The First Mayor

Thomas Murphine, Our First Mayor

In good times seems everyone’s a hero.
In bad times, the heroes rise.

Thomas Murphine, first mayor of San Clemente ruled over
our seaside city for 6 years and had his share of things that
could’ve broken a lesser man. He came in without much fanfare
and left the same way. Called to serve, he did so at the
end of a stretch of good times. San Clemente’s once bright
real estate candle all but went out.
Its 1000 residents shrunk to 250.

Murphine met city founder Ole Hansen and became good
friends while serving in Washington’s State Legislature.
Murphine was the City Harbor Commission’s legal advisor.
Ole owned a successful country store. As Seattle’s Mayor,
Ole appointed Murphine Supervisor of Public Utilities.
The friends survived the famous public workers strike,
then went to Santa Barbara in the early 1920s to work on
the Porter Hotel project. It wasn’t meant to be. The hotel
went down in flames. Had it not been for the 1925 earthquake,
which demolished the hotel, “perhaps there wouldn’t have
been a San Clemente,” says John Hall, grandson of Murphine.

They moved onto San Clemente. Murphine and partner
Trafford Huteson’s brokerage firm was granted the land
sales contract. The paper said, tongue-in-cheek, “As Murphine
and Huteson are from Seattle, they cannot work good in the rain.
They were not used to it before coming to Southern California.”

San Clemente municipalized in February 1928 with 14 city officers
including the mayor. Ole Hansen Jr. deferred the role.
Murphine accepted. Heroes do that.
He was on the architect board that made town laws including
Spanish designs and red roofs. When Murphine took office,
San Clemente claimed to be the wealthiest city per capita in America.
Five years later, not even its founder could afford to live here.

The Bad Years
A 1927 paper said building was still booming, but words couldn’t
boost the economy. The Depression hit the tender new growth of
San Clemente hard. “They all lived very well in the early years
before the crash,” says Hall. October 1929 came. Taxes or
mortgages got most homes.
All the good publicity in the world couldn’t bring in sales.

Paradise was taking its toll. Rumors always flew about what
happened with Ole and Murphine’s friendship, once strong
enough that Murphine threw his support behind what many
called Ole’s “harebrained scheme.” Close for years, they’d
gone through major setbacks and an earthquake. Eventually
their friendship cracked. Seattle had drawn them together.
San Clemente would split them apart.

The depression didn’t help. Everyone was looking for someone
to blame. At a council meeting, Murphine indicated he’d been
responsible for securing the city’s water. That did it. Rather
than “water under the bridge,” Ole thought Murphine was claiming
Ole’s gift to the city. Actually, both were correct. Homer Banks said,
“One of Mayor Murphine’s first official acts was to formerly accept
on behalf of the city, the $500,000 water system…built by Hansen
and the Cotton Syndicate …for which the city paid $1.00.”

The rift deepened. Murphine continued serving. Ole left in 1932
but had a recall election to remove Murphine. Though ineffective,
(174 favor to 130 against) it created a bitter separation
resolved only shortly before Ole’s death.

While Murphine was mayor, the pier, hospital, golf course and
many landmarks were built. Murphine was a prominent athlete
at UW Seattle. His Seattle contacts brought baseball spring
training to our new ballpark. He had a non-nonsense attitude.
News Editor, Jim Farquhar wrote about a councilman who wanted
to distribute beer. “The Mayor said that if the police commissioner
wanted to sell beer, shoe buttons or peanut brittle, it was OK
with him, so long as he didn’t do it in the street and scare the
horses.” Now that’s just good common sense. (er…horse sense.)

Then came the last straw. In 1933, after it was featured in Western
Decorator, San Clemente swallowed Murphine’s home. Built on an
old Indian graveyard, another quake, (Long Beach) left a growing
fissure in his front yard. The house started moaning as if expressing
the pain the entire city was feeling. Like a sick person, it began to
shake. Finally it exploded and fell in the earth. Only the beautiful
red roof could be seen. There are no comments I could find on what
Murphine may have said, but his dream home was gone.
Ole lost his to the bank.

With his stunning ocean-view home now rubble, Murphine moved
the family to a local apartment to continue duties as mayor and
daily business of Huteson-Murphine. He helped as Hamilton
Cotton got Bank of America to change the tile roof codes so that
more houses could be sold. Even so, banks took home after home.

It was FDR a friend of Cotton’s who bailed out San Clemente.
66 men got jobs. That was probably most of the men in town.
That WPA project is where our beautiful eucalyptus and palm
trees came from. Those trees saved us.

