Base charm

On warm spring days, OCC history professor Hank Panian opened the classroom windows because it didn’t have air conditioning. On the flat landscape of the old Santa Ana Army Air Base, when the college started out, none of the classrooms did, Panian says with a chuckle. In the college’s early years, the buildings were just converted wooden barracks.

“We didn’t have automatic lawn sprinklers back then; just large hoses that at the end had revolving sprinklers,” Panian says. “The custodians would come and move them to get more grass. But I don’t think they were conscious of how far the water went. We’d all rush to close the windows — they were squirting water into the buildings.”

The college has come a long way, sprinklers and all, since it first planted its flag on the 1,300-acre base 60 years ago, those who were there in the early years say.

Before Costa Mesa was incorporated, or local public universities had presented other alternatives, OCC thrived as the only game in town.

“Everyone had some sort of pioneer spirit, like we were getting something wonderful off the ground,” Panian said. “Think about it there was so little to compete. The community college was much more of a community feature than it is today.”

In January 1948, after WWII and after the army base was deactivated, organizations and government groups nationwide were fighting for a piece of the land, handed out by the War Assets Administration in Washington, D.C. Though the college had been approved by locals in 1947, there was still no land for a campus.

Basil Peterson, then-OCC president, had an office at Newport Harbor High School. It was usually empty though, because Peterson was in Washington to negotiate with government officials to get the Army land. Just before the Senate broke for holiday recess, at 11 p.m., Dec. 23, 1947, it approved the land for OCC. The deed was handed to school officials in January.

Back then, there were no Los Angeles Dodgers, Lakers or Angels of Anaheim, UCI nor Cal State Long Beach. There was no Golden West College. The college was it, and the community flocked to it, officials said.

“We had a really small college atmosphere. A feel of a four-year school, a private school,” said OCC spokesman Jim Carnett, who grew up in the area and went to school there. “The faculty all knew each other, it was almost like a residential campus. There was a real sense of community within the campus and then being a part of the larger community.”

Even though the wooden barracks were replaced with brick and mortar, the school hasn’t lost its charm, he said.

OCC welcomed its first student body, 533-strong, in the fall of 1948. In the fall of 2007, more than 23,000 students were enrolled.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.