that we have three jobs,” Sellers said. “Our first step is to save lives. When lives are not at stake, our next job is to protect life. When that’s not an issue, our job is to help improve the quality of life for our citizens, and that is done through community-oriented policing.”

At the time of his hiring, Sellers taught classes in ethics, leadership and community-oriented policing at Fullerton College.

The 2010s

In 2011, Sellers’ ethics and leadership were put to the test when six Fullerton police officers were caught on video brutally beating a homeless man named Kelly Thomas to death.

Local residents began to flood City Council chambers and organize weekly protests outside the police department, demanding accountability for the killing of Thomas.

What did Sellers do? He went on disability leave one month after Thomas’ death, and then retired.

Capt. Kevin Hamilton was selected to serve as acting chief, and then he retired. 

Two officers, Jay Cicinelli and Joe Wolfe, faced criminal charges over the death of Thomas, and the department faced three internal investigations by a special consultant. Both Cicinelli and Wolfe were ultimately acquitted, sparking one of the largest protests in Fullerton history.

Also, as a result of their perceived lack of leadership after the death of Thomas, three City Council members, including former Chief Pat McKinley, were recalled by the voters.

Dan Hughes, a 28-year veteran of the department, was appointed Police Chief in 2013.

Although the Kelly Thomas case was the highest profile incident of police brutality in the 2010s, there were others, such as the cases of Veth Mam and Edward Miguel Quinonez, both off whom were attacked by officer Kenton Hampton, who was also involved (but not indicted) in the Kelly Thomas case.

Officer Albert Rincon was accused of sexually assaulting several women in the back of his cruiser. And in 2012, corporal Vincent Mater was found guilty of destroying evidence after a man committed suicide in his cell at the Fullerton Police Department.

Dan Hughes retired early in 2016 after allegations that he gave special treatment to former City Manager Joe Felz, who drunkenly crashed his car into a tree after an election-night party and then attempted to flee the scene. 

Hughes was hired as VP of security at Disneyland. The District Attorney filed a felony charge against former police Sergeant Rodger Jeffrey Corbett for falsifying a police report about the Felz incident.

Hughes’ replacement as chief was David Hendricks who (not long after being hired) got into hot water after drunkenly assaulting an EMT outside a concert in Irvine in 2018. He was charged and pled guilty.

Hendricks was released and replaced by Robert Dunn.

The 2020s

In 2020, Fullerton Police Officer Jonathan Ferrell shot and killed resident Hector Hernandez. This sparked years of protest by Hernandez’s family and community members. Although the DA declined to file charges against Ferrell, the city paid out an $8.6 million settlement to Hernandez’s family. This indicates a pattern in which officers who kill people in the line of duty rarely face criminal consequences, but sometimes (if there is enough public outcry) the city (aka the taxpayers) will pay out millions to the family of the deceased.

Also in 2020, following the death of George Floyd, there were large-scale protests and rallies for justice and police reform, including here in Fullerton.

In 2021, the Fullerton Police Department collaborated with other local agencies to create Project HOPE, with the purpose of doing more proactive outreach to the local homeless community. This program still exists today.

Because of a general lack of an adequate social safety net for the homeless, the job often falls to the police to deal with a social problem that they are ill-equipped to deal with. Sometimes the police collaborate with social service agencies (as with Project HOPE), and other times the police are asked to be strict enforcers–clearing homeless camps, arresting the homeless, and sometimes (as in the cases of Kelly Thomas and Jose Luis Naranjo Cortez, brutalizing them).

In 2023, Chief Dunn left the department and Capitan Jon Radus became Fullerton Police Chief.

That same year, the Police Department started using a drone to monitor Downtown Fullerton and other areas.

In 2024, Fullerton police killed Alejandro Campos Rios outside a McDonalds. This prompted more protests.

This year (2025), Fullerton Police killed a young man named Pedro Garcia. Another homeless man, Jose Luis Naranjo Cortez, died in Lemon Park after an encounter with the police.

Although it may seem like there have been more police killings since 2020, this is more likely the result of recent California state laws that require mandatory public reporting of in-custody deaths. It is likely that, in previous decades, many in-custody deaths were not made known to the public.

The Fullerton Police Department does a fair amount of community outreach/public relations events like the annual National Night Out.

The local police union, the Fullerton Police Officers Association remains active in local politics, using their Political Action Committee to support and/or oppose candidates, often successfully. This has allowed the police budget to remain much more stable than other city employees who have had to weather much steeper cuts.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1950.

In 1950, Fullerton’s population was 13,939, and would continue to rise rapidly over the next two decades.

The Korean War

In international news, the Korean War was playing out as both a civil war between north and south, and as a proxy war between the communist east and the capitalist west in the context of the Cold War.

The Red Scare

On the homefront, Senator Joseph McCarthy was terrorizing American liberals and progressives by accusing many people of being communists, usually on the flimsiest of evidence.

Richard Nixon (who was from Yorba Linda and had attended Fullerton Union High School) had been elected to Congress and was doing his part to fan the flames of the Red Scare. Fullerton in 1950 was a much more conservative place than it is today.

Being a local figure who was also running for Senate, Nixon made many appearances in Fullerton in 1950, including speaking at the FUHS commencement.

More Local Politics

In 1950, four men ran for two Fullerton City Council seats. They were:

Irvin “Ernie” Chapman, wealthy rancher, son of Fullerton’s first mayor/Valencia orange king Charles C. Chapman.

Homer Bemis, a general contractor.

Kermit Wood. Not sure what he did for a living, but he was likely a business owner and he ran on a platform of opposing a new business license ordinance.

Jack Adams, a former public relations man for Lockheed Martin, who also opposed the business license ordinance.

Ultimately, Adams and Wood upset the incumbents Chapman and Bemis–likely because of their opposition to the business license ordinance.

Thomas Eadington, fruit grower, was named Mayor.

Fires!

Probably the biggest and most tragic news story of 1950 was a massive fire that destroyed three major buildings downtown in the 100 block of West Commonwealth–the McCoy Mills Ford Agency, Pacific Citrus Products (famous for making Hawaiian Punch), and the old Fullerton Hotel. The damage was estimated at $500,000. Only one person was injured.

“An early morning fire, believed to be the worst in the history of the city, and probably the worst in Northern Orange County, totally destroyed an automobile agency, a citrus products plant, a 58-room hotel, and damaged a hardware store,” the News-Tribune reported.

It was believed the fire began at the Ford Agency before spreading to Pacific Citrus Products.

“The juice plant went up in a hurry as citrus oils and alcohol caught fire and an early morning breeze fanned the flames,” the News-Tribune reported. “As the citrus plant burned and bottles and cans exploded, syrup concentrate ran ankle deep in the gutters. The smell of scorched syrup filled the air.”

This was not the only fire in 1950. Another one destroyed a packing house.

Can a House be Built in Three Days?

