LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

Charles TeWinkle owned a popular general store in town for awhile.

Though remembered by younger generations and history books as Costa

Mesa’s first mayor -- as well as the name behind TeWinkle Middle School

and TeWinkle Park -- those who knew him recall his store, how you could

walk in and do everything from pay your gas bills to buy some hardware,

and how his civic-minded ways helped shape Costa Mesa.

TeWinkle died in 1962, but his legacy includes a list of notable

titles.

He was elected the city’s first mayor in 1953. In 1922, he was one of

the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce’s first nine board members. In 1944,

he became a member of the city’s Sanitary Board.

And he had a wife that joined in his publicly-known ranks.

Goldie TeWinkle, who died in 1982 at age 102, was the city’s first

postmistress and one of the founders of the Costa Mesa Historical

Society.

“He and his wife were quite a team,” said Gladys Refakes, a volunteer

at the historical society who, in fact, use to buy plates at TeWinkle’s

store and pay her gas and phone bills there.

The Tewinkles arrived in Costa Mesa -- then known as a town named

Harper -- in 1920 from New York. Before arriving here, Charles TeWinkle

ran a gold mine in Nevada. In 1922, he bought a store on Newport

Boulevard and 18th Street from a man named Frank Ozment.

“It was a well-supplied hardware store,” remembers George Grupe, a

research historian and speaker who lives in Newport Beach. “He ran a very

successful business on that corner.”

He notes that nowadays, you have retail locations like the Home Depot

where hardware goods and lumber goods can be found under the same roof.

But in TeWinkle’s time, you had a hardware store, a lumber company and

separate stores for separate needs.

“But in those days you had customer service,” Grupe said. “You would

walk into Mr. TeWinkle’s hardware store and generally he would wait on

you himself.”

During his stay in Costa Mesa, TeWinkle also helped organize the Costa

Mesa Bank, the Costa Mesa Lion’s Club and the Harbor Area Boy’s and

Girl’s Club.

“I think he was a very well-respected man,” Grupe said.

* 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.