Santa Ana post office honors OC’s first Latino judge, bumping city founder’s name — or not

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asked.

A rose by any other name might smell just as sweet, but the renaming of the Spurgeon Post Station in Santa Ana is raising quite a stink.

Even whether the post office currently named after the city’s founder, William H. Spurgeon, is actually being rebranded is a matter of contention. In the past week or two, a flurry of calls and emails between community leaders, local historians and a congressman seem to have clarified little and left few people satisfied.

It all started when Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, proposed that the post office be named in honor of Orange County’s first Latino judge, James Perez.

“Judge Perez’s story is the American story,” Correa said in a statement in late 2021, announcing legislation to designate the building after Perez. “By renaming the post office, we honor his service to our nation, as well as his devotion to his country and the legal community.”

It seems that press release went relatively unnoticed. And local historians said Correa’s staff did not reach out to them for input. Had they called, they would have gotten an earful.

“You would think the Spurgeon name would be sacrosanct in Santa Ana,” said Tim Rush, a local historian who, upon recently learning of the planned change, called dozens of other residents who in turn contacted Correa’s office.

Spurgeon was not only the city’s founder, but the city’s first postmaster, Rush and others noted.

“This is like erasing our history,” said Rush, chairman of Santa Ana’s Historic Resources Commission and a founding board member of Preserve Orange County, a nonprofit that promotes conservation of the county’s architectural and cultural heritage.

“I’m shocked Lou’s office would do anything like this. Whoever was in charge of research dropped the ball,” Rush said.

Correa said the naming has been in the works for over a year, but the controversy only “popped up after the bill was signed into law.” The post office’s naming was included in the government funding bill President Joe Biden signed on Dec. 29.

“I’m a little bit surprised that this thing blew up the way it did,” Correa said.

“Spurgeon Station” is how the post office is labeled on the U.S. Postal Service website and, until some months ago, the name was clearly displayed outside the building.

But the Spurgeon name, Correa said, is not on any registry of federal buildings, and it was never named as such by legislation, the official process for naming post offices.

The first post office to be named via legislation was in New York in 1967, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service, which does non-partisan research and analysis for Congress.

That same year, in December, the country’s first Latino postmaster, Santa Ana resident Hector Godinez, gathered with members of the Spurgeon family and elected officials outside the 615 North Bush St., building for a ceremony commemorating the naming of the Spurgeon Station. A photo of the event appears in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 17, 1967.

Somehow, and it’s unclear why, the naming did not get recorded officially on the federal level.

“We’re not quite sure what happened,” Correa said.

Perhaps, the legislative process for naming buildings had not yet been established or it was still in its infancy.

“What I suspect has happened is that back in the late 60s, when the postmaster decided to name it after Spurgeon, there may not have been a clear process for officially naming a post office after a person,” said Alan Hess, an Orange County resident who serves on the board of Preserve Orange County and on the California State Historic Resources Commission.

“But the postmaster felt he had the authority and ability to do that,” Hess said. “He may not have followed through a few years later to have it officially documented at the federal level.”

Fast forward 56 years, and Correa is looking to honor the county’s first Latino lawyer and judge; he landed on the Santa Ana post office. And it appears that it went unnoticed that the post office already had been named.

“They’re both well deserving, and what I’m trying to do is help people understand that this is not a competition. We’re not wiping anybody’s name off of history books,” Correa said.

The one thing everyone agrees with is that the judge does deserve recognition.

A graduate of Santa Ana High School and USC, Perez was first appointed as judge to the Orange County Municipal Court in 1966. In 1975, then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to the Orange County Superior Court. He retired in 1987 but continued to work part-time. He died in 2019.  Two of his sons are Orange County Superior Court judges, Michael Perez and Joe T. Perez.

Perez was “a trailblazer for the Latino community in Southern California,” Correa said.

Still, local historians say there are six other post offices in Santa Ana without names, and the congressman could have picked one of those.

Adding to the confusion in the post office naming was the theft last year of the metallic lettering that made up the Spurgeon Station sign. Several residents who contacted the Register thought USPS had taken it down in preparation for the renaming.

USPS plans to replace the missing sign, said spokesperson Natashi Garvins.

And that’s because the post office will continue to be known, locally, as the Spurgeon Station, Garvins said.

“For practical purposes, this office will remain Santa Ana, Spurgeon Station, honoring the historical nature (of) the name,” said David Rupert, a manager with USPS.

Meanwhile, a plaque inside the lobby will state, in part: “This building is named in honor of Judge James Perez by an act of Congress.”

Correa referred to the Spurgeon naming as a regional designation. He insisted that both names will remain. “There is no change,” he said.

Rush, the historian who brought the matter to the attention of dozens of his fellow residents, called that “government doublespeak.”

Linda Godinez Miller, the daughter of Santa Ana’s postmaster who named the building after Spurgeon, agreed with Rush.

“We’re sort of splitting hairs on that,” she said. “There are other federal buildings that could be named after the Honorable Judge Perez. Just leave the Spurgeon Post Office alone.”

Mike Spurgeon, a descendant of the founder and a former Orange City councilmember, said he’s confident that Correa “was operating with good intentions” but wishes someone had contacted family members in advance.

But as long as the Spurgeon sign goes back up, he said, “that would be a satisfactory compromise.”

This isn’t the first time that the Spurgeon name was removed from a building. In 2019, to the surprise and chagrin of some local residents, Spurgeon Intermediate was renamed the Romero-Cruz Academy. Following an outcry from some local historians and other long-time residents, the Santa Ana Unified School Board dedicated its office building after the city’s founder.

Source: Orange County Register