Huntington Beach Happenings
by: Chris MacDonald
Published: August 10, 2026
HUNTINGTON BEACH...Many Congratulations and a Happy 40th Anniversary to Michael & Michele Rogers.
Just a reminder if you are looking for a Realtor/Property Manager/Handyman/Painter/Landscaper/Window Cleaner please contact me and I'll give you good references.
This is a link to my recent article on The Sand Sculpture at The US Open of Surfing.
The next Huntington Beach City Council Meeting is Tuesday August 18th, 2026.
Huntington Beach City Historian Jerry Person presents Remember When
Let's Remember Main Street Library
People today don't realize how important a neighborhood library is to the community like our Main Street library. Through its doors, children and adults are able to find a treasure trove of information, ideas and even books on faraway places.
I will always remember the small library just a few blocks from my elementary school I attended up in Los Angeles County. This library, like many others, when you visited the library often the librarian gets to know your name and even helps find just the right book with the answers you needed. The librarian I got to know up in LA was Mrs. Bessie Zinc. This scene is the same for old timers here in Huntington Beach also who also got to know the librarian's names and she yours too.
This week we will remember the librarians and the neighborhood library on Main Street. Over time I visited the library many times and one time I heard about something that may be still here that was from the old library on 8th Street.
I approached the counter and asked Librarian Marianne MacKenzie if it was still here. She pointed to the wall and said,"It's right here."
What I was looking for was the 1913 bronze plaque with the inscription "Gift of Andrew Carnegie" that had been brought from the old Carnegie Library on Eighth Street. She had found it in the storeroom a while back and had it cleaned, she also found some old photos and put them in frames along side the bronze plaque.
The ultra-modern library had been built on a piece of the old Civic Center known as Palm Park. The library replaced the aging 1913 library building that stood at the corner of Eighth and Walnut. That early city librarian Lylyan Mossinger and her staff, Bertha Pann, Gwendolyn Talbert, Veva Wedel and Hildrith Farrell had completed a month of arranging the 35,000 volumes of books, magazines and newspapers.
The 8,000 square foot, $140,000 library was formally dedicated on Sunday, September 30, 1951 by Mayor Vernon Langenbeck. Reverend Robert Blume, pastor of the First Methodist Church gave the invocation after which Mayor Langenbeck welcomed all to the dedication.
The keys were given to library board president, Pearl Jones by architect Denver Markwith of the firm of Buttress and McClellan Inc. and with the public looking on, Rev. James G. Hurst of the First Church of Christ gave the dedicatory address. Rev. Charles Bacon, Pastor of the Wintersburg Methodist Community Church delivered the benediction.
If it wasn't for the modern computer on the counter, I'd feel as if I'd been transported back to the 1950s.
Anyone got a time machine? I'd like to go back and see Mrs. Zinc standing behind the checkout counter once more.