LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

During a time when Main Street looked almost like New Orlean’s Bourbon

Street on Mardi Gras, Newport Beach’s first police chief, Rowland

Hodgkinson, ran “a hell of a department,” remembers Judge Robert Gardner.

Hodgkinson served as chief from 1928 to 1953, watching the department

grow from seven officers to 25 -- not including the 25 reserve officers

-- said Sgt. Steve Shulman, spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Dept.

The Kansas native started out as a motorcycle officer in 1927, without

any prior training in law enforcement, said Gardner, a longtime local. He

was elected police chief a year later.

Before then, marshals led the department. When Newport Beach decided

to switch to electing its chiefs, it changed the way the lead officer was

perceived. Hodgkinson’s arrival intimidated the night crawlers, the judge

said.

“If you got drunk and obnoxious, you had to be careful when you walked

past him in the alley ‘cause he’d reach out and grab you,” said Gardner,

who knew the former chief as a friend and brother-in-law.

But he controlled the town with grace, Gardner remembers. Thousands of

visitors would flock to a local dance hall at nights. Gambling joints

dotted Balboa peninsula. And sure, it was Prohibition, but alcohol was

sold for 25 cents an ounce at a once well-known little drug store.

“It was a wide open town, and he went along with it. All the cops went

along with it,” Gardner said.

Hodgkinson also got to know the kids.

“I knew him from the time I was nine years old,” Gardner said. “I

worked on Main Street at a restaurant and he was always really nice to

little kids.”

Before joining the department, Hodgkinson operated the Snug Harbor

Restaurant near the Balboa pier. He was one of the city’s first paid

lifeguards, Shulman said, and he was a World War I veteran, having served

in the Navy. He was also a member of the local American Legion Post and

the Elks Lodge.

After Gardner graduated from law school, the chief gave him a job at

the police department.

“I was going to starve if it wasn’t for him,” the judge said.

But Hodgkinson’s retirement in 1953 was somewhat mixed in controversy.

He was accused of accepting bribes and not paying income tax on about

$20,000, Gardner said.

The matter was brought to court and cleared, and the chief retired.

“He left under a cloud,” Gardner said.

But a group of local citizens formed a fund that paid Hodgkinson a

chief’s salary for the rest of his life.

At age 72, while on vacation with his wife Marian, Hodgkinson died in

a Palm Springs hospital.

Gardner said Hodgkinson was a fascinating guy, though he admits he is

a bit biased because of his personal relationship.

“It was a wild town, but he handled it beautifully,” Gardner said. “He

knew how to handle crowds, he knew how to handle people.”

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at [email protected]; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.