LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

After a failed attempt to learn the history of Susan Street (if you

know anything, the number’s below), I rushed to the Costa Mesa Historical

Society and, as I often do, turned two sweet ladies’ afternoons upside

down.

But Mary Ellen Goddard and Gladys Refakes, both volunteer historians

at the society, instantly found the history of Rochester Street for me.

Were it not for the unreturned calls regarding who Susan was, I never

would have learned of Nathaniel Rochester and his brother William.

Both Goddard and Refakes had no trouble locating information and

photos. It usually requires a bit more digging to find things in the

history-filled building of the society, but the Rochester name was that

neatly archived.

According to old Los Angeles Times stories as well as a recorded oral

history done by an early city librarian, William Rochester moved to Costa

Mesa in 1908 at the age of 12 with parents James Harvey and Edith

Grensted Rochester. James Harvey Rochester had established orange groves

in Florida before moving his family west from New York.

The family’s surname was widely known on the East Coast. A

great-great-grandfather of William Rochester, Nathaniel Rochester, served

as a colonel in the Revolutionary War and founded the city of

Rochesterville in New York. The name Rochesterville was later truncated

to simply Rochester.

Costa Mesa’s street earned its name when William Rochester and his

brother Nathaniel (the great-great-grandson of the original) served in

World War I. Nathaniel was killed just days before the Armistice, Refakes

said. So Costa Mesa, which wasn’t incorporated back then, named Rochester

Street after him.

William Rochester’s contributions to what is now Costa Mesa came in

the form of buildings. Between his return from World War I and his death

in 1988, he built many of the city’s structures, including the Rochester

Building, which eventually became the city’s first library.

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at [email protected]; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.