Huntington Beach Happenings
by: Chris MacDonald
Published: June 1, 2026
HUNTINGTON BEACH...Happy Wedding Anniversary to Sweet Lou's Barbecue Owners Luis and Wendy Leon.
Surf City Store Co Owner Tina Viray said: "Be sure to go to the Surf City Store, on the Huntington Beach Pier, to purchase a T-shirt that celebrates our nations's 250th anniversary as well as Surf City, Huntington Beach.
Huntington Beach Assistant City Clerk Juan Esquivel provided a link to the action the next Huntington Beach City Council Meeting on Tuesday June 2nd, 2026. Click here:
Huntington Beach City Historian Jerry Person presents Remember When
Remembering the orginal Huntington Inn
When one speaks of the Huntington Inn many remember that dilapidated building next to the Waterfront Hilton, but to someone who has lived here awhile knew another Inn, an Inn that was "the" place to stay.
The original Huntington Inn was located at 804 Ocean Avenue (P.C.H.) and was constructed around 1906. This Craftsman style 28 room Inn once boasted as being the finest hotel between Long Beach and the Mexican boarder. The Inn was built by the Huntington Beach Company on five lots to house its employees and prospective land buyers that were brought down by the old Pacific Electric Red Car.
Inside the Inn its red walled dinning room with its dark green furniture was lit with bell-shaped globes suspended by chains from the ceiling and its first manager was Clarence E. Willey, then came Roy M. Oliver as manager from 1909 to 1911 and later in 1911 Thomas Brainerd. Inside its dinning roon many important meeting were discussed that help shape out city. I have seen a photo of William Newland seated around its table where the issue was building a coast highway down our coastline.
In 1917 the Inn was purchased by boxer Tommy Burns who improved both the hotel and dinning room. Later it was managed by a prize fighter named Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and in the 1920s Lynn Colburn took it over, but the country's depression in the 1930s caused its downfall.
For a while during World War II it was called the Island View Inn with Agnes O'Shea as manager and later C.R. Lyman's Huntington Dinner House tried for a comeback in 1948.
Some residents may still remember Frank Saputo who in 1951 had something called the Log Room Theater and the dinning room was known as Casa De Ora.
The Huntington Beach Elks Lodge #1959 bought the Inn from the Galvin family in the 1950s and when the Elks moved to new quarters they sold the Inn to Union Oil Co. for a gas station site, they in turn had it torn down in December 1969.
Today there is a small Inn that graces the hallowed ground of the old Huntington Inn.