Category: Seal Beach History

On this date in 1928, The Santa Ana Register announced the first members of the newly established Seal Beach Junior Police. The new members were Jay Goade, Harry Scott, James Wheat, Junior Morris, Edward Howard, and Ellis Winterstein.

Quoting Stan Berry from an earlier post about the Seal Beach Junior Police:

This is a 1929 group photo of the Seal Beach Police Department under the command of Chief A. G. Johnson. One of the programs that Chief Johnson was instrumental with was the organization of a juvenile police force of six (6) members.   These boys were chosen from their school because of the record  they held for trustworthiness, faithfulness to duty and the ability to work successfully with their schoolmates.  The duties of the juvenile police  were to protect little children at all times and to see that vacant property was not vandalized.  The boys met with the Chief each Saturday to discuss any problems.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

On this date in 1965, The Los Angeles Times reported that the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach was “the largest federated woman’s club in Orange District” with 579 members. The Tustin Area Woman’s Club took a close second place with more than 500 members.

The oddly constructed phrase, “largest federated woman’s club in Orange District” terminology is probably taken from the California Federation of Women’s Clubs which is divided into districts. One interesting note is the unnamed reporter cites Mrs. Robert Bidwell Jr., district president, and Mrs. Clyde G Reinoehl, club membership chairman in the story, but still made the mistake of claiming the Seal Beach club had only been organized two years before. The Woman’s Club of Seal Beach was formed in 1923, so he was only forty years off.

Factual errors aside, the story was accompanied by this nifty photo highlighting one of the WCSB’s 1965 projects — the beautification of Seal Beach during its 50th anniversary year. Mrs. Hubert Taylor, dressed in 1915 garb, Mrs. James Facer, working the shovel, and Mrs. Leonard Flint, making an odd gesture with her hands, are shown about to plant a tree at J. H. McGaugh Intermediate School.

Addendum: I don’t why I didn’t check this before, but a check on Google Streetviews appears to show that the tree behind Mrs. Hubert Taylor, and the one about to be planted are still there next to the administration building:
– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

On this date in 1914, the Santa Ana Register ran this lovely ad featuring more of cartoonist Henri DeKruif’s seals with eccentric anatomy. In this ad, the seals are gliding across the dance floor just like Seal Beach was “gliding right along.”

The ad exhorts the reader to “See the Seal Family. See the two beautiful still water bays. See the beautiful twin pavilion. Swim in the surf without an undertow.” This is all laid out in regular-sized type, but above that copy in larger type and capital letters is “SEE THE BIG HYDRAULIC DREDGER,” which must have really been something to see.

Also note that you could buy a lot 3 blocks from the sea for only $550.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

On this date in 1963, the Long Beach Independent ran a story about the new craze, folk music. In two mid-sized columns, the unnamed reporter covered the growing popularity of folk music on college campuses, Hootenanny, the ABC network’s musical variety show that featured many folk acts, and the perception of folk music as do-it-yourself music. The article quickly covers important figures in traditional folk music such as Leadbelly, John and Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, and The Weavers. The story even touches briefly on folk music’s subversive reputation.

While all that is interesting as a snapshot of folk music’s position in the mainstream culture in late 1963, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Seal Beach history except that the story was accompanied by this photo:

The caption for the photo confirms something about Seal Beach’s musical history that I’ve heard before so I’m going to quote it fully:

JOAN BAEZ, wears the long hair and high-necked female folk singer’s trademark costume. Miss Baez, not the example folk singer purists would point to as authentic, has built up a considerable following since strumming and singing in a Seal Beach coffee house some two and one-half years ago.

The coffee house in question is almost certainly the Rouge et Noir. If we count back that two and one-half years, Baez played on Main Street Seal Beach in May of 1961, give or take a few months.

In September 1963, Vanguard Records released her second LP album, imaginatively titled, “Joan Baez, Volume 2.” Here’s “Old Blue,” a song from that album. Perhaps Baez tested it on a Seal Beach audience in the Rouge et Noir some night over fifty years ago. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q4XAg1ZUbo]

On a unrelated note, I’ve occasionally griped here about how awful microfilm was as a medium for archiving newspapers and magazines. Please note the truly lousy quality of microfilmed photo above the quoted caption and then compare it to the actual image it was taken from:

I hate microfilm.

