JERRY PERSON -- A Look Back

Huntington Beach resident Don Autry vividly remembers sitting on the

floor of his home with is brother playing checkers.

But before he could finish the game, it happened.

From the depths of the Earth it came, and when it was over, Huntington

Beach would never be the same.

Mother Nature had something in mind for us.

On March 10, 1933, as Autry was about to throw a checker at his

brother, his house began to shake, and it shook for 45 seconds.

The city’s residents were just beginning to relax after a hard day’s

work on Friday evening and looking forward to the weekend. It was 5:45

p.m. when the shimmering began and, for those few seconds, buildings

collapsed, pipes broke and many of our municipal building were laid to

waste.

The big earthquake of ’33 is something many of our residents will

never forget. It caused many to live outside their homes for weeks for

fear that another jolt would bring down their home.

In the newsroom of the old Huntington Beach News, Tom Wyllie chatted

with Jim Farquhar about some recent story but, when the quake hit, Wyllie

rushed to the front door in time to watch in horror as the front of the

First State Bank building on Main Street crashed down.

Police Chief Vern Keller was thrown to the floor at the police

station, spraining his ankle. He had to survey the damage throughout town

on crutches.

The Oddfellows Hall sustained major damage, and nearly every home in

Huntington Beach received some kind of damage. Either dishes flew from

cabinets or medicine cabinets emptied their contents onto bathroom

floors.

As the black of night approached, most homes were empty, their

occupants having either left town, parked themselves inside their cars or

set up on their lawns.

In the nights to come as the aftershocks came, sleeping became a

luxury.

Tenth Street car enthusiast Norm Morrison remembers that he was

beginning school and, when the quake started, his mother held him and

kept reassuring him that everything would be all right. One man drove

north from Huntington Beach along Beach Boulevard, shouting that a tidal

wave was coming.

The grammar school was badly damaged and was declared unsafe, but our

new high school rode the quake unscathed. Several pieces of heavy

equipment shifted at the S.R. Bowen factory and they had to close down

for a short while.

Our pier cracked open where it had been repaired previously, and our

City Hall suffered major damage and had to be evacuated.

The Thomas Oil Co. on 22nd Street lost 700 gallons of oil when the

tanks burst open. The 64,000-barrel tank of the Standard Oil Co. also

burst, sending its black gold over the surrounding area.

The post office had to be relocated to 120 Main St. when the old one

was damaged.

The tracks of the old Pacific Electric red car line were twisted like

pretzels, and rail service into and out of the city was abandoned. Main

Street sidewalks sparkled like diamonds in the sun from the broken glass

windows. Turner’s Department store, the Home Dining cafe, Warner

Hardware, Grand Pacific barber shop and Parker Furniture all had their

windows broken. The water wells of William Newland and Mrs. S.M.

Overacker’s ranches spouted water into the air.

But throughout all of this, one of our local doctors delivered a baby

even while part of the walls of his office caved in.

This baby must be one very lucky baby, and his birth date will forever

be a link to Huntington Beach’s earthquake history.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.