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On this date in 1929, ladies danced free, and gentlemen paid a dollar to give their ten little tip-tap-tapping toes a lowdown beat. 

H.R. “Dick” Rogers took over the Seal Beach Pavilion in September of 1929, and he promptly hired the Llewellyn Orchestra of Anaheim to play on Sundays.

The Llewellyn Ochestra offered “peppy music” suitable for foxtrots, two steps, cymbal dances, occasional waltzes, or a Paul Jones, as demonstrated in this clip from 1931’s The Guilty Generation:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VTJOr6ULL8]

You know who should have felt guilty? Dick Rogers and the Llewellyn Orchestra, that’s who! They abandoned the Seal Beach Pavilion for Anaheim’s Cinderella Hall in January 1930. It must have been a shorter drive from home.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1947, Idaho Senator Glen H. Taylor kicked off his horseback peace tour with an impromptu concert in Seal Beach.  Taylor wanted to “point out to the American people that they are being pushed into a needless war” and felt that a transcontinental ramble through the United States on the back of a white roan (and a back-up horse being towed by his brother-in-law) was the way to get the message out.

Taylor, a former cowhand, actor, and singer, felt that American foreign policy, especially the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, put the country on a collision course with the Soviet Union.  His soft on Russia stance probably contributed to his losing his Senate seat in 1950.

Taylor was a true eccentric. When he came to Washington, D.C. to serve as Senator, the city was suffering through a bout of post-war housing scarcity. Unable to find a place to settle with his family, he took to the Capitol steps with his banjo and sang to the tune of Home On The Range, “O, give us a home, near the Capitol dome, with a yard for two children to play…”  When asked about rumors of a flying saucer crash at Roswell, Taylor opined that he hoped there were spaceships from other planets.”They could end our petty arguments on earth.”

While it’s easy to dismiss Taylor as a nutcase, he was a man of true moral convictions and a committed civil rights activist. In 1948, he was arrested for disorderly conduct by none other than Sheriff Bull Connor for entering a “Coloreds Only” entrance to attend a Southern Negro Youth Congress meeting. He also requested a delay in the swearing in of Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo in 1946 pending an investigation into Bilbo being charged of corruption and civil rights violations. Bilbo was never formally sworn in for his final term and died the next year.

And let’s be honest, how many of our current politicians can play the banjo and carry a tune?

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1915, Seal Beach was officially incorporated as a city. Or was it?

Here’s a little Seal Beach mystery that requires a little further research. October 25th is the official birthday.  It says so on the city web site. The county archives confirmed it in a phone call back in 2010. There was an incorporation election on October 19th, and the Orange County Supervisors officially recognized the election results on October 25th is the accepted narrative. 

Above you can see the current City of Seal Beach seal that pinpoints the city’s incorporation to 1915. Here’s an earlier version of the city seal:

At one time, October 27th was the officially accepted incorporation date. During the city’s jubilee celebration in 1965, October 27th was cited at the official date. So what changed? And when? And why?

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1960, Seal Beach resident Don Gill, age 22, of 1206 Ocean Avenue won the first annual Long Beach State College Inter-Fraternity Spaghetti Eat-Off. This mighty feat was accomplished at the Gay 90’s restaurant in Signal Hill.

We’ve had many celebrities in Seal Beach, both as visitors and as residents, but there was only one “World’s Champion Glutton,” as the judges dubbed Don. Don won $25 for his fraternity, Sigma Pi by polishing off 3 pounds and 7 ounces of spaghetti and going the distance of 1400 feet of pasta. 

Don is pictured below next to his nifty trash can trophy (which might be useful later) and 7 empty plates. He is surrounded by the event judges (l to r) former MLB player Vern Stephens, ex-MLB umpire Beans Reardon, Long Beach Independent columnist Bob Wells, and engineer Martin Nishkian.

There is no record of a second annual Long Beach State College Inter-Fraternity Spaghetti Eat-Off, so Don probably still holds the title.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1941, the American Legion of Seal Beach threw a gala night party to inaugurate the recently finished Neptune Room at Sam’s Seafood Cafe. The fun and frolicking included the Belmont Shore Westerners and Arthur Gibson and his 7-piece orchestra who, as this Long Beach Independent ad promised, “WILL ENTERTAIN YOU WITH MUSICAL RENDITIONS IN A HUGE WAY.”

Gibson had worked steadily throughout the thirties, playing in St. Louis and Kansas City before landing a coveted gig at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel rooftop stage. His biggest success was in Arizona at the Grand Cafe in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also had his own local radio show briefly. Before the Sam’s Seafood Cafe gig, he had returned to the West coast, playing at Palm Springs Hotel and Riverside’s Mission Inn. His engagement in the Neptune Room lasted two weeks.

There’s very little information about the Belmont Shore Westerners. They were a local drill corps of “cow girls”  active briefly from 1941 to 1942. Made up of  Long Beach high school and junior college students,  they were lead by policeman Gene F. Fisher and captained by Jean Soss and amassed numerous awards and trophies .

