Looking Back

Young Chang

Newport Beach in the mid-1950s was a town of change. New residents

trickled in. People no longer gambled out in the open. World War II had

ended, and the absence of laws such as prohibition let people drink and

be merry.

But one of the most obvious changes had to do with a single person.

A single female person.

Dora Hill.

As the city’s first female mayor, Hill held the coveted seat from 1954

to 1958 and led the way for women such as Doreen Marshall and Jackie

Heather to succeed her as mayor through the following decades.

Her husband was Ned Hill, a local celebrity in his own right, who

founded Mariners Bank and was one of the founders of Ackerman Boatyard on

Lido Isle.

The couple was active about town. Donald Elder, vice mayor of the City

Council in the early ‘60s, said Dora Hill had a way of making almost

everybody like her.

“Everyone in town pretty much knew who she was. She’d been active in

all kinds of civic things,” Elder said.

Jim Stewart, a Presbyterian minister, first promoted Hill as a mayoral

candidate. During her term, Hill led the effort to have a board of

freeholders elected to form a new city charter. The charter helped to

ensure that council members were nominated from different parts of the

city, so that no one part of Newport Beach would dominate the council.

“The men weren’t used to women being mayor,” said George Grupe, a

longtime Newport Beach resident and historian. “But I think everybody

liked it because she was so popular.”

One of Hill’s commitments was with the Newport Beach Central Library.

When the Friends of the Library was formed, the former mayor and other

library trustees helped the building expand in 1952.

The late mayor is credited today with being one of the leaders who had

vision enough to improve the city to the state it’s in today.

“She was just a great mayor and very open,” Grupe said. “And she was

in all sorts of social events and did a lot of wonderful things in the

community, as well as being mayor.”

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.