Huntington Beach Happenings
by: Chris MacDonald
Published: August 24, 2026
HUNTINGTON BEACH...A very Happy Birthday to Former Huntington Beach Resident/KTLA NewsTraffic Person Ginger Chan.
Just a reminder if you are looking for a Realtor/Property Manager/Handyman/Painter/Landscaper/Window Cleaner please contact me and I'll give you good references.
Assistant Huntington Beach City Clerk Juan Esquivel provided a link to the action agenda from the Huntington Beach City Council Meeting on Tuesday August 18th, 2026. Click here
Huntington Beach City Historian Jerry Person presents Remember When
Remembering more of our Main Street Library
By now many of you have heard that the Surf Museum has moved from their location on Olive Ave to become a section inside the Main Street Library building.
I recently asked few residents, both longtime and semi-recent who use the library what they think of the Surf Museum moving in and I got mixed results. Some like the newcomer and some not to happy with one patron saying "It was a Putin takeover.
So for this week lets just remember more of its history and less of its politics. There is one thing we all can agree that the library building has had a wonderful history and our city can be very proud of its modern library system with its central library and its branches that are scattered throughout our city for easy reach of our residents and visitors.
Our library system dates back to the time of our city incorporation in 1909 when A.E. Everett, A.L. Reed and Alma Wilson were chosen as trustees for the new Public Library Association of Huntington Beach. Their first problem was to find a place to house all the books and just by luck a small wooden building at Main and Ocean Avenue (P.C.H.) was to be demolished to make way for the new Collins building.
This wooden structure was moved to Main and Walnut and in May of 1909 the new library held its grand opening for the public. Edith Brown of Long Beach became the city’s first librarian with a salary of $25 a month. The following year two more people, Minnie Nutt and Maude Andrews, would serve our city as librarians and by 1911, Bertha Proctor became the first permanently appointed librarian and her salary was increased to $35 and later to $50 a month.
As our city grew it was found that a larger library building was needed and with the help of a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Association in 1912, a larger building was built at Eighth and Walnut in 1913 and placed inside this building was bronze plaque that read “Gift of Andrew Carnegie.”
This library and a smaller one in the Wintersburg area would serve our community for several years, but by 1950 the Wintersburg library was gone and the Carnegie was showing its age..
You may have read here a couple of weeks ago that when I first started coming to this library in the 1970s, Marianne MacKenzie would be busy behind the counter. She could locate just about any book that was on the shelves that a patron wanted and this was before computer cataloging..
So now a little more history of the historic Main Street library that at one time was our city’s only public library.
This building was at one time considered one of the finest in the Southland when it was completed in 1951. A new location was chosen for a modern library on Main Street that we see today and the Carnegie was closed in 1951.
This new modern building was built by Buttress and McClellan Inc. a Los Angeles firm and it would be a tribute in many ways to the planning of Huntington Beach City Engineer Harry Overmyer.
It was constructed of pre-cast reinforced concrete walls and a polished green marble entrance to be located in the old Civic Center section on what was known then known as Palm Park, but the library was falling behind schedule and the city gave Buttress & McClellan, the contractor, until August 11th to complete the work. The reason for the delay was that the finished hardware was late in coming and the city council was asked for the additional time in a letter from Architect Denver Markwith, Jr.
Some of the companies working on this project included Earl’s Wood shop of Huntington Beach, who did some of the cabinetwork, Franklin L. Webb of Hollywood who did the radiant heating system and Hoffman & Jacobs of Long Beach who did the electrical work.
City Librarian Lylyan Mossinger and her staff of Hildrith Farrell, Bertha Pann, Gwendolyn Talbert and Veva Wedel spent a month arranging and cataloging nearly 35,000 volumes of books, magazines, newspapers and maps valued at $115,000 before the opening day.
This staff spent additional time creating displays of pressed flowers and flora to decorate each room and it was also hoped by the library staff that some one to two hundred books could be purchased monthly on all subjects.
The formal dedication was held on September 30, 1951 in a ceremony attended by a good many of our citizens. Huntington Beach Mayor Vernon Langenbeck welcomed the public to the new library on behalf of the City and Rev. Robert Blume of the First Methodist Church gave the invocation for the 8,000 square foot, $140,000 library.
The keys to the front door were formally handed to Pearl M. Jones, President of the Library Board by Architect Denver Markwith. The Reverend James G. Hurst from First Church of Christ (First Christian Church) gave the dedicatory address and Rev. Charles Bacon, pastor of the Wintersburg Methodist Church, delivered the benediction.
This building is a tribute to the people who have used it in the past and is today a fine example of our downtown history preserved for future generations to see along with our city's rich surfing history side-by-side.