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There happen to be a lot of historic neighborhoods in Fullerton, but not too many have streets named after U.S. presidents, feature a Minimal Traditional architectural style, and have residences originally built for defense workers during World War II. In central Fullerton, six blocks west of the downtown area, along the north and south sides of West Chapman Avenue, also known as little Chapman, there is the Presidents’ Historic District, a cohesive group of 61 one-story single-family residences, which was recently designated as a preservation zone through a collaboration between Fullerton Heritage, the city, and a group of homeowners.

“We had a homeowner in the neighborhood approach us and said she would like to see what it takes to become a preservation zone,” said Ernie Kelsey, President of Fullerton Heritage. “So, we walked her through the process. She did all the door-to-door work. She was very persistent in engaging the interest of the neighborhood, and then, ultimately, on October 3rd, it passed. It was about an almost two-year project for her, and then we helped kind of shepherd it through the city and bureaucracy that it takes to get a preservation zone approved.”

According to the preliminary survey of the Presidents’ Historic District, this neighborhood is known by local residents as the Gaslamp District because of the distinctive streetlights added in the 1980s. It’s made up exclusively of single-family homes on North Adams Avenue, North Jefferson Avenue, North Roosevelt Avenue, and North Truman Avenue. Most were built in the 1940s by Richard and William Jewett of Jewett Bros., Inc., Building Contractors who were instrumental in building houses in Fullerton. Some of the district residences were part of the city’s first housing development for defense workers who had moved to Fullerton.

“The houses are a great collection of Minimal Traditional housing,” said Kelsey. “The government wanted to fund housing, but they didn’t want anything too elaborate. It’s why we have something called Minimal Traditional, which made its first appearance in the early 1920s and became an affordable response to the Depression era because they could be economically constructed.”

I learned from Fullerton Heritage member Deb Richey that this particular architectural style skyrocketed in the 1930s as a response to the need for affordable, efficient residences that could be quickly mass-produced through loans from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), established in 1934. According to Richey, the modest Minimal Traditional became known as the “little house that could” during the Depression and World War II years. This was in part because these homes could be built quickly to accommodate millions of relocated World War II defense plant workers. During World War II, Minimal Traditional became the predominant architectural style in Fullerton in order to meet the pressing demand for housing to accommodate the onslaught of war workers who had relocated to Orange County. Vacant lots in older tracts, such as those on North Adams Avenue, were filled in with Minimal Traditional housing, and new tracts of homes were quickly built in the 1940s.

According to Richey, there was defense worker housing both inside and outside the President’s historic district. In early 1942, Fullerton, Buena Park, Huntington Beach, and Santa Ana were named “critical defense areas” in Orange County by the FHA, giving the cities a high priority rating for home financing and construction. Each city had a housing quota. The federal government provided part of the funds needed to build homes for the thousands of defense workers migrating to Orange County, but the house plans needed to be approved in Washington, D.C.

At the time, the Fullerton City Council had already established a 12-member committee to provide homes for defense workers and to bring a part of the new population into the city. Committee members selected an area west of downtown Fullerton between Commonwealth and Chapman Avenues for the new houses. In April 1942, the Jewett Brothers announced that they would be building 39 new homes for defense workers on West Amerige Avenue, North Adams Avenue, and N. Woods Avenue. All homes would be completed in 1943. These two-bedroom Minimal Traditional residences would be the first homes in Fullerton built to support the WWII effort.

“While some new defense workers were hired by Fullerton plants, such as the Kohlenberg Engineering Corporation and Val Vita Food Products (later Hunt Foods, Inc.), there were no large factories in Orange County during the war,” said Kelsey. “But at the time, there were a number of smaller “feeder plants” which often produced single, smaller items (like gauges and instruments), which were shipped to factories in Los Angeles County. What Orange County did have was a number of new military bases, and many Fullerton residents would be employed as civilian workers at those facilities. There were also ‘feeder’ offices in Fullerton that facilitated the hiring of Fullerton residents for work in defense plants. Because of gas rationing, Fullerton defense workers were usually bused Monday through Saturday to defense plants in Los Angeles County, such as the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. Fullerton really looked forward to it, applied for the grant through the federal government, and was able to get some housing built. The people that lived in those houses had to work in the defense industry.”

If anyone currently lives in a historic neighborhood and is interested in preserving their neighborhood, all they have to do is send a two-line letter to info@fullertonheritage.org and say, “I am interested in my neighborhood becoming a preservation zone,” and Fullerton Heritage will help from that point forward, working with the city and homeowners.