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Warner (Willis H.) papers
MS.R.002
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
Title: Willis H. Warner papers
Creator:
Warner, Willis H. (Willis Huxley)
Identifier/Call Number: MS.R.002
Physical Description:
57 Linear Feet
(60 boxes and 8 oversize folders)
Date (inclusive): 1884-1964
Date (bulk): 1920-1963
Abstract: This collection documents the activities of Willis H. Warner, who was a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors for
24 years, including the activities of the Board of Supervisors and numerous Orange County governmental units from the 1930s
through the 1960s. The collection also contains personal materials, including the records of Warner's business, the Warner
Hardware Store (Huntington Beach, California), and materials documenting his prolific career in the public sector working
for the Westminster Drainage District, the Beach Protective Association of Huntington Beach, and other Orange County public
institutions and political organizations. The bulk of the materials in this collection document a wide-range of political,
economic, and social issues affecting Orange County, reflected in the activities of the various County agencies and departments.
These documents were maintained by Warner in an expansive topical file. Some of the significant topics represented in these
files are airport development; environmental issues such as air and water pollution, beach erosion, and shoreline development
(including reports by consulting engineer R.L. Patterson); civil defense; county finances; employment; fire programs; land
use and planning; freeway and highway development; county buildings; correctional facilities; parks and recreation; oil drilling;
public health and hospitals, particularly the Orange County General Hospital; publicity and tourism; schools and school districts;
and welfare and public works programs. The largest group of these files document the activities of the Flood Control, Sanitation,
and Water Districts, which were of great interest to Warner.
Language of Material:
English
.
Collection is open for research.
Five business days advanced notice is required for access because the bulk of the materials are stored offsite. Please contact
Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.
Willis H. Warner Papers. MS-R02. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this
collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
Gift of Willis C. Warner and Alice C. Warner, 1964.
Preliminary folder lists were compiled by Special Collections and Archives Staff, 1991. Preliminary processing and guide prepared
by Scott K. Winterstein, 2000-2001. Processing completed by David Eng, Jennifer Kwan, William Landis, and Adrian Turner, 2002.
Guide completed by Adrian Turner, 2002.
Willis H. Warner was a prominent Orange County government official who served on the Orange County Board of Supervisors from
1939 to 1963 and was its chairman for almost 15 years. He is known for his extensive work on flood control and sanitation
issues.
Warner was born in Illinois in 1889. His father, Charles W. Warner, was a Burlington Railroad ticket agent and telegraph operator,
and later worked as a carpenter and became a judge for the city of Huntington Beach. The family moved to Southern California
when Willis was five years old and he attended elementary school at Garden Grove, Newhope, and Bolsa. In 1905 his father built
the two-story house at 403 Tenth Street in which Willis would live for the rest of his life. He was in the first graduating
class of Huntington Beach High School, where he later served as chairman of the school's board of trustees. He attended the
University of Southern California to study municipal sanitation and produced a thesis on a sewer system and treatment plant
for Huntington Beach. He received a degree in civil engineering from USC in 1911 and married Ethel M. Crane the same year.
The Warners owned a variety of mineral and oil drilling rights, and properties throughout Southern California. They had two
children, Willis C. Warner and Alice C. Warner.
Warner worked as a lumber yard manager for the San Pedro Lumber Company, and in 1925 purchased his hardware store, the Warner
Hardware Store, which he operated in Huntington Beach until 1953. He was also extremely active in a number of fraternal and
community organizations, and served as director of the California Gun Club.
In the public sector, Warner was active throughout his life in local government, non-governmental organizations, and local
schools. He served for many years beginning in 1915 as secretary of the Westminster Drainage District, a public corporation
contracted to build drainage ditches at a time when Orange County was particularly susceptible to flooding during rainy seasons.
He also served as the first chairman of the newly formed Orange County Water District in 1933, was elected to the Huntington
Beach City Council in 1934, and was elected mayor in 1936.
In 1938 was elected Supervisor of Orange County District No. 2 after defeating John Mitchell of Garden Grove and two other
candidates, and was sworn in on January 2 the following year. He served as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for 17 years,
from 1940 to 1947 and from 1949 to 1959. As Supervisor of District No. 2 he ran unopposed in every election from 1938 until
1958.
During his career on the Board of Supervisors, the County's population grew from less than 130,000 to over 750,000, and County
employees increased in number from 700 to 3,000. For a quarter of a century Warner was intimately involved in all of the problems
faced by the expanding County, including zoning, subdivisions, building permits, road and highway construction, airport expansion,
and many others. He specialized in water-related issues such as flood control and sanitation, and assisted in the formation
of a county-wide sanitation system in the late 1940s and early 1950s that could accommodate the growth in Orange County population.
Among the rare controversies of his career, Warner and the Board of Supervisors waged a political battle in the late 1950s
with County Counsel Joel Ogle over tidelands drilling rights. Ogle was tried for corruption and acquitted, after which he
accused Warner of collusion with oil companies.
He was a member of the State Supervisors Association and served in various additional offices during this time, including
Chairman and Director of the Orange County Water District, and Director and Chairman of the Shoreline Planning Association.