Fullerton continued to experience rapid growth, as many new housing subdivisions provided affordable homes. To demonstrate to the world that Fullerton was growing fast, local developers the Jewett Brothers hosted a big PR event in which workers built a whole house in three days.

A By-Product of Growth…Smog

Fullerton Goes to the Movies

For culture and entertainment, Fullertonians went to the Fox Theater, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1950.

The Fullerton News-Tribune includes an article about two men, Kenneth A. Rogers and Richard L. Martin, who worked at the Fox Theater since it opened. Rogers was superintendent of maintenance, Martin was the projectionist. 

“Few, if any, of the large crowd that packed the theater on opening night know that a fire took place in the basement during the performance,” the News-Tribune reported. “Paint used used to color lights caught fire and the blaze set off the automatic sprinkling system. All available personnel were pressed into duty, bailing out the water which was seeping into the wardrobe trunks of a vaudeville troupe. C. Stanley Chapman, president of the company that operated the theater, Rogers recaslls, stood in two inches of water with the others trying to head off the flood.”

The article explains how, in the late 1920s, the theater became a favorite place for Hollywood previews. 

“Among movie stars who attended previews of their pictures here were Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Sally Eilers, Harold Lloyd, Victor McLaglen, Buster Keaton, Colleen Moore, Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, and Edmund Lowe,” the News-Tribune reported.

The first movie shown at the theater was Tom Mix in “Dick Turpin,” (an English period piece) which was a flop.

Both Rogers and Martin got their jobs because they worked at the old Rialto Theater downtown. When Harry Wilbur left the Rialto to manage the new theater, he took the two men with him.

The other theater in town was the Wilshire Theater.

Cultural Appropriation

Fullerton Union High School hosted its annual “Pow Wow.”

Yass Queens!

In the 1950s, Fullerton loved to crown queens for various public events.

The Midwest in SoCal

Fullerton hosted an “Arkansas Day” picnic on the Fourth of July that drew thousands.

New Schools

In education news, Golden Hills Elementary School was planned, to be built with bonds approved by the voters. Many new schools were built in the 1950s and 1960s as the area grew in population.

Fullerton put in a bid to be home to a new state college. Unfortunately, they lost out to Long Beach. It would be another decade before CSUF came to Fullerton.

Dr. H. Lynn Sheller succeeded William Boyce as head of Fullerton College.

The Big League Comes to Amerige Park

The Los Angeles Angels trained at Amerige Park in Fullerton.

Citrus Industry

Although some orange groves were being plowed under for housing subdivisions, the citrus industry was still quite large in Fullerton and surrounding areas.

Stay tuned for top news stories from 1951!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1949.

National and World News

In world news, the Russians tested their first atomic bomb–a pivotal event in the Cold War.

American planes were dropping food and aid into Russian-blockaded Berlin as part of the famous Berlin airlift.

The “Red Scare” was increasing in intensity, as famous Hollywood actors (including Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, and Gregory Peck) were charged with being communists (they were not).

Although mass shootings are generally seen as a 21st century phenomenon, there was a mass shooting in Camden, New Jersey when a “Bible-carrying war veteran described as a near religious fanatic” shot and killed 12 people.

Local Pilots Set World Endurance Record

Perhaps the biggest local news event of 1949 was the flight endurance record set by local pilots Dick Reidel and Bill Barris who flew their plane the Sunkist Lady for 1008 hours.

Annexation Fight with Anaheim

The second biggest local news story of 1949 was an annexation fight between Fullerton and Anaheim over a strip of “no man’s land” that once separated the two towns. At stake was future tax dollars from housing and industrial development. After much legal maneuvering, court fights, resident protests, and council meetings, Fullerton won the fight over the coveted land.

Housing

After World War II, Fullerton entered a period of rapid growth, as housing subdivisions replaced orange and walnut groves.

Another notable housing issue in 1949 was the end of wartime era rent controls, which had been put in place to protect renters during a period of a housing shortage. Landlords were keen to end rent control, and they were successful.

Education

To accommodate the population growth, new schools were constructed. In 1949, Fullerton opened Valencia Park school.

New schools and expansion of existing schools were often paid for with bonds.

Infrastructure

As Orange County grew, new infrastructure was needed, including an expanded sewer system, paid for with a bond measure.

The 1940s and 1950s saw the dawn of freeways in Southern California which required using eminent domain to acquire land from property owners.

Culture and Entertainment

For culture and entertainment, Fullertonians went to see movies at the Fox Theater (which still exists) and the Wilshire Theater (which is now an apartment building).

Famous Broadway singer John Raitt, who was from Fullerton, returned to his hometown for a special concert.

Fullerton hosted a Fall Festival that drew thousands.

Sports

In sports news, professional baseball teams would play games at Amerige Park.

Hometown hero Del Crandall entered the big leagues.

Business

The pages of the Fullerton News-Tribune contain advertisements for some notable local brands that started in Fullerton and went on to be big national brands, including Hawaiian Punch.

Social Life

There were numerous social clubs in Fullerton in 1949, some of which still exist.

Church was also an important part of community life.

Snow Falls in Fullerton

A rare snowfall occurred in Fullerton in 1949.

Deaths

Beloved Fullerton College coach Arthur Nunn died.

Stay tuned for news stories from 1950!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

As part of my research into Fullerton history, I’ve just finished reading an excellent book called Fullerton: The Boom Years by Sylvia Palmer Mudrick, Debora Richey, and Cathy Thomas. The book vividly chronicles Fullerton’s extraordinary growth after World War II, as orange groves gave way to housing subdivisions, shopping centers, schools, and industry.

I present here a book report on some interesting things I learned.

Like much of Southern California, Fullerton experienced rapid growth and development after World War II. The population grew from 10,442 in 1940 to 85,987 in 1970. 

Housing

Housing restrictions and shortages created by the Great Depression and the War led to a massive pent-up demand. And after the War, the floodgates opened.

Thanks to the GI Bill, returning servicemen were able to purchase affordable homes and pursue nearly free higher education. Housing developers couldn’t keep up with demand, but they sure tried. Development after development replaced orange and lemon groves.

“By August 1955, twenty-seven homes were being added to the city’s residential neighborhoods each weekday,” the authors write. “In 1955 alone, the city approved fifty-five new tracts for a total of 3,910 lots.”

Many of Fullerton’s older housing subdivisions (those built in the 1920s and 1930s) had racially restrictive covenants that barred nonwhites from occupying or owning property. This is what created segregated neighborhoods—with Mexicans and African-Americans unable to buy or rent homes outside carefully proscribed neighborhoods.

But in 1943, Fullerton resident Alex Bernal successfully challenged these racial housing covenants. When he and his wife bought a small home at 200 East Ash Avenue with a restrictive covenant, fifty white neighbors signed a petition asking Bernals to move. When that didn’t work, they filed an injunction against the Bernals.

The case went to trial, and the Bernals won, with Judge Albert R. Ross ruling that the Bernals could stay in their home. Doss et al v. Bernal was one of the earliest legal victories against racial housing covenants in the nation.

