Just another WordPress site

Category: Uncategorized

September 6th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1964, the Marina Lanai Apartments ran this ad in the Long Beach Independent.

The apartment building was constructed in 1962 and had its open house launch on December 2nd, 1962. The new apartments were modern and up-to-date with Medallion all-electric kitchens, all the latest appliances, sound proofing, a built-in vacuum, and FM background music systems. The inner courtyard had an oversized swimming pool and recreation facilities. Another selling point in 1962 was the proximity to the relatively new Long Beach Marina, which was opened in 1957 (and motivated the changing the name of this section of Bolsa Avenue to Marina Drive.)

The main attraction of the building for kids in the neighborhood was two tall Tiki totems and Tiki torches with gas jet flames stationed on either side of the steps to the main entrance. That and playing hide-and-go-seek in the ungated subterranean garage.

The Tiki totems and torches are gone, but the Marina Lanai apartments are still there at 350 Marina Drive (They call it Marina Palms). And, if you examine the front facade of today’s building, you’ll find a few subtle nods to the building’s exotic Tiki decor of yesteryear.

– 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.

September 6, 2019
September 5th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1963, the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach held an open house for members to meet 16-year old Benjamin Gal-Lang Maynigo, the exchange student the club was sponsoring.

Benjamin hailed from the town of Rosales in the Philippine Islands and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bauchwitz at 1630 Marlin Way while attending Huntington Beach High School. Benjamin came from a family of educators. His mother taught elementary school, and his father was the Rosales superintendent of schools.

The open house was held at Mrs. James L. Facer’s home at 1729 Catalina Avenue.

– 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.

September 5, 2019
September 4th in Seal Beach History
On this date in 1925, the owner of Tom’s Place, the “BEST paying concession in city,” ran a classified ad in the San Bernardino County Sun putting the place up for sale.

Here’s the deal offered. For $750 cash and a good automobile, you would get:
1. a 21 stool restaurant
2. bait and tackle
3. candy and soft drinks
4. 3 furnished tent houses (all rented)
5. a 4-year lease, rent paid until March 1, 1926
6. a business clearing $3500 a year and clear of debt
Tom’s Place occupied the spot where Bogart’s Coffee House operates today. The next time you’re there ordering a caramel macchiato and a banana, strawberry & nutella crepe, check to see if there’s a vacancy in any of the tent houses.

– 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.
September 4, 2019
September 3rd in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1917, Seal Beach held a fish barbecue and clambake with all the trimmings to celebrate Labor Day.

Make no mistake, there was music, dancing, bathing, and fireworks.

– 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.

September 3, 2019
September 2nd in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1959, the Seal Beach Police, acting on a tip from Long Beach Police, shut down a $4,000 bookie joint at 1605 ½ Seal Way. John L. Allen, 48, and Wilbur J. Hughes, 56, were arrested.

Allen, who resided at the address, collapsed due to “acute shock brought on by extreme nervousness,” according to the Long Beach Independent, and was taken to the Orange County General Hospital.

Hughes, a Long Beach resident, somehow managed to weather the ordeal without requiring hospital care.

– 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.

September 2, 2019
September 1st in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1963, The Bay Theater offered a family friendly double feature of Walt Disney’s Savage Sam (the amalgamated Texas pothound!) and Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor — both in color!

Savage Sam was Disney’s sequel to Ole Yeller.

The Nutty Professor was the harrowing tale of a socially maladjusted scientist’s bitter struggle with his addictive personality.

Theater opens at 1:15. Dial GE 0-1123 for show times.

– 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.

September 1, 2019
August 31st in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1972, the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram reported that President Richard Millhouse Nixon signed legislation to set up a wildlife refuge inside the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

The refuge was described by the White House as “the last pristine salt water marsh on the Southern California coast.” The legislation allocated $522,000 through fiscal year 1977 for the Department of the Interior to develop the refuge to accommodate visitors.

