New kid on the blog

A website that began as a platform to campaign against closing Main Street to cars in Huntington Beach has expanded its focus. With the recent addition of local historian and author Chris Epting, the blog has made the move toward preserving the past by using cutting-edge technology.

In 2006, Joe Shaw began the Greetings from Downtown Huntington Beach blog, www.hbdowntown. typepad.com, to comment on and post information concerning the closure of Main Street. The subject has become quite the hot topic in this surf city. Eventually, however, the site expanded to cover city happenings, news, politics and history.

Epting was a logical choice for historian. His book, “Images of Huntington Beach,” has long been on sale at The HB Store, Shaw’s downtown shop. After reading in the Independent about a YouTube video Epting made to draw attention to traffic hazards he sees at a three-way intersection in town, Shaw decided it was time to make contact.

“It just popped into my head that maybe I should ask him to write a blog,” Shaw said. “He knows a lot about Huntington Beach. He brings a whole lot to the blog.”

For Epting, blogging would be another great opportunity to connect with the Huntington Beach audience.

“I am keeping an eye on things, speaking as one local to all the others,” Epting said. Funny thing is “you write a book about a place people automatically assume you are an expert on the thing. I am not from here originally.”

Epting moved to Huntington Beach eight years ago after changing jobs. He began work on the “Images” book after studying up on his new town. He had visited bookstores and libraries in search of a definitive collection of Surf City history.

All he found were a couple of pamphlets, “nothing that was a really nice scrapbook pictorial of the city that walked you photographically through the last 100 years or so of history,” Epting said. “I think people took it for granted all these things around where they live.”

“When I was researching the book … I had the good fortune to pore over many rare photos of the city,” Epting wrote in his latest blog on Tuesday.

Epting is as excited about portraying Huntington Beach in words as he is about showing it off visually. Photographs not included in his book “Images of Huntington Beach” may make their way onto the blog, which Epting plans to contribute to weekly.

One photo from Epting’s archive, an aerial shot of the old Gun Club on the Bolsa Chica wetlands, shows World War II artillery mounts and bunkers built to keep on eye on the ocean in the event of an attack, according to Epting. The Gun Club was torn down in the 1970’s, shortly after the photo was taken.

It was in his most recent book “Led Zeppelin Crashed Here: The Rock and Roll Landmarks of North America,” due out this May from Santa Monica Press — that inspired his first posting for the website.

While doing research for the book, “It was hard not to pay attention to the rock ‘n’ roll landmark that for years graced Huntington Beach — the little gem known as The Golden Bear,” Epting wrote in the Feb. 9 blog. “You know the history; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors — even a tale that the Rolling Stones once secretly crept in to hear Gram Parsons play in 1969.” Epting even includes a photo of a Golden Bear matchbook.

“I am looking forward to studying this area even more,” he said.

Shaw introduced Epting to his readers in a Feb. 4 post. He plans on adding even more bloggers such as Chris Jepsen, another local historian, especially now that he has more time on his hands. Effective Feb. 27, Shaw will no longer be the owner of the California Greetings and The HB Store.

“I’m getting ready to take a much-needed vacation that I haven’t taken in six years,” he said. “I don’t know what’s in the future for me.”

But he does know that his future includes keeping abreast of the city he calls home.

“I just want it to be all about Huntington Beach,” Shaw said. “I want it to be where you go to get news about the city and interesting facts and stories.”