Warner was widely known as "Mr. Orange County" and received the first-ever honor of "Man of the Year" from the Orange County
Press Club in 1953. After suffering several years from coronary disease, he died on October 28 1963, only nine months after
completing his final term in office on January 6.
| 1889 | Willis H. Warner born on January 18 in Millington, Illinois to Charles Wellington Warner and Jennie Marie Cooper. |
| 1894 | Moves with family to Garden Grove. |
| 1896 | Moves with family to Newhope, where they take up farming. |
| 1906 | Moves with family to Huntington Beach. |
| 1906 | Graduates from Los Bolsas Union High School (later renamed Huntington Beach Union High School), member of first graduating class. |
| 1911 | Civil Engineering degree, University of Southern California. |
| 1911 | Marries Ethel M. Crane, daughter of A.J. and Carrie Crane, in June. |
| 1912 | Manager of the Westminster branch of the San Pedro Lumber Company. |
| 1915 | Secretary, Westminster Drainage District. |
| 1925 | Purchases Huntington Beach Hardware Store and establishes Warner Hardware Store. |
| Ca. 1926 | City Recorder, Huntington Beach. |
| Ca. 1929-ca. 1930 | Board of Directors, Home State Bank of Huntington Beach. |
| Ca. 1929-ca. 1930 | President, Eastside Improvement Company, Inc. of Huntington Beach. |
| Ca. 1929-ca. 1930 | Chairman, Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. |
| 1932-ca. 1933 | Secretary and Treasurer, Beach Protective Association of Huntington Beach. |
| 1932-ca. 1933 | Chairman, Huntington Beach Union High School. |
| 1933 | Chairman of the Orange County Water District. |
| 1934 | Elected to Huntington Beach City Council. |
| 1936 | Mayor of Huntington Beach. |
| 1938 | Elected Supervisor of Orange County District No. 2, sworn in January 2, 1939. |
| 1940 | Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. Holds this position continuously until 1947. |
| 1945 | Orange County forms a county-wide sanitation program in which Warner is highly active. |
| 1947 | Willard Smith replaces Warner as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. |
| 1948 | Director of County Sanitation District No. 5. |
| 1949 | Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. Holds this position continuously until 1959. |
| 1949 | Eight-million dollar bond issue passed for county sanitation program, largely due to Warner's advocacy. |
| 1951 | Warner serves as Director of Civil Defense for Orange County until 1960, earning a commendation from Governor Edmund G. Brown and the California Disaster Office. |
| 1953 | Wife Ethel dies of acute pulmonary edema on February 12. |
| 1953 | Sells Warner Hardware Store to Frank Hinshaw in June. |
| Ca. 1954 | Member of Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce. |
| Ca. 1954 | Member of Los Alamitos Chamber of Commerce. |
| 1959 | Warner named "Man of the Year" by Orange County Press Club in February. |
| 1960 | Suffers slight heart attack in April. |
| 1960 | Retires as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. |
| 1963 | President Emeritus, Orange County Water District Board of Directors. |
| 1963 | Retires from the Board of Supervisors on January 6. |
| 1963 | Dies on October 28. |
Collection Scope and Content Summary
This collection documents the activities of Willis H. Warner, who was a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors for
24 years, including the activities of the Board of Supervisors and numerous Orange County governmental units from the 1930s
through the 1960s. The collection also contains personal materials, including the records of Warner's business, the Warner
Hardware Store (Huntington Beach, California), and materials documenting his prolific career in the public sector working
for the Westminster Drainage District, the Beach Protective Association of Huntington Beach, and other Orange County public
institutions and political organizations. The bulk of the materials in this collection document a wide-range of political,
economic, and social issues affecting Orange County, reflected in the activities of the various County agencies and departments.
These documents were maintained by Warner in an expansive topical file. Some of the significant topics represented in these
files are airport development; environmental issues such as air and water pollution, beach erosion, and shoreline development
(including reports by consulting engineer R.L. Patterson); civil defense; county finances; employment; fire programs; land
use and planning; freeway and highway development; county buildings; correctional facilities; parks and recreation; oil drilling;
public health and hospitals, particularly the Orange County General Hospital; publicity and tourism; schools and school districts;
and welfare and public works programs. The largest group of these files document the activities of the Flood Control, Sanitation,
and Water Districts, which were of great interest to Warner.
Early public service career files document his activities prior to joining the Board of Supervisors in 1938 in addition to
his non-Board of Supervisors work in the public sector. In particular, files document the financial and legal activities of
the Westminster Drainage District, accumulated while he was working as its secretary; his active participation in the commercial
development of Huntington Beach and nearby communities; his work on the board of trustees for Huntington Beach Union High
School; and his involvement with the Beach Protective Association of Huntington Beach, which sought to prevent oil drilling
in the area. The collection also contains financial and legal records including the operational records of his business, the
Warner Hardware Store, and various personal and family materials.
Materials are largely textual, comprising correspondence, memoranda, minutes and agendas, financial and legal material, clippings,
publications, blueprints, maps, and related printed matter. Among other formats scattered throughout the collection are photographs,
a small number of negatives, artifacts such as plaques, ephemera, and campaign paraphernalia.
Unless otherwise noted in the series and subseries descriptions, the arrangement scheme for the collection was imposed during
processing in the absence of a usable original order.
This collection is organized into 4 series:
- Series 1. Personal files, 1884-1963. 7.6 linear ft.
- Series 2. Hardware store records, 1925-1953. 5.4 linear ft.
- Series 3. Public service career files, 1915-1963. 5.3 linear ft.
- Series 4. Orange County Board of Supervisors, 1918-1964. 38.7 linear ft.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Ephemera -- 20th century
Campaign paraphernalia -- 20th century
Local finance -- California -- Orange County
Community development -- California -- Orange County
Flood control -- California -- Orange County
Land use -- California -- Orange County -- History -- Sources.
Drainage districts -- California -- Orange County
Water districts -- California -- Orange County -- History -- Sources.
Pollution -- California -- Orange County
Sanitary districts -- California -- Orange County
Negatives (photographic)
Blueprints -- 20th century
Photographic prints -- 20th century.
Maps -- California -- Orange County.