COUNTDOWN TO 2000 -- Top 10: 1900s

Alex Coolman

As the 20th century opened, the Newport-Mesa area was a center of

speculation, sporadic development and more than a few financial setbacks.

Costa Mesa did not yet exist as a city, but the small settlements of

Fairview, Harper and Paularino were struggling in the land now within its

borders.

Newport Beach (not incorporated until the middle of the first decade) was

a sparsely populated region. Local residents wrote of the area’s

untracked, verbena-covered sand dunes and its unpaved roads. While some

areas of the coast were settled, stretches of it were cloaked with the

smell of shark oil from a factory.

Mary Everett Burton described her mother’s experience when arriving at

Newport Beach in 1909: “When they got there, [it] was not mother’s

dreamland at all. Fish canneries and numerous saloons! Oh dear, no!”

Economically, the most crucial factor affecting the development of the

region was the rivalry of San Pedro, which had effectively won the

competition to become the major port in Southern California.

Businessman James McFadden had hoped Newport Beach could become a major

center for industrial shipping, but by 1899 it was clear that this dream

would not materialize. McFadden owned a railroad and a wharf that he had

operated in the hope of seeing major development in the area; in 1899,

giving up on the vision, he sold them to the Southern Pacific Railroad,

and in 1902 he sold off the Newport Beach township site to William S.

Collins.

The town of Fairview, which had sprung up in the late 1890s during a land

speculation fever, was gradually dying out, plagued by a cooling economy

and a series of natural disasters. The excitement of a new decade was

tempered for local residents by the awareness that their hopes of

overnight riches and seaside glamour had remained just that -- hopes. The

daily realities were more challenging and less rewarding than such

visions had led them to believe.

Ironically, the frustration of McFadden and other early planners is tied

to what is today one the Newport-Mesa area’s greatest assets -- its

relatively unspoiled natural beauty. Had McFadden’s turn-of-the-century

vision of a bustling industrial port been realized, Newport Beach and

Costa Mesa might today look something like San Pedro and Wilmington

rather than offering a pleasant refuge from such intense development.

These 10 events in the Newport-Mesa area defined the first decade of the

1900s: * 1902 -- James McFadden, founder of Newport Beach and builder of its

famous 19th-century wharf, sells the Newport Beach town site to William

S. Collins, abandoning his vision of the city as industrial port.

* 1905 -- The Pacific Electric Railroad’s Big Red Cars reach Newport

Beach, connecting the town with Los Angeles by a ride of only about an

hour.

* 1905 -- A fire ravages P.M. Freeman’s general store in Fairview,

destroying the structure and its contents. Fairview, already in an

economic slump, begins to disappear from the map. Freeman tries his luck

with another Fairview market, and goes out of business two years later.

* 1906 -- Newport Beach is incorporated as a city. Its first city

meetings are held in the office of Southern Pacific on the Newport Pier.

* 1906 -- Ferry service to Balboa Island begins. The service runs

irregularly until Joseph Beek takes control of the operation in 1919.

* 1906 -- Three oil wells are drilled on what is today the site of

Newport Harbor High School. In the face of economic downturns, oil

speculation will prove an enduring source of revenue for the region.

* 1906 -- The Balboa Pavilion opens. The $15,000 building becomes Newport

Beach’s first historical landmark and a favorite destination for area

residents at a time when development is scarce.

* 1907 -- Newport Island is created using sand dredged from the West

Newport canals.

* 1906-1907 -- Stephen Townsend, Newport Development Company president,

begins selling lots in the “Newport Heights” and “Newport-Mesa” tracts.

More than 205 parcels of the Newport Heights section are sold within a

year at about $300 per acre.

* 1908 -- The first major commercial building in Harper, Walter Ozment’s

general store, opens at what is today the corner of 18th Street and

Newport Boulevard. Despite the troubles encountered by Fairview, Harper

will endure for decades.

Sources:

Burton, Mary Everett, “Happy House: Early Days in Corona del Mar,” 1976.

Felton, James, Ed., “Newport Beach: The First Century, 1888-1988,” 1988.

Miller, Edrick J., “A Slice of Orange: The History of Costa Mesa,” 1970.