Although this type of housing discrimination became nationally illegal in 1948, it didn’t totally end, as is chronicled in the book A Different Shade or Orange: Voices of Orange County, California Black Pioneers.

Education

With the housing and population boom came the need for new schools to accommodate the children of the “Baby boom.”

“From January 1951 to January 1961 alone, three hundred new elementary school classrooms were added as the student population rose from 1,969 to 11,626,” the authors write. “From 1949 to 1966, the Fullerton Elementary School District constructed almost one school per year.”

Between 1945 and 1970 the Elementary School District grew from four to twenty-one schools.

The only remaining pre-war schools in Fullerton are Maple School, Fullerton Union High School, and Fullerton College. Every other school in Fullerton that exists today was build after World War II. And each of these older schools was significantly expanded after the war.

CSUF opened in 1959 on over 200 acres of former orange groves in east Fullerton, and eventually expanded into the massive campus it is today—one of the largest in the CSU system.

The GI Bill and the Master Plan for Higher Education in California made college nearly tuition free during the 1960s and 70s. 

The end of World War II brought the Cold War, as tensions mounted between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The fear of communism led to “Red Scare” policies like school teachers and administrators having to sign loyalty oaths and schoolchildren doing “Duck and Cover” drills, as if getting under a desk would save someone from a nuclear blast.

The local newspaper ran a five-part series on “Survival under Atomic Attack.” Bomb shelters were built, and thousands of pounds of survival supplies were hidden in the tunnels under Fullerton High School.

Protest and Change

Although Fullerton was a pretty conservative place, the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements of the 1960s and 70s still had an impact here, mostly on the campuses of Fullerton College and CSUF, and at Hillcrest Park.

In the late 60s and early 70s, students would often gather at the Hillcrest Park “bowl” on Sundays “to protest the war, make speeches, and play rock music,” often to the chagrin of the residents who lived near the park.

In May 1969, following residents’ complaints, police moved in to clear the park of “approximately 300 rock and bottle-throwing students,” the authors write. “A total of twenty-two arrests were made, and two officers were injured. In a later incident, rioting crowds armed with rocks and bottles attacked officers attempting to close the park…As a result of that incident, the city council, at the urging or Chief Bornhoft and Parks and Recreation Director Jim Cowie, voted to close Hillcrest Park on Sundays.”

Following this, the local chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized a protest at Amerige Park and city hall.

“Protests—led by a group of Fullerton College students that called itself the Hillcrest Liberation Front—continued at various spots around the city through the remainder of 1969 and into 1970. After several months, the council temporarily lifted the ban, and on April 25, 1971, a rock concert attended by an estimated 2,500 people was held in the Hillcrest Park bowl. Eleven arrests were made for primarily drug-related offenses, but officers deemed the event mostly peaceful.”

A visit from conservative governor Ronald Reagan to CSUF in 1970 sparked months of protests and even the occupation of at least one building on campus.

“The usually quiet commuter campus became the site of mass unrest and violent events that continued throughout the spring semester in, with protesters occupying the administrative wing of the Letters and Science Building,” the authors write.

In 1972, antiwar activist Ron Kovic led local students on a protest march to the corporate offices of Honeywell Inc, a defense contractor. 

That same year, the local school board voted to close Maple school because it was determined to be a segregated school. Read more about that story HERE.

Business and Industry

Although the postwar years saw the gradual decline of the once-sprawling orange groves, the citrus industry still remained through the 1960s, and workers were still needed for the harvests. The Bracero Program brought thousands of Mexican workers north to work the fields of California.

As had happened a few times throughout its history, white residents opposed the construction of housing for the Mexican workers in Fullerton. In the early 1950s, a proposed citrus labor camp in southeast Fullerton led to a recall campaign against the council members who supported it. Although the recall ultimately failed, it highlighted lingering and widespread prejudice against Mexicans.

Some of the larger industrial businesses that built plants in Fullerton in the postwar years included: Beckman Instruments, Kimberly-Clark, Sylvania Electrical Products, and Hughes Aircraft.

Some businesses that existed before the war (like Kohlenberger Engineering, Pacific Hawaiian Products, Hunt Foods and Industries, and Fender Musical Instruments) saw major expansion of their facilities.

But industry had a dark side, too.

“While the air and space industry and other manufacturing industries were a driving force in the extraordinary postwar economic expansion of Fullerton, these companies left the city with a legacy of pollution, including the contamination of groundwater with toxic chemicals, heavy metals and persistent carcinogens, as well as soil degradation,” the authors write.

One of the more egregious polluters in Fullerton was Raybestos-Manhattan Inc., which at one time was the second-largest manufacturer of asbestos-containing products in the US. 

Another source of pollution was the McColl dump site, a 22-acre site next to what is now Ralph Clark Park, which was used for disposal of refinery waste during and after World War II. In 1982, after residents complained of odors and health problems, the EPA placed McColl on its superfund list, and some remediation steps eventually taken (it was “capped”). 

On the retail front, the postwar years saw the introduction of more “big box” department stores like Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, and Sears, which tended to have a negative impact on the smaller “mom and pop” stores downtown.

In 1958, the Orangefair Shopping Center opened at the southeast corner of Harbor Boulevard and Orangethorpe.

Postwar prosperity also saw an increase in leisure-oriented businesses like Carter Bowl, Merilark Roller Rink, Cinderella Dance Studio, the Checkered Flag Mini-Raceway, and golf courses.

Local cocktail lounges included the Melody Inn, Happy Chaps Bar, 2J’s, and The Mill.

Politics and Government

For much of Fullerton’s history, its elected city council members were conservative white males. In fact, every city council member from 1904 (when the city was incorporated) to 1970 was a white male. Click HERE for a full list.

But the civil rights and women’s movements brought an increased push for diversity. The first female council member and mayor was Frances Wood (elected in 1970). The first person of color on the city council was Louis Velasquez (elected in 1976).

Arts and Culture

The Boom Years gives mini-profiles of a number of notable people who came to prominence in the arts after World War II. Here are some of them. Click their names to read more.

Ruby Berkeley Goodwin (author).

Ethel Jacobsen (poet).

Philip K. Dick (science fiction writer).

Betty Lou Nichols (ceramic artist).

Lewis Sorensen (dollmaker).

Florence Millner Arnold (artist).

The Hunt Branch Library, a gift of Norton Simon’s Hunt Foods and Industries Foundation, opened in 1962. It was designed by renowned architect William L. Pereira.

“Perhaps one of the city’s greatest missed opportunities occurred in 1964, when the Hunt Foods and Industries Foundation, a project of millionaire industrialist and philanthropist Norton Simon, announced that it was willing to donate $500,000 to the city for construction of a museum to house Simon’s renowned art collection,” the authors write. “however, negotiations with the city fell through.” Simon took his collection to Pasadena, opening the Norton Simon museum there in 1972.

