Biographical History

Willis H. Warner was a prominent Orange County government official who served on the Orange County Board of Supervisors from 1939 to 1963 and was its chairman for almost 15 years. He is known for his extensive work on flood control and sanitation issues.

Warner was born in Illinois in 1889. His father, Charles W. Warner, was a Burlington Railroad ticket agent and telegraph operator, and later worked as a carpenter and became a judge for the city of Huntington Beach. The family moved to Southern California when Willis was five years old and he attended elementary school at Garden Grove, Newhope, and Bolsa. In 1905 his father built the two-story house at 403 Tenth Street in which Willis would live for the rest of his life. He was in the first graduating class of Huntington Beach High School, where he later served as chairman of the school's board of trustees. He attended the University of Southern California to study municipal sanitation and produced a thesis on a sewer system and treatment plant for Huntington Beach. He received a degree in civil engineering from USC in 1911 and married Ethel M. Crane the same year. The Warners owned a variety of mineral and oil drilling rights, and properties throughout Southern California. They had two children, Willis C. Warner and Alice C. Warner.

Warner worked as a lumber yard manager for the San Pedro Lumber Company, and in 1925 purchased his hardware store, the Warner Hardware Store, which he operated in Huntington Beach until 1953. He was also extremely active in a number of fraternal and community organizations, and served as director of the California Gun Club.

In the public sector, Warner was active throughout his life in local government, non-governmental organizations, and local schools. He served for many years beginning in 1915 as secretary of the Westminster Drainage District, a public corporation contracted to build drainage ditches at a time when Orange County was particularly susceptible to flooding during rainy seasons. He also served as the first chairman of the newly formed Orange County Water District in 1933, was elected to the Huntington Beach City Council in 1934, and was elected mayor in 1936.

In 1938 was elected Supervisor of Orange County District No. 2 after defeating John Mitchell of Garden Grove and two other candidates, and was sworn in on January 2 the following year. He served as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for 17 years, from 1940 to 1947 and from 1949 to 1959. As Supervisor of District No. 2 he ran unopposed in every election from 1938 until 1958.

During his career on the Board of Supervisors, the County's population grew from less than 130,000 to over 750,000, and County employees increased in number from 700 to 3,000. For a quarter of a century Warner was intimately involved in all of the problems faced by the expanding County, including zoning, subdivisions, building permits, road and highway construction, airport expansion, and many others. He specialized in water-related issues such as flood control and sanitation, and assisted in the formation of a county-wide sanitation system in the late 1940s and early 1950s that could accommodate the growth in Orange County population. Among the rare controversies of his career, Warner and the Board of Supervisors waged a political battle in the late 1950s with County Counsel Joel Ogle over tidelands drilling rights. Ogle was tried for corruption and acquitted, after which he accused Warner of collusion with oil companies.

He was a member of the State Supervisors Association and served in various additional offices during this time, including Chairman and Director of the Orange County Water District, and Director and Chairman of the Shoreline Planning Association.

Warner was widely known as "Mr. Orange County" and received the first-ever honor of "Man of the Year" from the Orange County Press Club in 1953. After suffering several years from coronary disease, he died on October 28 1963, only nine months after completing his final term in office on January 6.

From the finding aid for Willis H. Warner papers, 1884-1964 (bulk ca. 1920-1963) (University of California, Irvine. Library. Special Collections and Archives.)

Source: http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=warner-willis...