Nixon’s family used to visit the ocean at Seal Beach when he was a boy, and his Uncle Lyle once rented an odd and old-fashioned swimsuit that embarrassed young Nixon when other beachgoers laughed at the swimsuit, according Nixon’s book, “in the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal.”

The Seal Beach Wildlife Refuge is still going strong forty-five years later. Click here to find out 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.

August 31, 2019
August 30th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1914, Guy M. Rush ran this ad in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times.

I love these Henri DeKruif seal-themed ads for Seal Beach, and I also think that “Seal Beach–the place where good shore dinners flourish” is a much better slogan than that ghastly “Mayberry By The Sea.”

I also think it’s high time that the finer dining establishments in Seal Beach start using aquatic mammal waiters in tuxedos again. It would really tickle our tummies.

– 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.

August 30, 2019
August 29th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1909, Gladys Gervais had a lovely vacation day with her family and friends in Anaheim Landing.

This day survives because Gladys would later write a letter to her Aunt Laurie, and that letter would be published in the August 21, 1910 edition of the Los Angeles Herald as a summer vacation essay contest submission. This letter offers a rare and vivid look into what a typical stay in Anaheim Landing was like in 1909:

Dear Aunt Laurie:

The day of which I am going to write is the twenty-ninth of last August.

We were staying in a tent-house at Anaheim Landing at the time. There is usually a cool, refreshing sea breeze blowing and the weather was as usual in the morning.

We took a bath and then came in and ate dinner. It tasted very good, as everything usually does at the beach. After dinner Violet, two friends and I sat on our porch playing flinch.

Suddenly, about 2 o’clock, the sea breeze stopped and in its place came a hot breeze from the interior.

We dropped our flinch cards and ran quickly to get our bathing suits.

By the time we were ready almost every one on the beach had a bathing suit.

Martha couldn’t swim well enough to go out in deep water, so she stayed near the shore with some other persons, while Violet, Grace and I swam down the bay with some other bathers.

The second time we swam down Violet rested one of her hands on my uncle’s shoulder, and by accident she got her mouth filled with water.

She commenced to choke, and her head went under water, but she held on to my uncle and pulled him under too.

They came up sputtering and choking, and when they saw us laughing at them they laughed, too.

We came to shore soon after and some of them went out again, but we three girls, with Martha, stayed near the shore and had fun there.

While I wasn’t watching, Grace came up behind me and ducked me. Then we had a water fight, Violet and Grace “surrendered.” Then we went out and dressed.

About 5 o’clock the sea breeze came up again, and then we went walking.

On returning we ate supper and then went boat riding, which is certainly a pleasant pastime, especially at night.

We afterwards learned that it had been 114 degrees at Anaheim, the hottest day it had been for more than ten years.

GLADYS GERVAIS Anaheim Grammar school. Age 14. Grade 8

Gladys lived what seems to have been a long and happy life. Sometime in the decade after she wrote this letter, she married Gustave Jorres, a bank examiner and World War I veteran, and lived with him until his death in 1980. She was a mother to two daughters, Evelyn and Alberta, became a grandmother, and remained a California girl her entire life.

Gladys Mae Jorres lived to be 104 years old (!) and died in 2000. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

– 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.

August 29, 2019
August 28th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1969, Bernsteins’ ran this coupon ad for their salad dressings in the The San Bernardino County Sun.

This 50 cent refund offer required that salad (and salad dressing) lovers mail in this coupon with two neck labels from bottles of Bernsteins’ salad dressing to Dept. 3 Seal Beach, California 90740.

Yes, Seal Beach once had its own salad dressing plant! The buildings where Bernsteins’ had their offices and production plant were located at 500 Marina Drive and are now occupied by The Seal Beach Center For Spiritual Living.

When demand for their salad dressing outgrew the Seal Beach plant’s production capacity in the mid-seventies, Bernsteins’ moved their operations to Tacoma, Washington, but you can still find Bernsteins’ salad dressings on Seal Beach supermarket store shelves.

And for the years when Bernsteins’ operated in Seal Beach, the corner of Fifth Street and Marina Drive smelled heavenly.

– 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.

August 28, 2019