Pilot history will have a home with Costa Mesa Historical

Society

TONY DODERO

I’m not sure who said it or exactly how it goes, but there is an old

saw that claims newspapers are the rough drafts of history.

While some of you are probably shaking your heads in agreement

that rough is a good way to describe newspaper writing, in truth, we

take our role as the paper of record for Newport-Mesa very seriously.

So as we were packing our old Bay Street offices to move to our

new headquarters here on Sunflower Avenue, I spent a goodly amount of

time boxing up old clip files and photographs and microfilm that were

part of our in-house library that needed to be preserved.

One entity that is going to help me with that task is the Costa

Mesa Historical Society.

That all got started after one of my columns ran on the subject of

our historical files and Mary Ellen Goddard, the society’s archivist

and board member, fired off an e-mail to me expressing an interest in

the information.

We have since struck up a deal to preserve some of our bound

volumes and microfilm and photographs and hopefully create a

relationship where we can share historical information down the road.

I hope to get talks started with Newport preservationists also.

Meantime, I paid a visit Friday to the Costa Mesa Historical

Society office, tucked away behind the county library branch on the

outskirts of Lions Park.

Anyone who has ventured inside the building knows what a treasure

trove of memories it is.

If you want to see the first TV set sold in Costa Mesa in 1947 or

an old bowling pin from Kona Lanes, or even further back, the tools

and artifacts that were part of the American Indian tribes that made

this land their home, it’s all right there in that building.

According to the historical society’s literature, it is home to:

* 10,000 photographs of people and places, such as schools,

government buildings, commerce, residential homes and the old Santa

Ana Army Air Base, where the Orange County Fairgrounds now sits.

* One thousand library books on Costa Mesa, most of them out of

print.

* Phone books, city directories, journals and magazines.

* Newspapers like our predecessor the Globe Herald and the Daily

Pilot up from 1923 to 1961 (our additional files will increase that

archive significantly).

* News clipping files by subject.

* Hundreds of maps from 1900 to present.

* Audio and video tapes, including oral histories.

* A number of major historical collections of early Costa Mesa.

* Estancia Historical site information on the Mission and Rancho

farming periods and American Indian archaeological artifacts and

period furnishings and personal effects.

While I was there, Goddard was setting up for an upcoming exhibit

of World War I artifacts that is scheduled for viewing Thursday. The

exhibit included a stone marker that bore the name of Nathaniel

Norman Rochester, a local resident who died on Oct. 8, 1918 as part

of the Lost Battalion, American soldiers who fought in France.

The World War I display was part of the society’s traveling

exhibit, which Goddard called “a bunch of oldies and goodies.”

Goddard said the society has about 20 regular volunteers and a

number of others who volunteer for special events. One of those

volunteers is Richard Zolla, who was busy working on a project on

Friday.

“I’m probably the newest (volunteer) here,” Zolla said. “But this

is a super place.”

Goddard has lived in Costa Mesa since 1977 but points to her days

growing up outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as the beginnings of her

interest in history. She lived across the street from an old

abandoned schoolhouse and began research into the facility and stoked

a flame that carries on to this day.

She continued studying history in college and began with the

historical society here just as soon as she moved in.

For the city’s 25th anniversary in 1978, she completed some 55

oral histories with some of the city’s early residents, one of whom

was the daughter of the city’s first storeowner.

She said she enjoys researching and reading historical documents

and then meeting the people or family of those connected with those

documents.

“It’s a good way to get to know your town,” she said of the

society. “If you feel this interest in your town, you’ll be more

involved and the town will be better for it.”

The historical society office is open Thursdays and Fridays from

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. or by appointment. And the society is always

looking for help, whether it be in the form of volunteers or

financially.