William ‘Bill’ Clegg

A LOOK BACK

I thought that since last week we looked at a member of our city

personnel, this week I’ll offer another of our unsung heroes of City

Hall.

Huntington Beach resident Gordie Higgins remembers this week’s

subject. When this gentleman worked for the city, he was never

without money. He controlled all the cash the city had in its vault.

We will be looking at one of Huntington Beach’s past city

treasurers. William “Bill” Clegg was born in society, or at least he

ran around in the social circle.

Social Circle was the name of the little country town nestled in

the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains of Georgia.

As for Bill, his southern heritage goes way back. His

great-grandmother owned a large 1,000-acre cotton plantation about 50

miles from Atlanta, and at family get-togethers, the conversation

would come around of how Bill’s great-grandmother out-smarted General

Sherman’s soldiers as they marched through Georgia during the Civil

War by hiding hams, bacon and valuables from them.

Bill was born on this same plantation in Social Circle and he

received his formal education there, too. After graduating from high

school, Bill entered Georgia Military College at Milledgeville.

While at school, Bill excelled at sports and could be found on the

basketball court or playing on a team in the baseball field, all the

while studying business training there.

The Atlanta Journal held a school contest to pick 25 students from

schools throughout the south to go to Washington, D.C. to witness the

inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as president of these United States in

1913. One of those 25 students who shook hands with President Wilson

was Bill Clegg.

In 1916, Bill went to work in his hometown bank in Social Circle.

Three months later, Bill had had enough and went to work for the

Lowry National Bank in Atlanta.

The next year, he and a good friend took a trip to Akron, Ohio,

and there these two lads got employment at Goodrich Rubber Co. Bill’s

job was to check out the men who came into the company looking for

work. This lasted only a short time, and Bill went to work at the

company making blowout patches for automobile tires.

Bill returned to Social Circle to register for the draft during

World War I, as did most young men at the time. Bill escaped the

draft. During the war, he worked for his uncle in the post office in

the country town of Madison, Ga.

After the war ended and the boys were coming home, Bill bought the

movie theater in Social Circle to help the boys forget the war.

He moved to El Paso, Texas in 1921 and began looking around for

another movie palace to buy. Finding nothing he liked, Bill came west

to California to see what this state had to offer.

He returned to El Paso and lined up a road show of midgets, but

his money ran low. But to show how fate could change bad luck to good

luck, Bill returned to California in late 1921 to work in Santa Ana.

It was there that he met Zaida L. McFarren, and in less than a

year, they were wed in Zaida’s home, on May 27, 1922.

Like Bill, Zaida came to California from another state. She came

from Shepherd, Mich. Zaida first went in Detroit to work as a

secretary and then to Santa Ana, where she met Bill.

A banker friend of Bill’s in Santa Ana, Alex Brownbridge, told

Bill that there was an opening available at a small seaside bank in

Huntington Beach. That bank was the First National Bank, later to

become Security Pacific Bank, at the corner of Main Street and Walnut

Avenue. Its president, L.A. Copeland, hired Bill, who remained with

the bank until 1939. He was a familiar sight to local depositors.

In October of 1939, Bill needed a rest from the bank and resigned.

Before his resignation, Bill and Zaida had been active in many local

projects. After Bill’s retirement from the bank, the couple drove the

byways of Southern California’s desert and foothills, and Bill took

time out to do a little trout fishing.

But after a year of leisure, Bill wanted to return to work, but

not to the banking business. On a lark, he filed election papers to

run for city treasurer of Huntington Beach in February of 1940.

Bill went door to door to introduce himself to people. Of course,

that was much easier then, as the city was only 3.2 square miles and

had a population of about 4,000 people.

Oh, to return to those days again.

To his surprise, Bill won the April 1940 election. While Bill kept

busy at City Hall, Zaida kept herself busy, too. She was active in

the Woman’s Club, and during World War II, she manned a civilian

defense observation post, watching for enemy aircraft. Bill served as

a air raid watcher, as a civil defense auxiliary fireman and as

secretary of our local USO.

Zaida tried growing dahlias in Huntington Beach with Joe Vavra to

be sold to nurseries. Zaida won prizes at local flower shows and

received a first prize for the best home garden by our garden club.

Bill and Zaida’s home was at 507 10th St.

We can be proud to have had city employees like Perry Huddle and

Bill Clegg.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington

Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at

P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.