Civic Life
Throughout his life in Los Angeles, California, Orra Monnette served on numerous commissions and boards charged with public projects and the operation of various public organizations. Monnette was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Annexation Commission in 1913, to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission in 1920 and was made a member of the Board of Freeholders which framed Los Angeles’ city charter between 1923 and 1924.
In 1914, Monnette was appointed to the Los Angeles Public Library Board, and reappointed every five years until his death in 1936. Monnette was elected President of the Library Board in 1916, and retained that office until his death as well. During the twenty-three years of his tenure, Monnette championed three major library bond packages which were supported by the citizens of Los Angeles. The bond packages allowed the city to build forty-eight (48) branches throughout the Los Angeles area as well as the landmark art deco Main Library in Downtown Los Angeles.
In 1907, Monnette became a Life Member of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of California. An avid genealogist, he brought experience and leadership to the evolution of the Society's library, founded in 1893, which remains open free to the public as a public service of that organization. Mervin Jeremiah Monnette, Orra's father, joined him as a Life Member in 1908. ">
Orra E. Monnette died in Los Angeles California in 1936; his death was noted in the Los Angeles City Council minutes following the passage of a resolution in his honor. In addition to the placement of a memorial bronze bust of Monnette honoring him in the lobby of the Main Library, his complete genealogical private papers were given to the Los Angeles Public Library System and are accessible in the manuscript division. In 2006, the remainder of Monnette's personal papers were given to the Huntington Museum in Pasadena, California.
A street in Koreatown (intersecting Western Avenue at the location of his father's former mansion) "Monnette Place" is named in his honor.
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