ADDENDUM: One time Seal Beach resident has shared this on Facebook on November 12th, 2019 in the “You know you grew up in Seal Beach, CA when…” group:

“Saw young Baez there. She sang Silver Dagger – Knocked me out.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xlmb8gG7HU]

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

On this date in 1960 at 12:30 p.m, the drama group of both the Senior and Junior Woman’s Clubs of Seal Beach presented “Boudoir Memoirs,” a 15-act show of fictional and historical romances in the city hall auditorium as part of their annual “fun day” luncheon.

The show was directed Mrs. Walter Swift and Mrs. David Wolfe. The players were Mrs. Ken Birchard, Mrs. Sven Lindstrom, Mrs. Lester Davis, Mrs. Benny Rapp, Mrs. Allen Denton, Mrs. Bill Shafer, Mrs. Conrad Feierabend, Mrs. Leo Khury, Mrs. Arthur Berke, and Mrs. Claude Smith.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

On this date in 1958, a massive auction of earth-moving equipment from a completed Navy project was held at the site of the then-closed Airport Club.

Most locals remember or have heard about Seal Beach’s notorious gambling venue, the Airport Club.  Gambling was banned in Seal Beach in the early 1950s, and the Airport Club was closed, only to reincarnated itself as a music and dancing spot for teens called the Marina Palace in the 1960s until it was shut down in the 1970s.

Both business ventures and Bill Robertson, the owner of both the Airport Club and the Marina Palace, remain controversial for Seal Beach residents with long memories. Some remember Seal Beach’s gambling era and/or the musical hot spot with fond nostalgia, but others remain bitter at what they saw as corruption and behind-the-scenes ruthlessness that violated the values of Seal Beach’s residential community. 

What most people don’t recall is that between Airport Club era and the Marina Palace era, the site was used for other purposes, most notably a boat storage and sales facility.

And a Big! Cat! Auction! in 1958.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

 

On this date in 1955, the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram ran a heart-warming piece about an explosives dumping zone established before World War II in the Pacific Ocean between San Clemente Island, Santa Barbara Island, and Santa Catalina Island. The zone was off the normal shipping lanes and covered 100 square miles. 

At the time of the article, the Seal Beach Naval Ammunition and Net Depot dumped a load of 150 to 200 tons of obsolete, unserviceable bombs, shells, depth charges, and other explosives from local naval installations, air stations, and civilian ordnance contractors approximately every two months.

According to Lt. Commander Nelson W. Sanders, the depot officer in charge of the disposal program, the Navy crew members handling the dumping received hazard pay. A tugboat would tow a lighter to the dumping zone and then let it loose to drift as the crew scattered the explosives overboard to the sea floor more than half a mile below. When the lighter was empty of explosives, the tugboat returns to the lighter and tows it back to Anaheim Landing. Sanders bragged of the accident free record of the disposal program.  He assured reporter Herb Shannon that all the explosive materials were processed for disposal and that there was “no possibility of any of this material coming back up on the beach.”

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

On this date in 1961, the Los Angeles Times Night Life section reported that The Kinsmen and Charles Gonzalez were performing nightly (except Mondays) at the Rouge et Noir in Seal Beach.

The Kinsmen were Bud Dashiell, Bernie Armstrong, Jr., and C. Carson Parks (brother of Van Dyke Parks and a Seal Beach resident). Parks and Armstrong also performed as a folk duo, The Steeltown Two. Below is a cut from a Kinsmen LP that gives a bit of the flavor of music you could hear at 143 Main Street in 1961. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnWw8FPfs78]

Unfortunately, I don’t have any information about Charles Gonzalez, but I hope we’ll hear from someone out there in internet-land who can tell us more.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

 

On this date in 1957, the United States Naval Ammunition and Net Depot displayed a missile in the Downey Veterans Day parade.

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.