Fullerton’s contributions to post-war popular music include Fender Guitars, the Rhythm Room (a popular spot for Chicano rock bands), and  (a bit later) significant early punk bands like Social Distortion and the Adolescents.

Interestingly, the punks of the late 1970s and early 1980s were often rebelling against the clean-cut suburban landscapes their parents had created and enjoyed.

Other Notable Events

1949: Local pilots Bill Harris and Dick Riedel set a world endurance flight record in their airplane Sunkist Lady.

1950: A fire destroyed a large portion of the 100 block of West Commonwealth, including the McCoy and Mills car lot.

1957: St. Jude Hospital opened.

1963: A new City Hall opened.

1973: A new Public Library opened.

You can purchase a copy of Fullerton: The Boom Years HERE.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Post-War International News

World War II had ended the previous year, and the first frosts of the Cold War were being felt between the capitalist west and large communist countries like Russia and (eventually) China, despite the fact that these were our allies during the War. The existence of the atomic bomb, and Russia’s attempts to create one for itself, exacerbated these tensions.

This tension between the US and Russia would also spark increased espionage and paranoia which in the US would eventually become the Red Scare.

Defeated Axis powers Germany and Japan were occupied by Allied powers to ensure they would demilitarize and follow the political path the Allies wanted them to follow.

Both German and Japanese war criminals were tried and executed.

Just as World War I caused the end of old empires like the Ottoman Empire, the end of World War II brought about the beginning of decolonization of European empires like the British and Spanish. India, a former British colony, would achieve independence in 1947.

Conflict over the Holy Land would result in outright war between Israel (which would become a state in 1948) and Palestine. Also, the British were still present there, as a legacy of colonialism.

Fascism was not totally defeated in World War II. In Spain, Francisco Franco’s authoritarian regime would continue for decades.

Here, President Truman states the American post-war position.

Veterans Issues

Having won the war, American soldiers were eager to return home and resume their civilian lives. Many GIs protested delays in their discharge as the US was hesitant to remove occupation forces in places like Germany and Japan.

While European colonial empires were losing some of their power and global reach, the post World War II era saw a rise in the United States’ international military and economic presence around the world. This did not usually take the form of overt colonization (which was becoming out of fashion), but rather took the form of military bases, plus increased US business and political presence globally. Some might call this a new kind of empire.

For those thousands of GIs who were eventually discharged, a new problem emerged—a housing crisis. There was not enough housing for all the vets, and it much of it was too expensive. Both federal and local governments responded by building lots of new housing and establishing programs like the GI Bill that made is affordable for vets to get home loans and go back to college.

Here in Fullerton, homebuilding increased dramatically after the war, and some of the new homes were explicitly for veterans, such as the 25-unit College View adjacent to Fullerton College.

Because housing production and affordability was a national and local priority, both federal and state governments had some form of rent control.

Both veterans and those who died in the War were honored with memorials. The Isaac Walton League planted a number of redwood trees as a “Living Memorial.”

The Boom Years

The post-war period has been rightly called the “Boom Years.” Fullerton grew quickly. It was a perfect location to build a suburban middle class lifestyle. By 1946, Fullerton’s population was a little over 12,000, with room to grow.

“Large, previously undeveloped areas are being subdivided and plans call for the erection of houses at the rate of city blocks at a time. In addition to lesser buildings programs on W. Wilshire and W. Amerige avenues, Jewett Brothers are preparing a tract on N. Basque ave for construction of 78 homes for sale to war veterans,” the News-Tribune reported. “In the northern hills of Fullerton is one of the largest subdivisions of its kind in the entire west. Eighteen hundred acres of the Sunny Hills Ranch in this are area available for development of residences. According to planners of this subdivision of rolling hills and orange groves, it will make up one of the most exclusive residential areas in California and will attract new citizens to the extent of doubling the population of the city of Fullerton.”

To accommodate this growth, the city also spent a lot of money expanding the city’s infrastructure, including roads and sewers.

“Most outstanding of city projects to be undertaken is street development, calling for an expenditure of nearly $1,000,000 within the next 10 years,” the News-Tribune states. “Under the program being considered the city will build new streets, widen, resurface, and improve existing arterials.”

Plans were drawn up for a large recreation complex next to Amerige Park (where the Community Center is today), although it appears these plans never materialized.

In addition to lots of new homes, Fullerton was also expanding its industrial base, with growing manufacturing firms here like Kohlenberger Engineering, Pacific Citrus Products (which made Hawaiian Punch!), and Hunt Brothers.

While large swaths of former orange groves were being removed to make way for buildings, the citrus industry was still a notable presence in Fullerton, and would remain so through the 1960s.

One problem of growth was the need to acquire more water. Stay tuned for more on this.

Fullerton’s health care needs were outgrowing its old hospital, and so the Sister’s of St. Joseph proposed construction of a new, larger hospital near Fullerton College.

However, the NIMBY forces were strong, and some nearby property owners objected to the proposed hospital location.

Eventually, City Council approved an alternate location for the hospital. Stay tuned for more on this.

In transportation news, City Council approved parking meters downtown.

Labor Strikes

The immediate post-war years (1945-46) saw a massive wave of labor strikes rock the country, sometimes shutting down entire industries, prompting government intervention, and occasional rioting.

Industries that saw large-scale strikes included railroads, coal, steel, meat, postal workers, and more.

Both the Fullerton News-Tribune and local business elites tended to portray strikers negatively, sometimes associating strikers or unions with communism.

Powerful business interests, like the Associated Farmers and and Employers Industrial Relations Council, who had spent the depression colluding with government to suppress strikes and labor movements, did their part to paint the strikers as dangerous, lawless radicals and communists.

The labor troubles reached Fullerton, with over 400 workers at Hunt Bros. going on strike.

The strikes affected Fullerton in other ways by (briefly) stopping the postal service, travel, and shipping of goods.

“The processing of oranges in Fullerton has been stopped at some plants and greatly retarded in others due to the railroad strike,” the News-Tribune reported. “The California Fruit Distributors have stopped picking and packing until arrangement can be made to receive oranges in trucks…There is not much danger of losing the crop as the oranges are not too ripe yet.”

The strikes affected peoples’ ability to buy certain foods, like meat.

In response, congress passed a “tough” anti-strike bill, the Taft-Hartley Act.

Civil Rights

Speaking of constitutionality, a very important civil rights case was playing out in 1946—Mendez et al v. Westminster—in which a group of Mexican American parents sued a local school district for segregating Mexicans and whites. The case was an important local step in ending school segregation.

A recent census showed that, while Fullerton’s population was 12,173, there were only 96 Black people living in the city. Orange County has historically had a very low Black population due to housing (and other forms of) discrimination. 