A little over a month after the Sam’s Seafood gala, The Belmont Shore Westerners were featured at a Santa Claus Parade in Huntington Beach on the night of Saturday, December 6th.  The next morning, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and the country changed.

Arthur Gibson and his orchestra seems to have vanished after the Neptune Room engagement. No doubt some of the band members and maybe even Gibson himself entered military service in the next few months, and musical tastes changed during the war years. 

As for the Belmont Shore Westerners, there is a brief article in the April 26, 1942 Long Beach Independent about their completing a standard first aid course for the war effort and getting invitation to various local USO shows. After that, they also vanish from public record.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1920, Harry H. Mayer ran the follow ad in the Santa Ana Register — again.

From July until November of 1920, poor Mr. Mayer could not get rid of his span of mare mules no matter how much he advertised, but he must have finally found a buyer because he stopped advertising. Mayer’s ads for his mules and the ad back in August selling a fresh Swiss Jersey cow indicates that the character of Seal Beach in 1920 was much more rural than the city is today.

Harry was tall with a medium build and brown eyes and hair, according to his WWI draft card.  He came from Philadelphia to Southern California with his German-born wife, Augusta. He bought the lot at 126 11th Street in early 1914 with a down payment of ten dollars and either built (or hired someone to build) a house on the lot in 1915 that still stands today.  In Pennsylvania, Mayer had been employed as a policeman and must have been good at it because the 1920 census lists him as a city marshal for Seal Beach.  

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1935, the Santa Ana Register reported that the Seal Beach Elementary School was planning to have a radio set up in each classroom.

This effort to modernize Seal Beach classrooms with access to cutting edge media technology was spearheaded by the Seal Beach P.T.A. and made possible with donations from the Seal Beach Volunteer Fire Department, the Seal Beach American Legion post, the local auxiliary of the American Legion, the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach, and the Seal Beach Council.

The report ran with a photo of the first three radios with representatives of the organizations involved, including D. W. Collier, Mary Zoeter, Mrs. Dagmar Schmidt, Anna Collier, J. H. McGaugh, C.E. Thompson, W. S. (Sperry) Knighton, Mrs. Ruby Mayes, and Mrs. Jessie Reed.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1963, Seal Beach Police Officer Fred Rogers shot burglary suspect Odell Chester Scott in the right hand when he failed to halt as ordered.

Scott had been observed by a tenant at the apartment building at 120 Sixth Street entering another apartment in the building. When confronted by the police, he fled, yelling, “Go ahead and shoot!” He continue running after the injury to his hand, but was finally captured when he doubled back to his car.

The next day, Scott was reported as being in good condition at the Orange County Hospital prison ward.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1953 at 8:30 pm, The Bell Sisters gave a forty-minute stage show at the 2,038 seat West Coast Theater at 333 East Ocean Avenue in downtown Long Beach to their new film, “Those Redheads from Seattle.”

The Bell Sisters were local girls from Seal Beach, Kay and Cynthia Strother, who sang under their mother’s maiden name of Bell. In 1951, they grabbed the public’s attention with the hit song, “Bermuda” and made eleven records and countless radio and television appearances in the early fifties. Their nephew, Rex Strother, maintains a Bell Sisters Facebook page and is currently revamping the official Bell Sisters website.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYcVmsCyA5c]

Their popularity as singers and engaging personalities lead to their being cast in singing roles in two 1953 films, “Cruisin’ Down The River” and the aforementioned “Those Redheads from Seattle.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI9PiS6vFag]

This was a big deal locally as noted in this West Coast Theater ad from the Long Beach Independent on October 18th:

 Here’s “Take Back Your Gold,” the Bell Sisters number from the film:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbGirrsnII]

Cynthia left the duo in the mid-fifties, and Kay continued a solo singing career into the sixties.

– Michael Dobkins

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On this date in 1934, Seal Beach tailor Thomas W. Duncan shot himself his shop at 137 Main Street where he also lived.

Owner of the Seal Beach Drug Company next door, Lee Benno heard a shot in the night and called the police. All the doors to Duncan’s shop were locked, and the police forced the rear door open and found Duncan in his living quarters in the back of the shop. He died before a doctor could be summoned.

According to the California Death Index Duncan was 57 at the time of his suicide, Duncan had been ill for sometime and was divorced from his wife who purportedly lived in Salem, Oregon with their two sons. He had left Oregon seven years earlier and opened the tailor shop in 1930 — not the best year for launching a new business. The country was reeling from the 1929 stock market crash and sliding downward through the Great Depression.

Duncan was a Spanish-American War veteran and member of the Anaheim Bay American Legion. He also served in the Canadian military before switching to the American armed forces and serving as a private in Company K of the 32nd Michigan Infantry when the U.S. entered World War I.

He was give a conduct funeral on October 30 at the Soldier’s Home in Sawtelle and buried in the cemetery there, now known as the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

– Michael Dobkins

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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.