Orange County's Connection to the Great Quake of 1933

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Posted by Gustavo Arellano in Gunkist Memories

March 10, 2008 3:05 PM

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Today is the 75th anniversary of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which rattled Southern California, claimed more than 100 lives, and spurred many of the retrofitting laws that keep us safe from the Big One (remember when that was the only terror we dreaded?). Four people died in Orange County, but the only lasting, visible legacies the quake wrought here are in Anaheim*.

In the Anaheim High School Public library hangs a picture of a magnificent structure with Greek columns--this was the old Anaheim High School, which fell during the 1933 quake. A plaque on the school's William H. Cook Auditorium commemorates the WPA project that helped it rebuild. A couple of blocks away, behind a glass case, sits an old Pinocchio (held by a groovy gal at left). He's better known to Anaheim children as the hero of the Great Flood of 1938, but the crack in the back of his skull came after he fell off a shelf during the Long Beach tremor. Now, back to worrying about gas prices...

*UPDATE: Excuse my Anaheim bias--read what the commentator below has to say...

Comments (1)

Anonymous says:
March 10, 2008 17:11

Isn't the current Santa Ana High School a result of the destruction of the previous buildings from the Long Beach earthquake?

I believe that Garden Grove High School's main art-deco building also had it's second story destroyed during the Long Beach earthquake, making it a single story structure. Legend has it that a cheerleader from GGHS, that was killed during the Long Beach earthquake, still haunts the halls of the GGHS main building.

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