The Standard Oil Company of California essentially created the city of El Segundo when it opened its massive refinery there in late 1911.
The company had purchased Frank Bennett’s 840-acre farm in June 1911 after its Richmond refinery in the Bay Area had reached its production capacity. I
Standard, now known as Chevron USA, put Pennsylvania oilman R.J. Hanna in charge of the project, and his wife got credit for naming the site “El Segundo,” Spanish for “the second,” with the Richmond refinery being “El Primero,” the company’s first California refinery.
The town grew up quickly around the refinery. At the time its incorporation became official in 1917, it had many services already in place. The first grammar school and church had been founded, a volunteer fire department had been formed, and R.W. Jackson had been named the town marshal.
In addition, a branch of the Los Angeles County library had been established in the El Segundo Hotel, built in 1911. Virginia Fitzgerald served as the town’s first librarian, receiving $10 per week for her services.
The library grew along with the town. In 1918, it was moved to a room in the new City Hall. This would turn out to be a temporary solution, as the city’s population would soon outgrow the one-room library.
Even at this early date, the city had started looking toward replacing the County Library branch with its own independent library. It took a while, but that change became official in September 1930, when a new El Segundo Library opened at 123-125 W. Grand Ave. with a collection of 1,400 books.
At the grand opening, Mayor George Love told the El Segundo Herald that, while happy with the newly independent library, the city still hoped to build a bigger and more permanent building to house it.
Three years later, the library moved once again, this time into the new Converse building down the street at 204-206 W. Grand.
During this same time frame, improvements were being made to lower-case “library park,” the informal name for 3.35 acres of greenery across Main St.. from El Segundo High School, which had opened in 1927.
A 1931 envisioning of what was rather generically called “El Segundo City Park” drawn up by the Webber & Spaulding architectural firm shows the proposed layout, with the new library holding down its southeast corner. It also shows a pergola, centralized flagpole and the site of the “Municipal Xmas Tree.”
But the city’s plan to build its once-and-for-all library didn’t begin to gather steam until 1935, when the El Segundo School District, owners of the land, deeded it to the City of El Segundo for $10. Once that transaction had taken place, plans for the new library began in earnest.
Construction of the single-story structure began in 1939 under the aegis of the National Youth Administration, a jobs-oriented New Deal agency begun under the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Like so many other activities in American life, the project had to be halted before completion due to the outbreak of World War II.
During the war, its unfinished sections were boarded up and the building was used as a control center for the Civilian Defense Control (CDC) public security agency.
It stood empty for a couple of years following the war’s end while financing and construction were put back on track by the city. After the city council authorized the funding, work on the building resumed in early 1948.
The Los Angeles-based architectural firm of Austin, Field and Fry provided the final design of the single-story building, which featured a 25-by-80-foot main reading room.
The long wait for a new free-standing library finally ended with the grand opening of the building on the corner of Richmond St. and Mariposa Ave. on Aug.16, 1948. The city designated Aug. 16-21 as public library week in honor of the occasion.
The library has been a fixture in the city ever since. It has been remodeled and expanded several times over the years. During an 8,000-square-foot addition that was finished in 1964, the staff and collection had to move into and operate from nearby Richmond Street School.
Another expansion that more than doubled the library’s floor space was proposed in 1983 and received final approval in 1989. The project entailed adding an entire new wing to the building, more than doubling its total floor space. Construction began in 1990, and the expanded library opened in March 1992.
Last year, the library, still going strong, marked 75 years at its present location.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
El Segundo Herald archives.
El Segundo: Seventy-Five Years: A Pictorial History of El Segundo, California, by Eileen Curry Hunter, H2 Limited Publishers, 1991.
Los Angeles Times archives.
