Frank Curran and his yard

A LOOK BACK

It seems that everywhere you look today in Huntington Beach, there

is some type of construction going on. New housing tracts are

springing up on land that once had oil wells on it, and historic

homes are giving way to three- and four-story cracker boxes.

It doesn’t take long today to erect the prefab wood framing. In

the past, much of that lumber would have been purchased at the Frank

Curran Lumber Co. at the corner of Acacia Avenue and Lake Street.

This week, we’ll look at the man who considered each stick of lumber

a masterpiece.

So who was Frank Curran?

Frank’s father, Daniel, came to this country from Ireland in 1854

and settled in the small town of Dixon, Ill. It was in Dixon that

Frank was born and raised.

Frank’s father had been a general contractor and builder in

Ireland, and when he made Dixon his home, he continued in that

profession. It was in Dixon that Frank received his formal education,

and when Frank graduated from high school, he became a builder and

brick layer, just like his father.

Around 1890, Frank was hired on to help build St. Patrick’s

Catholic Church in the neighboring town of Rochelle, Ill. It was

there that he met a lovely lady by the name of Margaret Delaney.

It was love at first sight for Frank. Little did he know when he

was building St. Patrick’s that shortly thereafter, he would be

inside taking wedding vows with Margaret on Sept. 7, 1892.

Frank continued as a sub-contractor and bricklayer around northern

Illinois. But he wanted a better life for his family. In 1899, he

came west to California to look over building prospects in San

Francisco and in the L.A. areas.

He left our golden state to return home to Illinois, but whether

it was the warmer climate or the building boom going on at the time,

Frank returned to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve of 1900.

In those days, the commercial buildings there were made of brick,

and so Frank’s bricklaying talents were used to good advantage. It

would be interesting to know if any of those buildings that Frank

worked on are still standing today.

Bricklaying in those days was back-breaking work, and Frank began

to look around for something easier to do. He left Los Angeles with

his brother C.P. for Pomona. There they opened a lumber yard and ran

it for three years.

Frank returned to Los Angeles in 1905 when he was hired by the

E.K. Wood Lumber Co. in San Pedro. In five years, he was promoted to

assistant manager and was sent to the company’s L.A. office.

In 1917, he became manager of the whole lumber company. In the

1920s, he made friends with some of the officials, and through them,

he helped many a sub-contractor find a job subdividing towns around

Los Angeles.

Frank moved to Santa Ana in 1935 and bought three lumber yards, in

Santa Ana, in Orange and at Acacia and Lake.

The yard in Huntington Beach had been the San Pedro Lumber Co.

before it was bought by the E.K. Wood Lumber Co. in 1933.

Curtis Archibuld and Wiley Griffiths were at the San Pedro yard,

and Charles Boster and Jack Whitney were at the E.K. Wood yard. All

knew Frank Curran’s good old Irish wit.

Huntington Beach resident Orville Hanson told me that our lumber

yard had one of the largest saws in the area, and the blade was

driven by belts powered by a steam engine. Hanson also told me that

the yard had a sawdust pile bigger than many of buildings on Main

Street and that he and his buddies would come in and play in that

huge pile of sawdust.

Hanson said that Maggie Halicy had a market by the lumber yard.

Frank ran the yards for several years. Howard Hepburn was the

manager.

By the 1950s, Frank Jr. took over the running of the yards with

his brother, Howard. Frank and Margaret had six children.

Frank was a member of our Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce and

a member of our Rotary Club.

Today, the lumber yard is gone, replaced with new homes. For many

of us, the E.K. Wood Lumber Co. was the only lumber yard in

Huntington Beach and many of the homes built after World War II were

built from lumber that was brought down here by train and sold by

Frank Curran’s men.

* 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.