Beaumont's Citizen Volunteer Patrol

Police Department volunteers protect our community

They serve as the “eyes and ears” for Beaumont—and they’re worth a million dollars.

Each year, the Citizen Volunteer Patrol program donates more than 10,000 hours of community service to our hometown. You’ve probably spotted them directing traffic, checking abandoned homes, and cruising through neighborhoods in their specially-marked cars. As volunteers for the Beaumont Police Department, they receive extensive training about being good observers. When they spot something amiss, they notify police dispatchers. Some also work inside the Police Department entering data into the computer, taking fingerprints and photographs and doing clerical work. 

“Beaumont is very fortunate and honored to have so many dedicated citizen patrol volunteers,” said Police Chief Frank Coe. “They are part of our law enforcement family, and we all work together to protect the public.”

Tradition of service

The volunteer program began in 1994 when only a handful of officers patrolled Beaumont. The city needed a helping hand, and the Citizen Volunteer Patrol was born. Today, the program has 25 volunteers, including some who donate a hundred hours or more a month to their community.

You’ll see them on duty this summer at Stewart Park helping the public and police officers during the concert series. You might have spotted them last March fanned out across the city directing traffic at intersections during the Beaumont Road Race, which is part of the Redlands Bicycle Classic. The Citizen Volunteer Program allows more police officers to work their regular patrols and keep us all safe.  

Volunteers take part in a 10-week training course at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Academy. They learn about law enforcement procedures, take a driving course, and study everything from gangs to CPR. They fill out a city application and undergo a background check. Because Code Compliance and Animal Care are part of the Beaumont Police Department, citizen volunteers may also work in those areas.

Citizen Volunteer Patrol Commander George Diggs has been volunteering since 2008. The retired plant maintenance supervisor puts in up to 130 hours a month.

“I believe in keeping busy and serving the community and its residents,” Diggs said. “

Close ties

The volunteers and Beaumont police officers share a deep bond and a close working relationship nurtured over many years. They often ride together, work closely at crime scenes, and honor each other’s service. At an annual volunteer dinner, the cops cook up and serve a meal for the volunteers and their spouses.

“Officers will often say, `We really appreciate what you do—you’re part of the family,’” Diggs said. “That means a lot.”

Volunteers come from all backgrounds. Some volunteers in their twenties are checking out a career in law enforcement. Others are retired police officers who still want to be involved in public safety. 

”I’m impressed with the professionalism of the officers that I’ve met with this Department,” said Dennis Gray, who retired from law enforcement after a 34-year career and has been a volunteer for about a year. “I’m also impressed with the volunteers, their array of experience, their dedication, and how much they give back to the community.”

 Gray spent 27 years with the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, and also worked as a police officer in Banning and Perris.

So the next time you see one of our Citizen Volunteer Patrol members on duty, say hello, thank them for their service, and consider becoming a volunteer yourself. Applications are available at the Beaumont Police Department, the Beaumont Civic Center, and the Albert A. Chatigny Sr. Community Recreation Center and also online at www.BeaumontCares.com

VIBE program

Rewards for hometown volunteers

You can feel the “good vibes” in Beaumont, where a new volunteer rewards program is taking public service to a new level.

As a city volunteer, you can give back to your hometown, learn about local government, and even receive credit for your civic involvement. The program is called Volunteering in Beaumont is Excellent (VIBE).

Based on a $10-an-hour pay scale, volunteers will receive 2 percent back on their time. So if you volunteer for 100 hours, that would be worth $20. While there will be no cash payments, money will be deducted from your sewer or trash bill, or you can receive a gift card at a local business.

Volunteerism

The importance of giving back to your community has long been recognized. Some call volunteerism the “ultimate exercise in democracy where you vote everyday about the kind of community you want to live in.”

Recently, several residents stopped by the Beaumont Civic Center to learn about this unique public service opportunity. Getting started is as simple as filling out an application, sitting in an interview with city staff to find out about your interests, and passing a basic background check.

The opportunities are endless. You could help out seniors at Albert A. Chatigny Sr. Community Recreation Center. You could ride city buses as a volunteer and tell passengers about Beaumont Transit’s many services; or maybe you would enjoy mentoring children in one of Beaumont’s many youth programs. Or, maybe becoming the eyes and ears of your hometown police department intrigues you. If so, you might want to consider the Citizen Volunteer Program, Police Explorers or even the police chaplain program.

The Police Department is overseeing the volunteer rewards program, which won City Council approval in February. Applications are now available at the police station, City Hall and the Chatigny Center. Application forms will soon be available online on the city’s website: www.BeaumontCares.com For further information, please call 951-769-8520.

Former Mayor Brown's Legacy

Making a lasting imprint on Beaumont’s legacy of giving 

During the hard times of the Great Depression, Orlie and Daisy Mae Brown lifted up the downtrodden.

Hobos riding the rails would stop off in Beaumont and head for their house, which was known as a place where the homeless and hungry could get a meal.

Orlie was a kindly gentleman with a booming laugh who often had a pot of chili cooking on the stove. Daisy Mae made sandwiches on homemade, fresh bread just out of the oven.

When a train whistle sounded in small-town Beaumont, Orlie and Daisy Mae had supper ready for those knocking on the door. The Browns welcomed those who trudged from the train to their home carrying “bindles” over their shoulders. (A bindle was stick tied at one end with a cloth or blanket for holding a hobo’s worldly possessions, just as we’ve seen those iconic black-and-white photographs from the 1930s). This was a time in Beaumont when men worked for 25 cents an hour and goods were bartered.

On holidays, the couple would invite people to dinner at their home at Beaumont Avenue and Tenth Street if they were alone or down on their luck. Orlie Brown would find work for those struggling to make ends meet and give haircuts to men who couldn’t afford a barber while looking for work.

“It was just who they were,” said their granddaughter, Donna Monroe, 56. “They were the type of people who reached out and helped others.”

 

Heading west

In 1925, the couple left St. Francis, Kansas, and started a new life in Beaumont. As a contractor, Orlie Brown built the United Presbyterian Church in Beaumont and went on to serve as mayor of his new hometown in 1941. Daisy Mae Brown loved to bake cherry pies and enter them in contests at the Cherry Festival. The couple had seven children.

Now, decades after their passing, Monroe still cherishes the kindness and compassion of her grandparents. At home, she proudly displays Orlie Brown’s old-fashioned desk, his colored pencil drawing of a hobo, and the Burpee Aristocrat Cooker for making chili. There are also pictures on the desk of her grandfather looking jaunty in his bow tie and her grandmother looking elegant in a fur coat around her shoulders.

A spirit of giving

Back in those days, the hobos left an “X” marked in a circle on the pepper tree outside the Browns house. It was a code that let the downtrodden know that this was a place where there would always be a meal waiting for anyone in need. Generations have passed since then, but the Browns compassionate nature left the kind of imprint that has been part of Beaumont’s legacy of giving for the past century.

Hotel Edinburgh the Legacy

Hotel Edinburgh leaves legacy for fire protection in Beaumont

For more than a century, the weathered brochure for the Hotel Edinburgh has survived in a throwaway, often paperless world.

It was neatly tucked away in the belongings of former Beaumont mayor Guy Bogart (1883-1957.)

Now, the pocket-size, four-page brochure is being preserved for posterity by the San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society.

As you look at those pages, it’s like entering a time machine and hurtling back to the dawn of cityhood. (In 1887, the three-story Victorian-style building opened as the Beaumont Hotel, but later closed, according to a book by local historian Elmer Wallace Holmes. In 1907, the ornate-looking building reopened as the Hotel Edinburgh and came to a fiery end in Aug. 1909 — about three years before cityhood.) The old hotel was located where the El Rancho Restaurant and Best Western Rancho Motel are on Beaumont Avenue

Grand hotel

Early 20^th century accounts tell us that steam engines puffed their way into town and disgorged a sea of passengers at the train depot. Many stayed at Hotel Edinburgh, with its big, inviting front porch, and its tall towers with shuttered windows where guests could survey the landscape. The hotel guests were drawn by advertisements in out-of-town newspapers and by sales pitches delivered in packed rooms in downtown Los Angeles.

They came to Beaumont searching for a much-touted agricultural paradise—a place in the sun where land and water was cheap and plentiful.

By gently turning the page, we glimpse a hospitality industry that helped settle the Pass. It was a time before Highway 99 and motor courts. It was a time before the freeway and modern hotels with their Wi-Fi, Jacuzzis and complimentary breakfasts.

It was an era when Hotel Edinburgh guests could stay for a week and enjoy three-meals-a-day for a mere $9-to-$15 weekly. “Unsurpassed For Health, Rest And Recreation,” proprietor David Cochrane proclaimed in the age-old brochure.

The guest brochure also touted wintry, snow-capped mountains that were said to have “views as beautiful as anything in Switzerland.” It was a place with the “most healthful” climate in the state, and grounds that boasted tennis and croquet courts.

Rising from the ashes

But like many early hotels in the 20^th Century, the Edinburgh was not destined to survive. The Victorian structure cost $40,000 to build, according to Holmes.  A calamitous fire destroyed the grande dame of Beaumont hotels before cityhood. (The cause of the fire has been lost to history.) But the red hot flames couldn’t stop the hotel from making one last contribution.

Newspapers in the early 1900s recount how many incorporation supporters rallied the town after watching the Edinburgh go up in flames. The town needed more fire protection, so neighbors banded together, and the notion of a fire department was one of the priorities on their minds when supporters campaigned for cityhood. On Nov. 18, 1912, local townsfolk voted for incorporation—the charred memory of the Edinburgh Hotel still fresh in their minds.

Ringing up the past for the future

In the old days, you could ring up your neighbors in a jiffy to chat about the latest goings on in town.

More than seventy years ago, local numbers had just three digits instead of today’s seven, and Beaumont’s portion of the phone book was a whopping 2 ½ pages long.

Many farmers, ranchers, and merchants knew important numbers by heart and often dialed:

• 844 for Dr. Howard A. Wood

• 656 for M & M Market

• 501 for Armstrong Dairy.

• 832 for Cox Seed and Feed

• 332 for Stewart Ranch

• 363 for Union Ice Co.

• 722 for Zook Hospital

Calling up history

As we flip through the 1939 Telephone Directory that belonged to former mayor Guy Bogart, it reveals a snapshot in time. He underlined important numbers like Annis Drug Co., the Justice of the Peace, City Hall, and names like F.S. Hirsch, Bill Hale, and W.C. Sutter. This harkens to a bygone era in Beaumont, when agriculture was king and you could set your watch by the passenger trains arriving at the depot.

(Bogart’s vintage telephone book, preserved by the San Gorgonio Pass Historical Society, is a window into the days before push-button phones, texting, voice mail, and Skype. In those days, you dialed 696 for the Fire and Police departments and 01 for long distance. The pamphlet-sized directory with 71 pages covered a dozen communities, including Banning, Beaumont, Elsinore, Hemet, Moreno, Murrieta, Palm Springs, Perris, San Jacinto, Temecula and Twenty-Nine Palms.)

Party lines and Person-to-Person

Inside the phone book, there’s a half-page advertisement on the back cover for typewriters. For $5, you could rent one for two months. Or if you’re horse needed shoeing, you could call a blacksmith in neighboring Banning.

Back in a time when there were “Party Lines,” and “Person-to-Person” calls, staying in touch cost a lot more. In the late 1930s, a three-minute daytime call between Beaumont and Los Angeles cost 70 cents, including federal tax. (With a “party line,” several families shared the same line. A “Person-to-Person” call was where the operator dialed a number, asked for a specific person and you were connected only if that person answered.)

And while this might seem like a long time ago, especially today when the phone book for just the Pass itself stretches to more than 400 pages, it’s a reminder about where we’ve been and where we’re headed. In our region, progress and even better days are always just ahead.