Just another WordPress site

Tag: 1940

  • July 20th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, the Long Beach Independent ran this ad for the Dovalis 101 Ranch House Cafe. We’ve posted 101 Ranch House ads before, but this one is from very early in its history, coming only three weeks after the the restaurant’s grand opening on June 28th.

    The new restaurant was owned by Nick Dovalis, a Greek immigrant who was born in Sparta in the Attika province on Christmas day in 1886. The 1930 census lists Dovalis as having immigrated to the United States in 1924, but other historical records show a Nick Dovalis working in the confectionary trade in the country much earlier. Maybe there was more than one Nick Dovalis working as a confectioner, but it seems unlikely.

    The earliest notice of Nick Dovalis is from 1909 in a brief newspaper story about his selling his half of the Olympia Candy Co. in Austin, Minnesota to his business partner. Next Nick Dovalis shows up in 1913 to marry Ethel Dellert in Iowa, and then Ethel Dovalis shows up in the Muskogee, Oklahoma 1917 city directory married to confectioner Nick Dovalis who later registers for the draft in 1917. Finally in 1922, a Nick Dovalis without an Ethel, is listed in the Long Beach city directory as working at a soda fountain on Pine Avenue.

    Restless Nick Dovalis may not have settled down permanently with Ethel, but he did settle down in Southern California for the rest of his life. At some point in the thirties, he open a Long Beach restaurant named the Olympia (just like the candy company) at Ocean Avenue and American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard).

    One intriguing tidbit about this period is that the Coca-Cola company once filed an injunction against Dovalis in 1932 for selling his own soda formula in his shop under the trademarked brand name of Coca-Cola. He was later fined $250 and given a suspended sentence in 1934 for ignoring the injunction against his selling more of his own special “Coca-Cola” mix.

    Dovalis expanded his restaurant empire by opening the Dovalis 101 Ranch House Cafe (one hopes with legitimate brand name sodas) on Pacific Coast Highway at 16th Street. Seal Beach must have agree with him because he bought a home on 13th Street and lived there until his death in 1967. The 101 Ranch House stayed in business until the mid-seventies.

    You can find more posts on the Ranch House and its location by clicking on these links:

    May 6, 1975
    May 24, 1963
    August 3, 1967
    September 30, 1971
    December 16, 1941

    – 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.

  • July 9th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, the following ad ran in the Santa Ana Register.

    July_9_1940_Psychic_Reader

    Just think. Seventy-five years ago, the world’s most eminent business and social advisor did business in Seal Beach at 115 3rd Street, and, even though she stood at the top of her profession, she would not charge her low price of fifty cents unless her customer got the truth.

    We wonder. Did Wonderful Louise ever talked shop over lunch with our “Young Psychic Reader?”

    This ad ran for a few weeks in July 1940, but the 115 3rd Street shows up in the newspapers a few times over the next thirty years.

    In 1943, a classified ad showed the resident at this address was selling a 1935 two door for $100, and then twelve years later, 1955’s resident advertises a rattan furniture set, a Kenmore washer, a Kenmore deluxe iron and a chest of drawer for sale in the same paper’s classifieds.

    In November of 1962, the Long Beach Independent article actually names the person living at 115 3rd Street. Artist Dick Swift, an associate professor of art at Long Beach State College, won the Rocco Di Marco purchase prize art award and got his name and address in the local paper.

    In 1969, Hayre S. Vurgun, formerly of 115 3rd Street, Seal Beach, California, posted a non-responsibility notice in the Long Beach Independent to disavow any debts, liabilities, or obligations incurred by anyone other than himself.

    Finally (in more ways that one), the Long Beach Independent reported that James V. Marousek, 77, of 115 3rd Street, Seal Beach, died on June 15, 1970.

    – 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.

  • June 21st in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, The Seal Beach Lions Club held its first annual election after flourishing though its inaugural year of 1939.

    Seal Beach Community Church pastor F. Harold Essert replaced founding president of the Lions Club, J. C. Felts. Max Henkey, Dr. Homer De Sadeleer, and Mayor Elmer J. Hughes were elected first, second, and third vice presidents. James Arnerich was elected Lion Tamer and J. S. McLean was re-elected Tail Twister. A. V. Stegen and H. Mendenhall were voted in as new directors while Lee Benno and Frank Moran were holdover directors.

    Nearly eight decades later, the Seal Beach Lions Club also remains an active and vital force in  the Seal Beach community. I think everyone in Seal Beach should experience a lively and affable Seal Beach Lions Club at least once in his or her life. If you ever get invited to one, don’t decline the invitation.

    You can find out more about the club’s modern-day activities by clicking here.

    – 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.

  • May 10th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, District Superintendent of Schools Jerry Hickman McGaugh gave Seal Beach schoolchildren extra cause to celebrate. Since the Memorial Day holiday fell on Thursday, May 29th that year,  McGaugh announced that the school district would make Friday a day off and thus giving students a four-day weekend. Surely they must have spent the extra free time studying for their upcoming end-of-the-school-year final exams.

    – 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.

  • May 1st in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, it was decided that a movie set would not be built in the tidal flats just northwest of Seal Beach for the Alfred Hitchcock film of “Foreign Correspondent.”

    The April 30th edition of the Santa Ana Register warned that on the next day Walter Wanger Productions would start building a road north of Bolsa Avenue and east of the Seal Beach Waterworks to simulate the Dutch countryside, complete with windmills, for their film, “International Correspondent.” The project was estimated to cost $1300, and the film crew was expected to work in town for three weeks.  

    Unfortunately, the location scouting had been made during low tide, and the crew discovered that hide tide made the location impractically wet for filming. The only footage from the area that would make it into the actual film would be some second unit shots of a hat being blown along the flats into a channel of water.

    Here’s a portion of the windmill scene that would have been filmed in Seal Beach with some quick inserts of the hat in Seal Beach (it’s a plot point, but if you blink you’ll miss it):

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKLWP3jDhVs&w=854&h=510]

    – 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.

  • April 26th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, the Long Beach Independent ran the following ad. The Seal Beach pier and the bait boats and the barge were all run by Captain Jack Stubbs. “Homer” had been newly launched on April 15th to replace “Pastime,” a live bait barge that sank in a 1939 storm.

    April_20__1940_New_Pier_Ad– 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.

  • January 11th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1940, The Santa Ana Register reported that a yellow taxi cab had been stolen from in front Don May’s cafe on the coast highway between Seal Beach and Sunset Beach. Huntington Beach police recovered the abandoned cab a short time later in the Wintersburg after a California highway patrol car “slid through the mud of a dirt road and landed in a ditch while en route to the scene of the abandonment.”

    At this date, the culprit still remains at large.

    – 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.