Yorba Linda Star newspaper begins covering community events on front page 100 years ago

One hundred years ago the Yorba Linda Star newspaper began publishing accounts of local events from an office in the newly opened Halloway Building on Olinda Street, said to be the community's first two-story commercial structure.

The newspaper was started by A. V. Douglas, who began publishing the La Habra Star in 1916. Wanda Davis was the Yorba Linda newspaper's first employee in the edifice owned by Bert Halloway that also housed a garage and furniture store as first tenants.

Issues through 1919 apparently no longer exist, but microfilm starting with Vol. 3, No. 101, March 22, 1920, is held at the Yorba Linda, Cal State Fullerton and UC Riverside libraries.

Here's a small sampling of topics from front pages that once carried the banner “Covering Yorba Linda – Atwood – Yorba – Olinda – Santa Ana Canyon Districts – East Coyote Hills – and Richfield-Yorba Linda Oil Fields”:

--Boy Scout Troop 99, organized as Troop 1 in 1916, has often been on the front pages: recounting a Thanksgiving hike in 1924, hosting a benefit show raising $40 in 1928 and preparing for the historic scout Jamboree at Irvine Ranch in 1953.

Also often on front pages were 4-H club members: winning a silver cup, athletic events and baseball games at Junior Aggie Day at the county fairgrounds in 1928, taking first places at the Los Angeles and Orange County fairs in 1930 and a best-in-history club record in 1941.

Of course, the 105-year-old Yorba Linda Women's Club always has been a front page staple: buying a building site in 1921, holding the first meeting in the clubhouse in 1922, deeding the building to the city for a community center in 1975 and the structure destroyed by fire in 1976.

--Native son Richard Nixon might have the most front-page articles over the years, including the formation of the nation's first Nixon for President club with a $1 membership fee and Mrs. Hoyt Corbit as president in 1959.

One of Nixon's first visits as an elected official – a Congressman representing Whittier – was in 1948, when his speech topic at the Women's Club building, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce with a meal by a Friends Church women's group, was communist spy techniques.

The Star followed Nixon's career by noting vote totals received from Yorba Linda residents in his campaigns: 504 out of 596 for senator in 1950; 632 out of 808 for vice president in 1952; 1,209 out of 1,683 for president in 1960; 1,109 out of 1,448 for governor in 1962; 3,118 out of 3,903 for president in 1968; and 5,827 out of 7,595 for president in 1972.

An “impeach Nixon” rally with speeches and folk music at Chamber of Commerce-maintained Nixon Park at Imperial Highway and Yorba Linda Boulevard drew 200 people in 1973, with the Richard Nixon School PTA selling hot soup to raise cash for audio-visual equipment.

First mention of Nixon in the Star was in 1929, when the 16-year-old won “first honors” in a Whittier High School oratorical contest.