In a student essay, African-American student Robert Goodwin (son of famous Fullerton author Ruby Berkeley Goodwin), described the specific type of housing discrimination Black people faced in Fullerton at this time:

“Many people in Fullerton do not know that there are only certain sections where Negroes and Mexicans can live. This is due to the fact that years ago when Fullerton was first being settled, real estate men found out that they got lower prices for the property where Mexicans lived; so they enacted a law called the Restrictive Covenant. This forced the Negroes and Mexicans into one small section. This condition has caused many deaths in Fullerton because it forces large and small families to live in houses that are run down, badly roofed, and badly lighted. Such conditions are play grounds for Tuburculosis and other diseases.

“At present we have two drives on. One is to feed the starving children of the world and the other is to clothe and house them. We are taught that “Charity begins at home.” Such should be the case in Fullerton. “Restrictive Covenants” have been in effect too long. It’s time the people of Fullerton stopped talking about equality and started practicing it. When I was small I used to wonder about our “Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.” When I’d get to the part, “With Liberty and Justice for All,” I knew that part of the pledge didn’t apply to me.

“Let us of Fullerton strive to do better. Let’s make the future Mexican an Negro children of Fullerton know that the “Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag,” isn’t just a bunch of fancy words: but that it is their guarantee of equal rights in the country that their fathers along with their white brothers fought for.”

Many Mexican Americans at this time did not live in regular neighborhoods, but rather in segregated citrus camps, or colonias, and white people did not not want these anywhere near their neighborhoods.

In 1946, when a new colonia was planned for the west side of town (at Orangethorpe and Magnolia), local white residents successfully blocked its construction.

“A group of property owners appeared before the council and presented a petition signed by 148 property owners and renters in that neighborhood voicing their objections,” the News-Tribune reported. “Objections raised were that since the neighborhood was fully developed as a residential district, the establishment of the camp would diminish the value of the residential area; that the quality of the usual people in such camps was not satisfactory and would create unwelcome problems.”

George A. Graham, manager of Citrus Growers, Inc., the company attempting to build the camp, argued that it “was the only site large enough and that there may be need for 3000 workers for next season who needed a place to live.”

After hearing the residents’ objections, Fullerton City Council, and then the Orange County Planning Commission, denied approval of the proposed camp.

Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan (which had a sizable local membership in the mid-1920s) was again raising its ugly head in Southern California.

Here are some excerpts from the above articles:

“The burning of a cross the the lawn of a USC Jewish fraternity and the destroying of a sacred scroll in a synagogue across town, on whose walls were penciled two swastikas were being investigated today by police.

“The incidents were the latest outbursts involving racial prejudice in Southern California, where reported revival of the Ku Klux Klan is under investigation by the state.

“The flaming cross was discovered on the lawn of Zeta Beta Tau at 2:15am today by Stanley Schlessinger, a member of the fraternity. The letters “KKK” were painted in black on the front of the house, and kerosene had been used to etch the same letters in the lawn. Firemen were called to extinguish the blazes.

“Rabbi Max Nussbaum reported to Hollywood police that the sacred Hebrew Torah scroll, a handwritten document on rare parchment, was torn from its holy ark at Temple Israel and ripped to pieces. A section of it was stolen.

“Across the wall in the hallway where the torn pieces were left was scrawled the German words “Der Juden parasite” (the Jewish parasite). Two swastikas were drawn on the wall.

“Over the weekend, firemen also were called to fight a field fire that had been set by a fiery cross at Hill Drive and Eagle Rock boulevard.

“Police are seeking to determine whether the Klan is behind recent demonstrations.

“The City Council was asked to investigate the burning of a cross May 13 on the lawn of Mr. and Mrs. H.G. Hickerson, negro couple who have been fighting restrictions on real estate that prohibit negroes from living in a section of southwest Los Angeles.

“Officers have blamed the Klan for burning a cross in the downtown district of Palm Springs last month. Investigators from Kenny’s office have reported “progress” in their probe to determine responsibility.

When a local civil rights group met in Santa Ana to protest lynching of Black people, they were labeled as “communists” or “dupes” of communists by the very same George A. Graham, representing the powerful Associated Farmers group.

“Communists have reopened their assault on Orange County camouflaging their movements behind “innocent-sounding front organizations,” George A. Graham, Associated Farmer’s secretary, disclosed this morning,” the News-Tribune reported. “Graham referred specifically to the meeting scheduled for tomorrow night in the Ebell Club, Santa Ana, featuring speakers from the American Veterans’ Committee and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and sponsored by the C.I.O. Committee.”

The NAACP is “notoriously pink,” Graham charged, “and the American Veterans’ Committee also is regarded with suspicion because of certain definite left-wing tendencies.”

Graham aid his organization which “combats and exposes subversive activities,” is principally interested in “protecting citizens from smearing their own reputations by innocently associating with Communist groups.”

As can be seen, there was real opposition to civil rights progress at this time. It should be noted that Martin Luther King Jr. was smeared as a communist by his opponents. In the context of the Cold War, it was an effective (if dishonest) tactic.

Politics

In local political news, Homer Bemis and Irvin C. Chapman (son of Fullerton’s first mayor and powerful citrus grower Charles C. Chapman) were elected to city council in 1946.

Bemis was “engaged in real estate, building, brokerage, and development,” according to the News-Tribune. “In the past four years he has been actively engaged in the construction of homes, having built more than 100 homes within this period, with his associates.”

Chapman, of course, helped manage the citrus and business empire his father built.

Local drug store owner Verne Wilkinson was chosen as mayor.

In other political news, James Musick was elected as Orange County Sheriff, and Sam Collins (who had previously served in Congress) was elected to represent Fullerton (and surrounding areas) in the State Assembly.

Sports

In sports news, local professional teams would train and play games at Amerige Park.

Local baseball legend Walter Johnson died.

Culture and Entertainment

For culture and entertainment, Fullertonians went to see movies at the Fox Theater.

Bowling was also popular downtown.

Fullerton hosted a Fall Festival that drew thousands.

Accidents and Tragedies

Below are some local accidents and tragedies that occurred in Fullerton in 1946:

There appears a story about oil waste dumping by an E.A. McColl of Long Beach in Fullerton. Decades later, this would be determined to be a Superfund Site–a site of large-scale toxic pollution.

Deaths

Local baseball legend Walter Johnson died.

Harry Lee Wilber, Fullerton’s beloved “Man About Town” columnist and managing editor of the News-Tribune, died.

Wilbur began his career as a journalist in Denver, then moved to Los Angeles where he worked for the LA Times. In 1917, he moved to Fullerton and switched careers by opening the Rialto Theater, Fullerton’s first movie theater.

In 1925 he was hired by the Chapman family to manager what became known as the Fox Theater. His daughter Alice had married C. Stanley Chapman.

After he retired from the movie business, he returned to journalism, writing a popular column in the News-Tribune called “Man About Town.” 

“Harry Lee was more than just a columnist,” the News-Tribune reported. “He was a brilliant desk man, who could take a story, put a lively twist to it, write a sparkling headline, and present it to the reader in an interesting manner. He usually wrote his daily column between breaks in his laborious editing routine.”

