Thanksgiving is a good time to appreciate the farsighted actions of past civic leaders.
Placement of the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda was due to the efforts of a core of residents, including Roland Bigonger, the city’s first mayor, who, beginning in 1968, worked diligently to preserve a deteriorating presidential birthplace.
(This column is based on two interviews conducted by Dennis Swift in 1988 for the oral history program at Cal State Fullerton and articles in past issues of the Yorba Linda Star, and summarizes a talk I gave at a recent meeting of the Nixon library’s Docent Guild.)
Bigonger, who arrived in the community in 1955 and worked as a letter carrier while attending law school, served twice as mayor in terms 20 years apart, during which he took several key actions which led to the library locating in Yorba Linda.
The first was creating a Richard Nixon Birthplace Foundation in 1968. Joining Bigonger in the endeavor were his council colleague and drug store owner Burt Brooks, dentist Dr. Bob Meador, Star newspaper publisher Bill Drake, grower Hoyt Corbit, Chevrolet dealer Hurless Barton and, later, Roy Knauft and Nixon’s sister-in-law Clara Jane Nixon.
The birthplace was owned by the cash-strapped Yorba Linda School District, so foundation members helped with roof repairs, painting, Pepper tree trimming and placing a monument sign in front of the home with stones from the 50 states, Bigonger told Swift.
“Probably if the school district did not own the house that he lived in, it would have long since been demolished and we would not have the home that he was born in,” he noted. A grammar school opened on site in 1926, replaced by Richard Nixon Elementary in 1954.
“Watergate put a crimp in our style… [and] we maintained quite a low profile,” Bigonger remembered, but the foundation collected about $125,000 and bought the home and 1.1 acres from the school district in 1977. (The Star put the price at $225,000 for 1.3 acres.)
The Nixon school closed June 1981, and trustees voted to sell the remaining eight acres in October 1981. Bigonger, who left the council in 1972, started pressing the council to buy the land, but the members refused.
Instead, council approved a condominium project for the land, and the school district was prepared to sell the property to a developer. An irritated Bigonger then ran for one of two council seats on the ballot in 1986 and placed second.
“One of my purposes for running was to see if I could convince among the inside what I could not do on the outside,” Bigonger said. “I found that there was some opposition on the council,” perhaps “personality conflicts towards the president…or whatever….”
Bigonger met with Nixon in March 1987, as the separate Library Foundation “became disenchanted with San Clemente” and asked if Yorba Linda would buy the acreage for a library and museum.
Longtime City Manager Art Simonian also met with Nixon in 1987 and told Swift: “He made a commitment that the project was coming to Yorba Linda. That is really when the decision was made.”
The city paid $1.3 million for the land, demolished the school and graded the property, as a merged Birthplace and Library foundation built the facility and restored the home.
Placement of the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda was due to the efforts of a core of residents, including Roland Bigonger, the city’s first mayor, who, beginning in 1968, worked diligently to preserve a deteriorating presidential birthplace.
(This column is based on two interviews conducted by Dennis Swift in 1988 for the oral history program at Cal State Fullerton and articles in past issues of the Yorba Linda Star, and summarizes a talk I gave at a recent meeting of the Nixon library’s Docent Guild.)
Bigonger, who arrived in the community in 1955 and worked as a letter carrier while attending law school, served twice as mayor in terms 20 years apart, during which he took several key actions which led to the library locating in Yorba Linda.
The first was creating a Richard Nixon Birthplace Foundation in 1968. Joining Bigonger in the endeavor were his council colleague and drug store owner Burt Brooks, dentist Dr. Bob Meador, Star newspaper publisher Bill Drake, grower Hoyt Corbit, Chevrolet dealer Hurless Barton and, later, Roy Knauft and Nixon’s sister-in-law Clara Jane Nixon.
The birthplace was owned by the cash-strapped Yorba Linda School District, so foundation members helped with roof repairs, painting, Pepper tree trimming and placing a monument sign in front of the home with stones from the 50 states, Bigonger told Swift.
“Probably if the school district did not own the house that he lived in, it would have long since been demolished and we would not have the home that he was born in,” he noted. A grammar school opened on site in 1926, replaced by Richard Nixon Elementary in 1954.
“Watergate put a crimp in our style… [and] we maintained quite a low profile,” Bigonger remembered, but the foundation collected about $125,000 and bought the home and 1.1 acres from the school district in 1977. (The Star put the price at $225,000 for 1.3 acres.)
The Nixon school closed June 1981, and trustees voted to sell the remaining eight acres in October 1981. Bigonger, who left the council in 1972, started pressing the council to buy the land, but the members refused.
Instead, council approved a condominium project for the land, and the school district was prepared to sell the property to a developer. An irritated Bigonger then ran for one of two council seats on the ballot in 1986 and placed second.
“One of my purposes for running was to see if I could convince among the inside what I could not do on the outside,” Bigonger said. “I found that there was some opposition on the council,” perhaps “personality conflicts towards the president…or whatever….”
Bigonger met with Nixon in March 1987, as the separate Library Foundation “became disenchanted with San Clemente” and asked if Yorba Linda would buy the acreage for a library and museum.
Longtime City Manager Art Simonian also met with Nixon in 1987 and told Swift: “He made a commitment that the project was coming to Yorba Linda. That is really when the decision was made.”
The city paid $1.3 million for the land, demolished the school and graded the property, as a merged Birthplace and Library foundation built the facility and restored the home.
posted by Jim Drummond at 12:00 AM
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