For a Good Cause -- Mitch Barrie

-- Story by Young Chang, photo by

Pick apart the word “history” and you’ll end up with “hi” and “story.”

Mitch Barrie, a volunteer at the Costa Mesa Historical Society, gets

wrapped up in the “story” part.

“People watch television, people read novels, they like stories,” said

Barrie, 39. “That’s what I like. You can stand on any corner in Costa

Mesa and every building has a story.”

The Costa Mesa resident and investor spends two mornings a week

archiving old photos at the historical society. He’s seen what Costa Mesa

looked like in 1908 -- the photo shows a two-story wooden building that

was once the Ozment General Store on the corner of Newport Boulevard and

East 18th Street -- and he’s marveled at the contrast between that photo

and one from the ‘90s that provides an aerial view of Triangle Square.

“The main thing about Costa Mesa is change,” the Walnut Creek native

said. “We have pictures from different decades.”

More than 10,000 of them, in fact.

At the Historical Society, he works in the middle of the main room

where large tables allow him to spread out the photos he retrieves from

the bank vault.

“I make a big mess and I have to clean it up before I go,” Barrie

said.

The noteworthy fact is he finds every new photograph interesting. He

figures this is because he cares -- about both his city and history in

general.

A graduate of Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach, the

volunteer says he has always been interested in history. In college, he

studied extensively on the subject. In high school, he was interested,

though the curriculum didn’t offer too much, in his opinion.

As a volunteer at the Anaheim Street society, Barrie is also working

on a Web site that will offer histories on the city. It’s incomplete

right now, but Barrie has finished the chronology portion of the site.

“I just want to know about everything,” he said.