Dr. Frank Gobar, who practiced in Fullerton from 1906 to 1939, died.

“Dr. Gobar saw Fullerton grow from a village with two dirt roads intersecting at Spadra and Commonwealth avenues to a ‘modern city’,” the News-Tribune reported. “Many of the babies he brought into this world are now grown and active in civic and community affairs here.”

Local constable Walter Skillman died.

Early settler Bernard Arroues, a notable Basque immigrant, died.

Miscellaneous

Long time Fullerton Fire Chief Roy R. Davis retired 32 years of service with the Fullerton Fire Department.

Here’s a brief history of the Fullerton Fire Department and Davis’ tenure there:

He joined the department in 1914 as a volunteer, paid on calls only. The fire department was established in 1908 when fires demonstrated the real need for organized fire fighters.

In 1917 Davis was appointed fire chief and councilman by the City Council to fill the unexpired term of Joe Clever who resigned. After that he was elected twice to the council and then retired as a member of the council. However, he has been fire chief ever since. In June 1927, he was employed and paid on a full time basis while up to that time he had only been paid on calls.

The fire department sponsored a bond issue drive in 1914 for $5000 to puchrase a modern fire truck. The issue carried and the truck was ordered and arrived early in 1915.

After the fire department purchased the first truck it was housed in the Albert Sitton garage where the Volk & Wiese store is now located. Later the department was housed where the McMahon Furniture company is now and then moved to 127 W. Amerige avenue before moving to its present location on 123 W. Wilshire avenue. The present fire hall was built in 1926, part of which was used by the city officials and served as a temporary city hall.

In July 1924 the second fire truck was purchased. Both trucks are still in operation.

Davis first made a trip to Pasadena and Orange in June, 1909. He was married at Pasadena in August 1909, and he and his wife took a trip to Seattle and took the norther route to Nebraska, their former home.

In March 1910, they came to Fullerton and settled here. His foiks also came out here at that time. His father W.R. Davis, and brother-in-law C.S. Orton, built the Fullerton Ice company which is now the Crystal Ice company under different ownership. Davis was associated with his father in the ice business.

Charles O. Potter was named the new Fire Chief.

Stay tuned for top stories from 1947!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

California State University, Fullerton played a very significant role in my early adulthood. I got my B.A. in English there in 2004, and then went on to get a M.A. in English in 2007. That same year, I began my college teaching career. I taught English composition at CSUF for about ten years as an adjunct faculty. Being adjunct, I also taught at other local colleges, including Fullerton College and (briefly) Santa Ana College. 

As a student, and then as faculty, I had mixed feelings about CSUF. There were things about it that I loved. I (mostly) had great professors. I enjoyed the Arboretum, the outdoor concerts. I loved the Library (until it started getting rid of its book collections in favor of computers). But there were things that kind of bugged me too—the steadily rising tuition, the low pay of adjunct faculty in comparison to full-timers, the construction of things like a multi-million dollar fitness center while student fees were increasing, the multi-year closing of the Library in the 2010s, etc. I left CSUF around 2017 to pursue a stint in local journalism.

Around 2008, retired history professor Lawrence de Graaf published a surprisingly in-depth history entitled The Fullerton Way: 50 Years of Memories at California State University, Fullerton. De Graaf had taught at CSUF almost from the beginning and his insights are extremely valuable. 

As part of my larger research and writing about Fullerton history, I present here summary of De Graaf’s book.

The genesis of what would become CSUF was the passage of Assembly bill 4 in 1957, establishing a four-year state college in Orange County. 

The chosen site in east Fullerton was (like much of Orange County) orange groves. The state began acquiring the land in 1959.

“Thus began the transformation of acres of oranges into one of the largest institutions of higher education in the nation,” de Graaf writes.

Fullerton, and Orange County in general, was experiencing a period of rapid growth following World War II, as orange groves gave way to housing subdivisions, schools, shopping centers, and industrial parks. The passage of the GI Bill created a large number of potential college students.

In 1959, William B. Langsdorf was named the first president of what was initially called Orange County State College.

As the state acquired land, the Fullerton High School District allowed the new administrators to use the second floor of an old (condemned) building on the Fullerton High School campus.

The first college “campus” was a building at the newly-built Sunny Hills High School, on the other side of town. It was here, in 1959, that the college offered its first classes. Later that year, faculty and administrative offices moved to an old farmhouse (the Mahr house) on the site of what would become CSUF.

In 1960, as it continued to acquire more land and funding for permanent buildings, the college built temporary buildings and bought four wooden barracks from nearby March Air Force Base.

In 1960, the state adopted the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, a very important document that established the roles of community colleges, state colleges (CSUs), and Universities (UCs). Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Master Plan was that it promised “tuition free” higher education in California. And for a couple decades, it (mostly) kept this promise. Those who attended CSUF in the 1960s and 1970s paid minimal student fees. This would unfortunately change starting in the 1980s, but more on that later.

“Funding increases reflect a period in which higher education remained a relatively high priority in state spending. The Cold War and the Space Race focused public attention on the need for teachers and well-trained students, and federal programs like the National Defense Education Act began to supplement state financing of higher education. During this period (early 1960s) the budget for all state colleges more than doubled,” de Graaf writes. “Through the 1960s, state colleges boasted that they offered ‘tuition-free’ education, not a fully true assertion. Each college charged a material and services fee of $33 per semester for full-time students; non-residents were charged $90. Students and faculty paid parking fees, and there were small fees for admission and registration. 

In 1963, the first permanent classroom building was completed—the Letters and Science Building, which was later named McCarthy Hall, after early professor/administrator Miles McCarthy. This was followed by the Music, Speech, and Drama building, which opened in 1964.

The school nickname, the Titans, was chosen in 1959 by students.

In 1962, a strange event put the college on the map—the nation’s first intercollegiate elephant race, a goofy event dreamed up by students.

“On Friday, May 11, 12 elephants with malhouts (riders) and trainers, most of them in Indian garb, lined up as if the event was the culmination of months of careful planning. Cars lined up for miles along the few narrow roads serving the campus. By the time the race started, 10,000 spectators stood along Dumbo Downs and 89 reporters assured nationwide coverage,” de Graaf writes. “Most of the elephants never completed the course, some refusing to run at all. Harvard was declared the winner. Stories of the race appeared in Newsweek, Time, and Sports Illustrated.”

Following this, the elephant was adopted as the school mascot. 

A need for student housing became apparent when the basketball coach brought several Black athletes from Detroit to play at the college.

