Countdown to 2000: Personalities

Susan McCormack

While political turmoil and natural disasters plagued the Newport-Mesa

area during the 1930s, one man became determined to give residents a

stronger voice and another fought to tame nature.

In 1934, Spanish-American War veteran L.N. Martin moved from Atchinson,

Kan., to Costa Mesa. He immediately started the Costa Mesa Globe, named

similarly to the Atchinson Globe, where he had worked for 30 years.

Two years later, Martin purchased the competing Costa Mesa Herald from

S.A. Meyers in a seemingly amiable transaction. On May 29, 1936, the

Herald announced the consolidation of the two papers.

To ease the production of the paper, Martin announced plans to install a

newspaper press and a typesetting machine, two items Herald publishers

had long planned to purchase, but lacked the finances.

In his first “announcement” in the new Costa Mesa Globe-Herald, on June

5, 1936, Martin also pledged to support the community in his paper.

“It is the hope of the Globe-Herald to give the people of Costa Mesa a

paper that will be a credit to the community; a paper that will work for

the best interest of the community; striving to say something good about

everyone.”

The paper appears to have succeeded in its founder’s mission. The Daily

Pilot is its most recent reincarnation.

In Newport Beach, another citizen was working to greatly improve the

quality of life.

Harbor booster George Rogers had lost his polio-crippled son to a boating

tragedy in 1926 and became dedicated to making the harbor more safe.

Failures of previous jetties, the stock market crash of 1929 and the

failure of a county bond measure made funding for the project hard to

come by.

Rogers was a wealthy retired highway builder and rock contractor. He

urged the city council to send him and the city engineer to Washington,

D.C. to lobby for funds after learning about the New Deal’s National

Recovery Act. The council could only afford to send the city engineer, so

Rogers paid his own way.

In Washington, they won federal funds for all but $640,000 of the

$1.8-million project. They returned to Orange County, where they

successfully lobbied for a county bond to finance the balance.

On May 23, 1936, as honorary captain of the port, Rogers led a boat

parade celebrating the completion of the harbor. The Globe-Herald called

the event the “greatest parade of water craft ever seen in Newport

Harbor.”

A few weeks later, Rogers died of a heart attack while cruising in his

boat, Memory, with his daughter. He reportedly died as his boat crossed

the entrance of the harbor, near the spot where his son had drowned.

Sources:

The Costa Mesa Herald

The Costa Mesa Globe-Herald

“Newport Beach 75, 1906-1981,” James P. Felton, ed., 1981.

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