Eugene Tincher

By  | nadra.nittle@langnews.com |

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A number of schools in Long Beach are named after presidents and Nobel Prize winners, but Tincher Preparatory K-8 School is named after a man who dedicated his life to Long Beach public service.

Born in La Verne in 1888, Eugene Tincher and his family moved to Long Beach as an infant. According to the Historic Browns Court Apartments, Tincher attended Long Beach High School, now Long Beach Polytechnic High. After high school, Tincher graduated from the Stanford University School of Law and opened law offices in Long Beach in 1913.

He married Anna Mussetter, a high school classmate, on March 7, 1916, in the First Baptist Church. A skillful singer, she was a finalist in the city’s “Queen of the Carnival” event in 1906. Tincher and Mussetter had two sons, Marvin Eugene and Don Earl Tincher.

Tincher became one of Long Beach’s first public affairs commissioners, serving in the role from 1917 to 1921. He served on the board of education for the Long Beach Unified School District for 20 years, including as president. What’s more, Tincher presided over the California School Trustees Association, the Long Beach Bar Association and the Southwest Area YMCA Council. He also served as lieutenant governor of District 13, Kiwanis International, and as a leader of his masonic lodge.

His wife was also an active community member, serving as president of the Ebell Club, a women’s service club. In 1930, Anna Tincher’s brother, Raymond Mussetter, built a home for the Tincher Family at 275 Granada Ave. The home is now the official residence of the California State University chancellor.

“The two-story Belmont Heights house was restored and redecorated in 1980 as a ‘design house’ for a Long Beach charity fund-raising event,” according to a 1991 Los Angeles Times article. “It has beamed ceilings, highly polished woodwork, stained-glass windows, marble fireplaces and many architectural details that evoke the 1930s, when well-to-do Californians built their fantasy version of Mediterranean.”

Tincher died in 1980 at the age of 91.

Adapted from: Long Beach Press Telegram