“During the 1960s, most Orange county communities essentially excluded blacks, save for a substantial community in Santa Ana and smaller ones in Fullerton and Tustin, near the El Toro Marine base…Consequently, these students found it impossible to rent accommodations,” de Graaf writes. “Continued hostility from the local population posed a significant obstacle for black students. Housing remained virtually impossible to obtain. One early black student made 108 applications before the 109th gained him the right to lease an apartment. Three other black students found an Anaheim woman willing to rent to them, only to have a mob of white neighbors pressure her into canceling the deal. Most black students either used Orthrys Hall [an early dorm] or made long commutes from places outside Orange County. Police posed another problem, stopping black students to inquire what they were doing on campus or in North Orange County…One sign of community attitudes came in 1965 when the first campus pastor, Rev. Al Cohen and his wife adopted a racially mixed child. The community complained to campus officials about this arrangement, and after months of threatening phone calls, the Cohens gave up their child for re-adoption and subsequently left the campus.”

CSUF began in the context of the Cold War, and the politics of the time affected the college, “epitomized by declaring the science building a nuclear fallout shelter as well as by the suspicion that Communists or their sympathizers lurked within America’s government and schools. One of the most vocal proponents of this idea was the John Birch Society, and one of its biggest areas of influence included Orange County.”

During this time, all professors had to sign loyalty oaths, and “President Langsdorf issued an order forbidding Communist speakers on campus. This act roused occasional debate and some editorials in the Daily Titan,” de Graaf explains.

In the 1960s, Orange county was still an overwhelmingly white area, and Latinos were not yet attending college in large numbers. In 1967, the college had only five black students and similarly small numbers of Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos.

In 1967, a battle for academic freedom was waged in Fullerton, following a graduate student production of Michael McClure’s controversial play “The Beard” at CSUF.

“Staging a play notorious for graphic language and a simulated sex act in conservative Orange County was daring particularly following court cases against its production in 1966. Given unauthorized tickets to the private performance, reporters from local newspapers sparked a maelstrom of media scrutiny. The ensuring legal battle between the CSF academic community and a group of conservative state senators resulted in a Senate investigation and hearing. The incident became a cause celebre for academic freedom,” De Graaf writes. “Senator John G. Schmitz, a John Birch Society member, warned budget cuts to higher education could emerge as one means to handle ‘flagrant moral corruption and revolutionary violence planned and carried out behind the cloak of academic freedom.’”

To read more about The Beard episode, check out my report HERE.

Ronald Reagan was elected governor in 1966 and immediately ordered budget cuts for universities.

“To accommodate new students, the campus set up 18 trailers. Since this building crisis coincided with Governor Reagan’s repeated efforts to cut state expenditures, many at CSF deemed him responsible for such makeshift quarters. Consequently, the temporary offices were dubbed ‘Ronald Reagan Hall,’” de Graaf writes.

It was the Reagan administration who proposed increasing student fees.

“Ironically, the invitation to Governor Ronald Reagan to give his first address as governor at a public campus in California served as the catalyst for the turmoil of spring 1970,” de Graaf writes. 

Reagan gave a speech in the campus gym, during which some students heckled him.  College officials brought disciplinary action against two of the hecklers, Bruce Church and Dave MacKowiak, and the police filed criminal charges against them.

Students held a rally in the quad to “Free Dave and Bruce” demanding that the school and the police drop charges against the students. When Langsdorf refused, hundreds of students staged a sit-in in the Letters and Science building and Langsdorf’s outer office. These students were forcibly removed by police in riot gear.

When the Student Faculty Judicial Board tried to hold disciplinary hearings on Bruce and Dave, students broke in and disrupted the proceedings. Vice President Shields called Fullerton for police assistance.

Around 90 officers responded: “Police began arresting those who stayed in the quad and charged into groups with clubs. In a few minutes, some faculty managed to get between students and police. Professor Hans Leder declared the whole Quad an impromptu class, soon after which Shields convinced the police to leave. The number of students arrested for heckling or the events on March 3 grew to 37. Daily meetings on the quad and displays of banners continued through March and into April,” de Graaf writes.

The protests were given added intensity by the Kent State massacre, as well as the war in Vietnam. Students occupied the Performing Arts Building.

This sparked a reaction by local conservatives, who organized a group called Save Our Society (SOS), which was supported by Fullerton State Assemlyman John Briggs. After an SOS meeting on campus in May, someone burned one of the temporary buildings next to the one used by student protesters. 

As the summer began, the protests died down, with some students arrested and given jail time or campus discipline.

For a more comprehensive account of the 1970 student protests, check out my report HERE.

Conservative groups also sometimes protested on campus, such as in 1972, when professor Angela Davis was invited to speak at CSUF, and in 1977, when Vietnamese anti-Communists “demonstrated against the showing of a Cuban documentary, assaulting the professor showing the film.”

The many campus groups and clubs highlighted the diverse background and political ideas of students—ranging from the Jesus Movement to the Black Student Union to MEChA to a Gay Student Union.

By the end of the 1970s, women comprised 52 percent of students. During that decade, a Women’s Center and a Women’s Studies Program were created.

William Langsdorf resigned in October 1970, and Dr. Donald Shields became the new president.

CSUF officially became a university in 1972. 

In 1978, the CSUs set up systemwide Student Affirmative Action Program to encourage minority enrollment.

“The state budget for higher education tightened steadily through the early 1970s,” de Graaf writes. “State funds were further constricted in the wake of Proposition 13, which reduced the education budget.”

Two major cost-saving measures were increasing student fees, and hiring more part-time faculty (who were paid less than full-timers, and received few benefits).

Faculty unions were established at the end of the 1970s.

In 1976, a mass shooting occurred at Cal State Fullerton. It was “one of the worst massacres at an American university until the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007.” 

The shooter was Edward Charles Allaway, a mentally disturbed custodian who, on the morning of July 12, 1976, entered the basement of the Library armed with a .22-caliber rifle and he killed six people: Paul Herzberg, Bruce Jacobsen, Seth Fessenden, Frank Teplansky, Debbie Paulsen, and Douglas Karges. He then walked to the first floor, where he shot and wounded Maynard Hoffman. Library assistant Stephen Becker and Librarian Donald Keran tried to wrestle the gun from Allaway, but he fatally shot Becker and wounded Keran before leaving the library and driving away. 

“The whole rampage lasted five minutes, leaving seven people dead and two wounded,” de Graaf writes. “Later that day, Allaway phoned police to report his location and gave himself up.”

Allaway was tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to life in prison. He escaped the death penalty because some on the jury found him insane. Later he was moved to Patton Mental Hospital in San Bernardino. 

Tragically, “Two more people soon lost their lives as an indirect result of Allaway’s shooting,” de Graaf writes. “Shortly after the trial, his sister, Shirley Sabo, fatally shot herself in guilt and sorrow over the tragedy. Earlier, on April 1, 1977, Richard Drapkin, another staff member who had worked with several of the victims, jumped from the Humanities Building to his death.”

In 1978 CSUF planted seven trees on campus (for each of the victims), establishing a Memorial Grove.

Student fees were steadily growing. By 1980, a full-time student paid $250 per semester in fees, not to mention the cost of housing, which nearly doubled in the 1970s. To offset this, federal financial aid in the form of Pell Grants, the Middle Income Assistance Act (1978), and Federal student loans were expanded.

