Sunset for Huntington Pier : Redevelopment: Passage of the decaying 76-year-old landmark and local attraction begins today with a final salute and the ceremonial start of its demolition.

Old age has been unkind to it.

The once proud monarch of the town--the Huntington Beach Pier--now has a decayed and scabrous look. Bits of concrete fall off from time to time. Railings have not been repainted since the pier was closed two years ago for safety reasons.

This morning, the final destruction of the 76-year-old structure begins, but not before the city offers a “farewell salute to the old pier.” A ceremonial bit of demolition will take place, with the major work to start Monday.

Today’s event is somewhat like an Irish wake, a gathering to cheer up the bereaved at the time of passing. The old pier is going to a resting place deep in the ocean; a new $11.9-million pier is coming, with construction to start in January.

But even in its dying days, the old pier still dominates this bustling, rapidly changing community. Its image is everywhere: on drawings, paintings, T-shirts, business windows, sides of trucks and city publications. Most of all, though, the old pier is ingrained in the memories of Huntington Beach residents.

Mayor Thomas J. Mays, 36, recalls surfing at the pier in his teen-age years.

“I also remember fishing on the pier,” Mays said. “It’s meant a lot to me. It means a lot to other people who have been around here for a long time. It’s going to be a real emotional experience when they start taking it down.”

Councilman John Erskine, who also surfs, said the pier is the essence of Huntington Beach. “Huntington Beach without its pier is like Paris without its Eiffel Tower,” Erskine says.

Indeed, the history of the pier is intertwined with the history of Huntington Beach. Barbara Milcovich, archivist for the Huntington Beach Historical Society, says that the first pier--a wooden structure about 1,000 feet long--was built in 1904, the same year that a land company changed the name of the village of Pacific City to Huntington Beach.

That land firm, the Huntington Beach Co., had big hopes for selling residential lots. So the company put up the money for that wooden pier, envisioning it as a scenic attraction for potential land purchasers, she said.

The wooden pier perished in a 1910 storm, Milcovich said. Undaunted, the village leaders launched plans for a new, stronger pier, and voters approved a $70,000 bond issue in 1912 to fund the project.

Milcovich said the concrete structure, completed in 1914, originally spanned 1,320 feet. It was extended 500 feet in 1930, when residents approved another bond issue for $190,000. The older portion of the existing pier thus dates back 76 years, and the newer section is 60 years old.

The 1914 pier had some intricate concrete work, including pilings and graceful arches. But time and tides have sapped the strength of those underpinnings, and in recent months steel mesh has been placed around the piling to shore up the decaying pier.

Winter storms in January, 1988, sealed the fate of the aging structure. Raging ocean waters washed away about 250 feet from the end of the pier and carried off the pier’s aptly named End Cafe. The cafe and the end of the pier had been rebuilt just three years before, after 1983 storms had demolished the original restaurant.

Milcovich notes that the ocean end of the pier served as a military post during World War II. Machine gun emplacements installed there at the time were part of California’s defense against a possible Japanese attack.

After the war, the pier and the city blossomed. The post-World War II boom in Southern California brought thousands of new residents to Huntington Beach. Surfing became a national phenomenon in the 1960s, and Huntington Beach’s pier drew surfers from near and far.

“People all over the world heard the Beach Boys sing about surfing,” Mays said. “Huntington Beach became known as Surf City. Surfers loved to come to this pier.”

Dawn Huseman, a Huntington Beach resident, is typical of those grieving the passage of the old pier.

“This pier has many memories for me and my family,” she said on a visit to the structure. “My three sons have all surfed here. I’m here today to say goodby to this old pier.”

In much the same fashion as Huseman, scores of residents are expected for the 11:30 a.m. ceremony at Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street to bid farewell to the 1914 pier.

“We can take consolation in the fact that a beautiful new pier will soon be built,” Mays said.

But Milcovich added wistfully: “When this old pier is gone, then the old city of Huntington Beach is gone. We’re literally losing our tie to the past.”

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