Here Came the Judge: How East County Won its Own Courthouse

A huge headline—“Court Realigned”—proclaimed the success of Max Goodwin’s 10-month effort in the late 1950s to establish better court service for Spring Valley and his own community.  

When Goodwin, the Lemon Grove Review editor, launched his campaign, the communities lacked access to traffic and other types of courts in East County because they were part of the Homeland Judicial District, a poorly staffed entity folded into the San Diego district.  

Some 160,000 East County taxpayers paid for court services, but cases docketed for action languished a year or more before getting in front of a judge. If your car was damaged in February 1957, just maybe you’d see Hizzoner by March 1958.

Goodwin argued for the taxpayer, noting that the huge East County area—the biggest part of San Diego County—needed an additional court and judicial staff.  If Homeland joined El Cajon, the area would qualify for more services.  

Result:  On July 8, the county Board of Supervisors voted 3-0 to make the Homeland and El Cajon Judicial Districts one entity—and that’s why you can go to the El Cajon courthouse today instead of hauling downtown to the San Diego courts.

The backstory to Goodwin’s victory was densely political as the old pro revealed in issue after issue.  Lemon Grove insurance man John Dail, brother of San Diego mayor Charles Dail, rented an office in a Lemon Grove building owned by Judge Luther Hussey, the presiding judge of Homeland and a Lemon Grove resident.  

Hussey was poised to move up the judicial food chain and become a municipal judge thanks to new state legislation that allowed a judge to advance provided his district was linked to a higher district.  Joining Homeland to San Diego made the brothers Dail and Hussey happy, and together they worked to ensure Hussey’s election as a municipal judge.

Goodwin backed El Cajon Judge Fenton Garfield, who had long fought for more court services in East County. Garfield demanded a hearing by the Board of Supervisors.  Hussey, in a letter to supervisors, said he’d be forced to move from Lemon Grove if Homeland were aligned with El Cajon because, technically, he’d no longer be serving his home district.  

He said forcing him to move was tantamount of tampering with election results. The brothers Dail joined the attack on Garfield, saying because a majority had voted for Hussey they had de facto approved the union of Homeland and San Diego.

Fortunately, the supervisors saw through the latter gambit—but their 3-0 vote in favor of East County included “running a narrow finger of precincts from the San Diego district to Hussey’s home on San Miguel Street.”

Thus did everyone get what they wanted, more or less.  

The big winners were Lemon Grove and Spring Valley thanks to a plucky, small-town editor who decided that ius est ars boni et aequi— “law is the art of the good and the just,” an elegant characterization of a much maligned profession.

Eternal Optimist: Ophthalmologist Dr. Lloyd Adams of Kempf Street won Optimists International’s prestigious Loomis Award for the most outstanding achievements performed by any of 197 Optimist lieutenant governors in the U.S. and Canada.  

Adams helmed Optimist District 4, encompassing San Diego and Lemon Grove, and worked to promote the club’s creed—“bringing out the best in kids,” through upbeat, positive actions.

Adams sponsored essay and oratory contests to help partially blind and deaf youngsters improve language and reading skills, provided free eye checkups and certain eye surgeries to poor children in the county and in Baja California, raised funds for summer youth programs, lobbied the state and county legislatures for youth and school funding, and served on the boards of area Boys and Girls Clubs.

With his famous wife, Dr. Amorita Treganza, Adams ran the ophthalmology and optometry office on Broadway that lives on today as the San Diego Center for Vision Care.  Between them, the good doctors made area children a priority just as Optimists International does, serving some six million kids world-wide.

Border Issue:  Lemon Grove’s fledgling incorporation effort got off to a rocky start over the very issue that drove the effort in the first place—the town’s borders.  

Co-chairs Louella Fellows, Bob Vaught and Jim Spears presented petitions to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors to qualify the issue for a special election only to learn they needed to state the boundaries of the proposed city.

But all was well after an affidavit, signed by three county incorporation officials, testified that the signatures were valid and—get this—the boundaries of each of 200 parcels of land owned by the signers were shown to be accurate and legal.   The petition had to show enough assessed valuation (in this case, $1.2 million) to constitute a municipality.

Lemon Grove’s founding parents put so much legwork into each incorporation drive, no wonder Louella Fellows hailed the petition circulators for “outstanding, unselfish civic service.”

Train Whistles in the Night:  Ol’ 5102, the whistle-blowing locomotive that chugged up and down the San Diego & Arizona Eastern railway track through the middle of Lemon Grove, derailed near the old packing house July 8.  

The brakeman had failed to line up the switching operation, meaning the engine straddled the rails on a spur, but the cars in tow fell off.  It took two days for Robert Rankin, engineer, and Fred Johnson, conductor, and a crew to get the train “off the ground” and on its way.  No word on the cost.

In 1958, with the glory days of local orchards all but vanished, the train that once carried millions of tons of fruit to Midwestern and Eastern markets came through town two or three times a month at midday.  

Now you hear the whistle once a month between midnight and 2 a.m. when the same federal line carries a train bearing somebody’s federally shipped freight to points in East County.

Then, as now, the federal train didn’t stop at a red light in Lemon Grove, La Mesa and El Cajon.  In San Diego and Santee, the line adheres to municipal regulations.  

Swell Stock:  The Lemon Grove 4-H club boasted two-legged and four-legged winners at the San Diego County Fair.  Sandy Benjamin and Susan Gardner won ribbons for their sewing and cooking prowess.  Randy and Darcy Cremer, children of George and Wilma Cremer, Troy Street, all of H. Lee House fame, won ribbons for their 4-H lambs “in sparkling clean condition.”  

Tim Mathewson won three firsts and a second for his chickens.  

The local 4-Hers made out like bandits in the Junior Fair Lamb Auction.  The Cremer kids made $98.05 selling 211 pounds of “heavyweight, choice lamb” to their loyal dad and the San Diego Mutual Fire Insurance Co.  

Little Lorna Walsh sold 98 pounds for $32.16, while Dianne Bierwirth sold 111 pounds for $39.16 to a “financier in Rancho Santa Fe.”  

Mike Crosby netted $40.96 for 76 pounds, Mike O’Hare sold 96 pounds to Miller Dairy for $37.64, and Barbara Cooper drew $30.44 for 73 pounds of “top grade, blue ribbon lamb.”  

Why the variation in profits?  It was an auction!

Citrus orchards may have gone the way of the buffalo, but not the town’s love affair with poultry.  At this moment, you can find chickens laying bazillions of eggs in back yards, notably at Apollo Stables on Mt. Vernon Street (the last working stable in town), where seven handsome horses and 10 feisty hens co-exist to the delight of the neighbors.  

You pay $25 for a one-hour riding lesson and get free manure and fresh eggs into the bargain.  Yet another reason why Lemon Grove is unique in the universe.