Midway City, California
Midway City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place that forms part of the county land controlled by Orange County, California. The only area in Orange County that incorporates its chamber of commerce and homeowners association to act in concert like a city council, the area mostly is surrounded by Westminster with Huntington Beach bordering it on the southwest. Midway City was so named because it is horizontally midway between Seal Beach, to the west, and Santa Ana, to the east. The 2020 census listed the population as 8,825.
Midway City is one of Orange County's oldest communities, and many of its homes are of 1950s construction. The area includes two mobile home parks and the residents who live here are of moderate income, with many of them senior citizens. As described by Midway City local historian in 2008, "Midway City is desirable because of its large lots – typically over 8,000 square feet with many larger lots as well.... The trend is that buyers are scraping the lots and building big homes or adding large additions onto the original home." The community fits within a area and takes up of land.
Being an unincorporated county area, municipal annexation by cities bordering Midway City is an ongoing issue for Midway City. Attempts at complete annexation have met fierce resistance from Midway's residents, who would rather have their community remain an unincorporated area of Orange County to maintain water and property tax rates that are lower than neighboring communities.
However, Midway City's land adjacent to its borders has slowly been annexed by Westminster over time, particularly for public schools sites, to transfer decision making and government school funds from the county to the city. Annexation has also occurred along the heavily traveled Beach Boulevard/California State Route 39, where that annexed land could be redeveloped to generate significant business tax revenue for Westminster. As a result, Midway City presently is composed of four anemic sections, or "islands", that have stepped boundaries which include mostly residential property, small businesses, and not-for-profit businesses such as churches, American Legion Post 555, and the Brothers of Saint Patrick order.
History
1880s to 1930s
Two miles directly to the east of Midway City was the now-defunct Town of Bolsa, which was established in 1870. Midway City's northernmost boundary, Hazard Avenue, is named after the great-grandparents of Clyde Hazard: early American pioneers Robert Samuel and Betsy Ann Hazard, who moved from Hitchcock County, Nebraska with their children to the Westminster district in August 1881 and subsequently purchased forty acres northwest of the Town of Bolsa on February 6, 1882. Ann was a direct descendant of the White family, who, in 1620, sailed from England to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower. In 1891, Midway City received its post office from Bolsa. In 1915, one of the top United States poultry judges, W. M. Wise, moved from Michigan to perform breeding and service work for Pacific Southwest Poultry Farm in Midway City. Seven years later, Midway City began to take shape in 1922 when John H. Harper purchased of land based on the location of a local stagecoach stop and needs of the workers in the Huntington Beach Oil Field located west of the stagecoach stop. Harper subsequently subdivided his land by laying out streets, building sidewalks, and, in 1923, started selling lots. As the Huntington Beach Oil Field expanded, the homes in that area that stood in the path of drawing oil from the ground were physically relocated to Harper's lots in Midway City, which "started Midway City." The area, which currently includes four unincorporated, "anemic" sections as a result of annexation for the Westminster business district, is known as Midway City; the largest section looks like a crooked letter "P". Midway City is six miles from Santa Ana, six miles from Huntington Beach, and seven miles from Long Beach, giving rise to the Midway City name. Harper Street, which vertically bisects the largest of the four Midway City sections, is named after John Harper.Prior to 1927, Zenith Corporation manufactured farm implements in Midway City. After learning of American aviator Charles Lindbergh's famed May 20–21, 1927 first solo transatlantic flight via non-stop fixed-wing aircraft flight between America and mainland Europe, Zenith Corporation owners Charles Rocheville and Albin Peterson formed the Zenith Aircraft Corporation. Three months later, by August 1927, Zenith Aircraft Corporation built a huge, lightweight tri-motor aircraft named Schofield Albatross in a hangar/factory at Midway City Airport. To make its maiden flight some time in the fall of 1927, the Albatross, identified as Zenith Albatross Z-12, had an externally braced wing spanning 90-ft and a fuselage designed to carry 14 passengers and baggage at a maximum speed of 100-mph. With no market for the then-largest aircraft in the world, the Zenith Albatross Z-12 eventually was sold to Hollywood and used to represent a crashed Fokker in the 1928 film Conquest directed by filmmaker Roy Del Ruth. Zenith manufactured a second airplane, the Zenith Albatross Z-6, before the 1930s Great Depression affected the corporation and Zenith went back to manufacturing farm equipment in 1932.