After Murphine moved his family back to LA on 42nd Place,
he resigned. He formed partnerships and practiced corporate
law where one of his clients was The Ringling Brothers.
John Hall was six when his father died. Murphine willingly accepted
that role too, bringing his daughter and grandson to his home.
“He was the big lord of the family,” Hall recalls fondly. Murphine
taught Hall to memorize the 33 Presidents by awarding a silver
dollar for each one learned – a hefty incentive back then.
“He was a hero to me in my formative years,” says Hall.

If it weren’t for Murphine, we wouldn’t have La Cristianita
monument. He collected Indian arrowheads and found the
area’s heritage fascinating. Murphine and Father St. John O’Sullivan
got the Board of Supervisors to officially recognize the site.
Murphine became the city’s first preservationist.

What might Murphine say today of San Clemente? Hall, the grandson
who lived with Murphine during his last ten years says, “He’d be pleased.
He’d want to see it developed the right way for the greatest
good and greatest culture.”

While Ole got most of the attention, Murphine served as a good,
solid citizen, supporting the dream of a friend. Work behind the
scenes is vital to growth. Those unseen roots spur the blooms
the world sees. Thomas Murphine quietly built the roots.

Live like a hero!

Terri Marie

Terri Marie is the author of “Be the Hero of Your Own Game.”
For past articles visit heroesamongus.blogspot.com.
For a free “year of cheer” send an email to yearofcheer@aweber.com

Special thanks to John Hall, and to Lois Divel, and Pat Bouman
of the San Clemente Historical Society for their kind help &
information. Thanks also to Doris Walker’s book.

Life Lessons from Thomas Murphine

• Never Complain

In what seemed like an endless boom for the city with an ever-brighter
future, leading the almost desperate San Clemente certainly was no picnic.
Murphine didn’t complain. He served.

• Don’t Overlook the Little Things

A new city needs some organization. Can you imagine San Clemente
without house numbers to find one’s way around? The issue had to
be “addressed.” The new Mayor urged “all to cooperate with city
council in attending to this duty of citizenship.” Thank goodness.

• Don’t Live in the Past

“They were broken-hearted when their dream home on the bluff
was lost but he never talked about past disappointments,” said Hall.
Murphine picked up and moved on.

• Do Your Duty to Family and City When Called

Hall isn’t sure what would’ve happened if Murphine hadn’t taken them in.
“He came to our rescue,” says Hall. “He was a great father to me.”

• Stick by Your Values

“He was just and fair and totally honest had a good legal mind,” said Hall. “
All the people from those early days of San Clemente stayed in touch with him.”
That says a lot.

• When the World is Falling Down Around You, Don’t Get Petty

Murphine didn’t buy into the finger pointing. His comments about
not scaring the horses pretty much summed up the way he handled things.

• Don’t be Afraid to Revise in a Crisis

Although Murphine helped create the law to require red tile roofs in
San Clemente, when the depression hit and no houses were selling,
they tried something else.
Even a football player has to go another direction sometimes.

• Use a Game to Teach Skills

With astute insight Murphine used sports to teach math.
This put his grandson 2 years ahead of the class because his math
skills were so good. “He taught me how to read a baseball box score,”
says Hall. “I think if he hadn’t become a lawyer, he might’ve become
a teacher like his father. There was a lot of teaching in his soul.”

Give Him an A!

Bob McCarroll

Give Him an A!

One day like any other, Robert McCarroll was teaching his Auto Academy
class at San Clemente High - when there was a knock on his door. The
principal and several men showed up. That could get any teacher a little
nervous, including McCarroll. He needn’t have worried.
He was about to be told he was named “Teacher of the Year.”

The award was presented by San Clemente Wal-Mart manager,
Leo Dennis, with a $1000 check and gift card for McCarroll’s program.
“I was completely shocked,” said McCarroll. Who better to get the award
than someone training people for work in what once was called
“service” stations? And serve he does. “I counted it up once.
Over 6,000 students have come through my program.”

McCarroll’s Academy teaches all the basics of understanding cars,
but puts great emphasis on building quality character. “Punctuality,
loyalty, honesty, integrity. That’s the difference between being
successful or not. You could be the world’s best mechanic, but
if you can’t get along with the guys in the shop, nobody wants you.”

His consumer automotive class teaches what we all should know
about our cars…“everything from maintenance, to what to do if
they think there’s fraud,” says McCarroll. “All my kids know the
toll-free number for the Bureau of Automotive Repair. They know
how to shop smart for a car, and how to know it’s been in an
accident. I think everybody who owns a driver’s license should
have a course like that. If they did, there’d be a lot less fraud.”