Mens baseball and women’s gymnastics won national championships in the late 70s. Football was less successful: “Black players walked off the team in 1974, charging Coach Yoder and Stoner with discrimination.”

As a result of local fundraising, student activism, and community support, the Fullerton Arboretum broke ground on campus in 1977, and opened in 1979.

Facing a budget deficit, “Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order to ‘unallot’ two percent of the budget for the CSU and UC, and Chancellor Dumke ordered a freeze on CSU purchases, hiring, and promotions.” This was followed by another round of student fee hikes.

In 1981, Jewel Plummer Cobb was chosen as president of CSUF, the first African American woman to become president of a university on the west coast.

“Along with her scientific research and teaching, Cobb was a pioneer in opening racial and gender opportunities. She helped further physical growth in a period of limited state support,” de Graaf writes. “It surprised many that a county with a reputation as one of the most conservative in the state made such a bold choice of president.”

Facing budget shortfalls, CSUF sought creative ways to finance new construction. In 1983, the university entered into an agreement the city of Fullerton redevelopment agency and to finance a sports stadium for the football team, with extra income from allowing a hotel to be built on campus.

A student group organized to oppose the project, criticizing “the university’s partnership with a privately owned corporation, the impact of such a large private facility so close to the college, and the use of Redevelopment Agency funds for a corporate venture.”

The hotel opened in 1989, and the sports stadium opened in 1992. Ironically, that same year CSUF cancelled its football program.

In the early 1980s, CSUF made agreements with local cable companies to provide local public access television.

Unfortunately, in 1986 it was revealed that for nearly two years, staff had allowed Tom Metzger, “an advocate of white supremacy and a former Ku Klux Klan member, to produce a program “Race and Reason” that advocated racial separatism and included anti-Semitic content,” de Graaf writes.

This prompted protests from the Anti-Defamation League and students from the Coalition Against Apartheid and Other Human Rights Violations, who demanded that the university shut this program down. President Cobb said that the principle of free speech protected Metzger’s program, but then one of the cable companies ended its agreement with the university, ending the program. 

The Titan Channel continued broadcasting other programs through the rest of the 1980s.

In 1986-87 funds from the state lottery began to be allocated to the CSU, partly offsetting periods of budget cuts.

In 1990, Milton A. Gordon became President of CSUF.

Gordon “would devote a great deal of energy to establishing relations with local corporations and increasing the success of CSUF in raising funds from private parties to offset years of cuts in state funding,” de Graaf writes.

“In the early 1990s, the Board of Trustees adopted a goal of each campus raising at least 10 percent of its state general fund appropriation from private sources,” de Graaf writes. “This practice grew to the point that the university was essentially selling rooms and in some cases seats at fixed prices to any contributor able to pay that amount to get his or her name on it.”

The early 1990s brought another recession with the decline of the aerospace industry, with local Hughes Aircraft closing in 1994.

As had by now become a pattern, the state offset budget woes by increasing student fees, as if the recession somehow did not affect students or their families.

State university fees were $390 a semester by 1990, and rose to $792 by 1994.

Meanwhile, a university study exploded the four-year degree myth, finding that “Of freshmen who entered CSUF in 1995-97, fewer than 10 percent completed a B.A./B.S. in four years…This completion rate was a sobering indication of how an institution at which over three fourths of the students held outside jobs different from traditional ideals,” de Graaf writes.

By 1999, CSUFs 839 part time faculty (who were paid significantly less) outnumbered full-timers.

“Concerns involved the growing gap in compensation and working conditions between the two groups and demands for faculty to assess their teaching effectiveness and incorporate new technologies into instruction,” de Graaf writes. “Could people paid only for instruction time be expected to keep pace?”

Office space was often shared between several part-timers in a single room.

“The years 2000-2008 were ones in which the economy of California fluctuated between boom and crisis, while revealing structural weaknesses that defied political repair,” de Graaf writes. “Governor [Gray] Davis cut the CSS budget by $131 million, but then allocated a portion of that to cover enrollment growth. From 2002 to 2005, the CSU saw its budget reduced by $522 million.”

In the early 2000s, the state budget gave $3 billion to state universities and $9.9 billion to state prisons.

By 2003, student fees had risen to $786 a semester for full-time undergraduate students. 

“In the ensuing two years, they went up to $1,260 with parking and Associated Student fees on top of that,” de Graaf writes. “By 2006, undergraduates were paying $2,520 a year, graduates $3,102. These fee hikes provided nearly half of the total funding for the CSU during the early-mid 2000s.”

CSUF had come long way from the “tuition-free” higher education promised in 1961.

The university continued to rely on private donations from corporations and wealthy individuals, and then named buildings after these donors, such as the Steven G. Mihaylo (owner of Crexendo Business Solutions) Business Building, Dan Black (nutritional supplement businessman) Hall, and the Joseph A.W. Clayes III (real estate/avocado investor) Performing Arts Center.

“By the mid-2000s, the College of Business an Economics was the largest such college accredited in California, the third largest in the United States,” de Graaf writes.

By 2004, CSUF employed over 1,000 part-time faculty, compared to 366 full-time faculty.

A bright spot in all of this was the Titan baseball team, who went to the college world series in 2001 and 2003, and won in 2004.

By 2008, CSUF had more than 37,000 students: “This growing enrollment reflected the increasing ethnic diversity of the region, with over half of the students at Cal State Fullerton being persons of color by 2008.”

De Graaf’s history ends in 2008, and I will end with a few closing quotes from the author:

“It is only when one steps back to the earliest years of Cal State Fullerton to look over its 50 years that the full extent of these changes is realized. The most obvious changes were the sheer growth of the campus: from orange groves with three residences to a densely built cluster of about 25 mostly multi-story buildings; from 452 students to 37,000; from a graduating class of five to one of nearly 10,000; from one degree and major to more than 100.”

“Much of this growth occurred for the same reason that the college was mandated in 1957–Orange County itself continued growing throughout this period. The transformation from orange groves to suburban sprawl had already underway for a decade before Orange County State Collge came on the scene, so in physical growth as well as population, CSUF essentially reflected ongoing trends.”

“Cal State Fullerton was more of a catalyst in some of the most dramatic and less predictable changes in the campus and county. One was in the demography. Into the 1960s, Orange County was overwhelmingly white in population and notorious for its hostility to blacks and indifference to other minorities. That people of color would constitute over have of CSUF’s enrollment and that two of its four formally appointed presidents would be African-American represent a remarkable shift in social attitudes as well as population trends. By having a positive attitude toward ethnic diversity from its beginnings and an array of programs to promote groups historically underrepresented in higher education to come to its campus, Cal State Fullerton played a significant role in the amazing ethnic transformation of Orange County.”

As of 2025, CSUF’s annual tuition is $7,470 for in-state students and $20,070 for out-of-state students.