Remembering When
by
Jerry Person
Huntington Beach City Historian
Dedicated to the people of Huntington Beach
Jeanne Hannah, HB's First Female Postmaster
Many years ago I was honored to have been a witness to a real Huntington Beach historical event on April 26, 2001.
I, along with about fifty others, were seated in the mail processing room of the Warner Avenue Post Office and included in this party were many postal bigwigs including Huntington Beach City Councilman Dave Garofalo.
We were all here to witness the searing in of Huntington Beach's first female postmaster- Jeanne Hannah and at 12:06 pm, Bill Almaraz stood before the podium to ask Hannah to raise her right hand as he administered the oath to Hannah, making her the 16th postmaster in Huntington Beach's long history.
Jeanne Hannah is a true California native, having been born and raised in Riverside, California.
Starting her career in the postal service in 1970, she quickly rose be become a supervisor in 1985 and later she came to the Warner Avenue Post Office in 1996 to become manager of operations and in 2001 became Postmaster.
She joins a long list of Huntington Beach postmasters reaching back to the very roots of our city and even back to our Pacific City days of 1901 to 1903.
When the city changed its name to Huntington Beach in 1904, this area was still very remote from the rest of the country. The city hall for Pacific City was located on the upper floor of a building at 122 Main Street.
On the ground floor of that building was Smith's Grocery and inside that unassuming store, our first post office began. Walter C. Smith was not only our grocer, but also served as the city's first postmaster for the new town now called Huntington Beach. In late 1905, Smith turned over the duties of postmaster to I.M. Clippinger.
In the 1920's, the post office was located in a small office on the side of the old Security Pacific building at 314 Walnut.
When the great earthquake of 1933 struck Huntington Beach, Postmaster Walter T. Clapp and his assistant, Martin Murrey collected mail and sold stamps in the street in front of that post office, as nobody wanted to be inside at that time. Just after the quake, the post office was relocated to 120 Main Street for a short time.
J. Ed Huston was our postmaster when the modern (for its time) post office was constructed at Main and Olive in 1935 and dedicated on December 7th of that year.
Today we have three post officers in Huntington Beach and one on Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach.