Dobbs, Harold Stanley
Lawyer, Businessman, Politician, Civic Leader
Entry Author: Stephen
Mark Dobbs
 Harold
S. Dobbs was a man of multiple careers, pursued with the verve
and enterprise with which San Franciscans had built their
city in the Gold Rush.
A New Jersey native, Dobbs attended high school and state
college in San Diego, and arrived in San Francisco in 1939
to attend Hastings College of the Law of the University of
California.
First Career: Law
After graduation Dobbs became an associate of the law firm
of Lillick, Geary, Olson, Adams, Charles, and Wheat, where
he practiced business and admiralty law. In 1955 he left to
establish his own firm, Dobbs & Doty, later Dobbs &
Nielsen and eventually Dobbs, Berger, et al., with offices
in the Alcoa Building by Embarcadero Center.
Dobbs specialized in corporate and business law. Additionally,
his firm was one of the first to counsel political action
committees and political candidates on complying with new
state and federal regulations on campaign finance reporting.
Dobbs' affiliation with Hastings spanned more than five decades.
He served on its board of directors for more than 20 years
and as its board chair for a half-dozen. His leadership helped
to preserve Hastings' autonomy when it was threatened. The
college honored his contributions by naming the atrium in
its main building after him.
Second Career: Business
As a young man in southern California, Harold Dobbs witnessed
the growth of the automobile culture, including development
of drive-in restaurants. In December 1947, Dobbs co-founded
Mel's Drive-In, /lat Mission Street and South Van Ness Avenue,
in San Francisco. It would become an icon of mid-century American
popular culture, memorialized in George Lucas' film American
Graffiti about the early 1960s.
Dobbs built San Francisco-based Mel's into a successful chain
of several dozen drive-ins and coffee shops throughout Northern
California. The drive-in was a fixture of contemporary life,
with carhops (though not on roller skates as in Lucas' movie),
garish neon signs, and a pre-fast-food menu.
At one time Mel's also operated several bowling alley and
restaurant complexes. In addition to Mel's, Dobbs developed
a second chain called "King's" with locations on
the Peninsula south of San Francisco.
Third Career: Politics
Harold Dobbs was active as a young lawyer in the 1940s in
such organizations as the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the
YMCA, both of which he served as board president.
In 1952, at age 34, Dobbs was elected to the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors, a position to which he was reelected
in 1956 and in 1960, when his top vote-getting resulted in
the appointment by his peers as president of the Board.
Dobbs' period of service, from 1953-1964, was an eventful
one in San Francisco, and Dobbs had a hand in many significant
developments. These included building San Francisco International
Airport and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the move of
the Giants baseball team from New York to San Francisco, the
hosting of two national political conventions (Republicans
in 1956 and 1964), the construction of the first glass-walled
skyscraper in San Francisco (Crown Zellerbach in 1958), redevelopment
of the Embarcadero and Western Addition, and the visits of
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
As the leader of several important board committees, Dobbs
led the Supervisors in implementing some significant reforms
in such areas as the Laguna Honda and S.F. General hospitals,
taxi permits and regulations, and parking taxes.
He joined his colleagues in the Supervisors' famous "Freeway
Revolt" (1958) which declared the city's unwillingness
to accept any further freeways criss-crossing San Francisco.
A close political ally of Mayor George Christopher, Dobbs
served on several occasions as Acting Mayor in Christopher's
absence and was considered heir apparent to the mayor's office,
but in a three-way race Dobbs lost his first run for mayor,
behind Congressman Jack Shelley in 1963. Two subsequent three-way
contests against Joseph Alioto in 1967 and 1971 brought the
same result. The failure of any candidate to achieve a majority,
rather than just a plurality of the vote, led directly to
the run-off system now in place.
Dobbs was caught in the switch of political sympathies during
his era. Nonpartisanship had characterized earlier contests
for mayor, but after the Kennedy-Johnson years it became virtually
impossible for a Republican to win in heavily Democratic San
Francisco (Christopher was the last in the 1950s).
Dobbs, also known throughout his political career as a "downtown"
candidate, was also affected by the shifts of political power
to San Francisco's neighborhoods.
Fourth Career: Civic Leader
Harold Dobbs' public career did not end with his retirement
from the Board of Supervisors. Throughout the second half
of the 20th century he was a towering figure in the civic
arena, respected for his intelligence, integrity, and great
affection for the city.
Dobbs gave generously of his time, energy, and ideas for
San Francisco's civic betterment. In 1952 he was selected
as one of TIME magazine's "100 Newsmakers of Tomorrow."
In addition to his presidencies of the Junior Chamber, YMCA,
and Hastings, Dobbs also was at one time or another the president
of the Lighthouse for the Blind, S.F. Zoological Society,
Nob Hill Association, Jewish Home for the Aged, Saints and
Sinners, and Sinai Memorial Chapel.
Other boards on which he served as a director included Mount
Zion Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Infant Shelter, and the Jewish
Bulletin.
Although for decades occupied with the simultaneous pursuit
of four careers as lawyer, businessman, politician, and civic
leader, Harold Dobbs was also a family man, married for 53
years to Annette Lehrer Dobbs, and was the father of five
children; Stephen, Marilyn, Gregory, Rusty, and Cathy.
Dobbs' avocations were golf and playing cards. He enjoyed
the high esteem of fellow members of both the Concordia-Argonaut
Club and the Lake Merced Golf & Country Club, and he was
also elected president of both organizations.
Most important of all, Harold Dobbs loved San Francisco.
A full biography, Ambition & Achievement: The Life of
Harold S. Dobbs, 1918-1994, was authored by Stephen Dobbs
and published privately by the Dobbs Family in 2001.
Copies may be consulted at the Western Jewish History Archives
at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, and in the Voorsanger
Library of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.
April 2004
|
Born 1918 died 1994