“These guys are really in high demand. They often make more
money than college graduates.” Some teachers may have given
up on some of these students. Not Bob. He says, “While some say,
‘He’ll never amount to anything.’ We take them in. We take them
from a tax burden to a taxpayer. They need someone to believe
in them and they need a valuable skill to make a good living.”

“Some kids come in with their faces dragging on the ground.
Everything they’ve tried in school, they didn’t enjoy or weren’t
successful at. In this program, they find something they can be
successful at and really like. It doesn’t hurt that their buddies
now come to them with car questions ‘Knowledge is power.’
That’s what I tell them. The more you know, the more you can do,
the more valuable you are. Once these kids come into the Auto
Academy, we see improvements in attitude, grades and attendance.
How much money does that save the school district? Thousands.
Plus it really makes the kids successful.”

Former student Brian Schroepher, was a guest speaker for McCarroll’s
yearly program where the Academy honors business partners who
hire his interns. Brian had severe dyslexia. “When he came into my
10th grade class, he had a 2nd grade reading level. But Brian really
liked working on cars. He studied, did his best and got on my
trouble-shooting team. Brian won the County championship. He
missed the National championship by a headlight switch. That was
worth 17 points. Now Brian’s an engineer who works for Honeywell.
Last I heard, he was working on some top-secret airplane
issue for the Air Force.”

Thirteen orange pennants hang from McCarroll’s ceiling. Each
represents a year at the state finals, 13 out of 20 - more than any
other school in Orange County. Seven rows of checkered flags
denote when they went to nationals. McCarroll isn’t a newcomer to
awards. His program was the first at SCH to win the coveted
Golden Bell award.

His students are “driven” – sorry for the pun. Last year two
students went to the nationals in NYC. They got to work on a
new 2006 BMW 235i to find and fix the “bugs” purposely put in
the car. They finished ninth in the nation. “Both of my students
came home with $60,000 in scholarship money – each!” The team
so impressed the National Training Director of BMW, he gave
them his card saying, “When you finish training, give us a call.”

Two people influenced McCarroll, his grandpa and his wife.
His grandpa taught him how to repair broken items people had
thrown away because they didn’t know how to fix them. He also
taught McCarrol about character. “I patterned myself after Grandpa.
He had all the character traits I hold in high esteem.” McCarrroll’s
wife said she wouldn’t marry him until he promised to attend
college. “I didn’t want to go, because college is where the smart
kids went. Those of us who were average, or like myself, below
average, did something else. In high school, I got pigeonholed
into what was called a “slow” class. I thought, “I must not be too
smart, therefore “D’ is probably the best I can do.” However when
McCarroll applied himself in college, he got B’s. He thought it was
a fluke. “I must’ve had easy teachers. I had no confidence at all.
But my wife had confidence in me.” Today McCarroll passes
along that confidence to his students.

“Looking back now, 35 years later, I think there was a higher
plan for me. Somebody had something in store for me. I’m right
where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to
do…teaching these guys.”
Let’s give him an A+

Live like a hero!

Terri Marie


McCarroll’s Lessons:
• You Never Know How You Will Influence Someone’s Life.

McCarroll didn’t apply for the Wal-Mart “Teacher of the Year” Award.
He was nominated by student, Josh Blum, who said McCarroll was
one of the best teachers he’d ever had and thought McCarroll
deserved the recommendation.

• Technical Skills are Less Important than Character

Students can get trained in a skill but an employer will not teach
them character. McCarroll does. “They expect you to know how to
work on a car. If you don’t, they can teach you. But they’re not
going to teach you how to be loyal to the company.” McCarroll
didn’t make his high school honor society, but that doesn’t stop
him from teaching about honor.

• Set the Tone

“I’ve always believed that if you want someone to perform a
certain way, you have to set the tone. If I want the kids to be on time,
I’m on time. I say, ‘If you start at 8:00, don’t be there at 8:00 - be there
at quarter till or ten till. Be early.’ Show the employers you care
about his business.”

• Good Work Pays Off

The Academy students are required to do a summer internship at a
local business. “About 60% of these kids get hired right out of the
internship,” said McCarroll, “Girls should be encouraged to do this.
They can make lots of money as a technician.”

• Know Your Stats to Help Your Students

“The Department of Labor Statistics says that we are 60,000
automotive technicians short. What that means is that if we took
all the kids in automotive training programs right now and put them
to work tomorrow, we’d still be short 60,000 openings. And the Dept
of Labor is projecting that number will grow by 10,000 each year
for the next decade.” That knowledge armed McCarroll with info to
prove just how valuable these skills will be to his students.

• Use the community resources.

McCarroll works with local business owners to offer internships
for his Academy program. It’s win/win. Students get experience
and often job offers. The business owners train, teach, and
handpick potential employees.