In 1928, American aviator Charles Lindbergh and some investors stopped off at Eddie Martin Airport looking for another airfield field in what was to become Midway City to see Zenith's Albatross. That same year, the politically powerful Ladies Social and Civic Club of Midway City built a community clubhouse at the corner of Bolsa Avenue and Monroe Street from land donated by Harper that the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations subsequently used. The proactive women's group, which originally met at John Harper's house and included Harper's wife, also worked to keep out roadhouses and landfills from the Midway City lands. The next year, 1929, the Methodist Episcopal Church's Latin American Mission outreach began holding services and marriage ceremonies in Midway City for Mexican field workers who had come to the area after the end of the Mexican Revolution. In 1932, the Ladies Social and Civic Club of Midway City renamed itself as the Midway City Women's Club. The Long Beach earthquake of March 10, 1933 had such a significant impact on Midway City that it still was a topic of interest for the residents in August 1933. Three years after renaming itself, in 1935, the club established a Midway City branch of the Orange County Public Library and joined the General Federation of Women's Clubs. The clubhouse for the Midway City Women's Club eventually was moved in 1989 to Leaora L. Blakey Park at 8612 Westminster Boulevard.
In 1936, seven families that made up the Midway City Dairy Association received a loan of $7,850 in June from the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. The loan stood out in that it was the first loan by the Resettlement Administration to a self-help cooperative and led to other cooperatives seeking money from the Resettlement Administration. The seven families used the money to rehabilitate the Midway City Dairy Association: "The plant was immediately renovated, and better equipment procured by trade. Bidding tactics of competitors were studied with all the zeal of poker experts, means of developing consumer cooperative markets were explained, and all plans laid to take full advantage of their new capital and condition as free producers in an open market." In obtaining the loan, Henry Lotz noted, "This Resettlement loan, it's a future to us from the bidding platform for old age labor."
The 1930s also brought additional services to Midway City. The United States Postal Service opened a post office on Jackson Street in 1930. The Midway City Volunteer Fire Department was formed in 1935. The Midway City Sanitary District, which presently provides sewer and solid waste services to the residents of Midway City and others in its district, was established in January 1939 when its Governing Board held the first meeting at the Fire Hall in Midway City. The Midway City Volunteer Fire Department received a fire station in 1952—Orange County Fire Authority Station #25—and eventually became a permanent part of Division I of the Orange County Fire Authority. However, after 80 years of operation, by 2011, the Midway City Post Office was identified by the U.S. Postal Service as one of 112 California post office locations "that have not seen enough postal customers to generate the revenue necessary to keep them open." In December 2011, the U.S. Postal Service delayed the closure of Midway's post office until Congress first passed legislation to overhaul the United States Postal Service.
1940s to 1980s
In 1942, local landmark Midway City Feed Store open to service horse owners in the surrounding areas and also began selling rabbits, guinea pigs, baby chicks, ducklings, and goslings from its large yellow barn. Six years later in 1948, the Brothers of Saint Patrick order was established in Midway City as the United States foundation and headquarters of Patrician Brothers, an Ireland-based Roman Catholic congregation for the religious and literary education of youth and the instruction of the faithful in Christian piety. The brothers work extended in the Diocese of Orange County and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. They also began a celebration tradition that has become one of Orange County's biggest St. Patrick's Day celebrations. At the end of the decade, in 1949, Dick Riedel and Midway City's Bill Barris of Fullerton Air Service, sponsored by the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce, set a world flight endurance record from Fullerton Municipal Airport, keeping their modified Aeronca Sedan, the Sunkist Lady aloft for 1,008 hours and 2 minutes. Seven years later in 1956, the city of Westminster sought to incorporate Midway City, Barber City, and Westminster into a new city called Tri-City. Prior to the March 1957 creation date of Tri-City, California, Midway City had dropped out, citing fears of high taxes. In September 1957, voters in the former Westminster and Baraber City areas voted to change the name Tri-City to Westminster.In 1981, the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission, a government agency that makes decisions regarding boundaries for cities and unincorporated territory within Orange County, California, added Midway City to the Westminster sphere of influence, a commission method to designate future boundaries and service areas of Westminster. The commission's addition of Midway City to the Westminster sphere of influence was a political move towards Westminster's annexation of the unincorporated Midway City and to prevent Huntington Beach from being able to annex one of the last commercially valuable strips of Midway City along Beach Boulevard. After Midway's Chamber of Commerce protested, Midway was removed from Westminster's sphere. In 1986, Orange County used money from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to purchase about five acres of land from Southern California Edison and develop part of the land as Midway Meadows, a Midway City project consisting of 92-one bedroom apartment units for senior citizens. In 1987, the county built a park on the 1986 acquired Southern California Edison land. Three years later in 1989, the county added Midway City back in Westminster's sphere and renamed the 1987 built park Stanton Park, after Roger R. Stanton, a supervisor on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Later that same year, the county selected Midway City's Interval House, a shelter for abused women, to receive part of a $1-million grant for expansion.