Just another WordPress site

Tag: 1956

  • August 19th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956, The Los Angeles Times reported on the recent expansion of Seal Beach’s borders.

    Seal Beach had increased from a one square mile beachside city to nine times that size by annexing some private property and what was then known as the Naval Ammunition and Net Depot. The annexation had been completed weeks earlier, and Seal Beach had a certificate from Secretary of State to prove it. This also meant that if the tri-city area of Midway City, Barber City, and Westminster incorporated as one city, Seal Beach’s extension three miles east would result in Bolsa Chica Road becoming the new border between the two cities.

    The expansion was not without opposition. According to City Engineer Hal Marron, “private property-owning interests” objected to the expansion and had won a writ of mandate in Superior Court. The city’s appeal against the writ was pending.

    And that’s where matters stood on August 19th, 1956. So much unsettled, and yet there was enough optimism to stage a photo op with models Bernice Hugn and Marilyn Brechtel installing a new city limits sign at Westminster Avenue and Bolsa Chica Road.

    Aug_19_1956_City_Limits_expansion_photoLater, Midway City decided to remain unincorporated, but Barber City folded into Westminster. And that court appeal? Sixty years later, Bolsa Chica Road is the eastern border of the city, so Seal Beach must have prevailed.

    – 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 27th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956, the Long Beach Independent ran a story under the headline of “Burger Derby Entry Poop-out.” Fifteen year old Glenn Tuttle had attempted to eat twenty hamburgers at one sitting in front of the Seafarers Restaurant at 907 Ocean Avenue in Seal Beach (currently occupied by the Pierside Press Sandwich Shop).

    The story ran two photos of Glen’s adventure into burger gluttony, which he cut short at seven burgers.  You can see a better photo from this event in this 2010 post. 

     

    The 2010 post was written before I discovered the Long Beach Independent story, so I was not able to pinpoint the date.  Read the comments in the 2010 post for more information about the tragic end of the unfortunate Mr. Tuttle.

    – 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.

     

  • March 31st in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956, newspapers all across the country published a “Bugs Bunny” comic strip that leaves a minor Seal Beach historical mystery.

    “Sam’s Seafood” in Surfside is now an empty building after a few years operating under different ownership as “Don the Beachcomber,” but there have also been different versions of the “Sam’s Seafood” name over the decades it was in business. It was originally called Sam’s Seafood Cafe, most people remember the restaurant as simply as “Sam’s Seafood,” and local newspaper ads, reviews, and stories have used “Sam’s Seafood Restaurant,” “Sam’s Seafood Tavern,” and, perhaps most uniquely, “Sam’s Seafood Grotto.”

    The restaurant name used in this 1956 comic strip might be a pure coincidence, but the odd specificity of it makes a coincidence unlikely.

    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.
    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.

    It’s not unusual for a comic strip creator to include references to real life landmarks, people, and organizations. E. C. Segar, creator of Popeye, had a running gag of references to the “Santa Monica Rod and Reel Club,” of which he was an enthusiastic member. 

    The mention of “Sam’s Seafood Grotto” becomes even stranger when newspapers ran these two “Bugs Bunny” comic strips months apart in 1976.

    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.
    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.
    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.
    All Rights Reserved Warner Bros.

    So who made these references to Seal Beach’s local fish eatery twenty years apart? My theory is that the culprit is comic artist Ralph Heimdahl because he worked long term on the “Bugs Bunny” comic strip from the late forties to the late seventies. The writers assigned to the comic strip varied quite a bit, and the span between the 1956 strip and the 1976 strips points to someone who was worked on the strip for decades.

    So was Ralph Heimdahl a regular “Sam’s Seafood” customer, or did he just eat there once and “Sam’s Seafood Grotto” struck him as a funny name? (And let’s face it, these comic strips needed as much funny as they could get.) Heimdahl lived in the San Gabriel Valley, so he was local. Or is this just a coincidence? Ralph Heimdahl passed away in 1981, so we’re never going to get a chance to ask him.

    – 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.

  • March 18th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1956 at 2 p.m., on the spot where Bay Boulevard met Electric Avenue, a dedication ceremony was held for a monument designating Anaheim Landing as a historical landmark. The marker read:

    ANAHEIM LANDING After the establishment of the Mother Colony at Anaheim in 1857, a wharf and warehouse were constructed at the mouth of Anaheim Creek to serve the Santa Ana Valley. Treacherous entrance conditions caused several disasters, but steamers loaded with wine, wool and other cargo continued to dock here regularly. Use of the seaport began to decline in 1875 with the incursion of the Southern Pacific Railroad into the area. By 1890, the landing was no longer in operation.

    (This was not the first Anaheim Landing. The landing was originally established in 1864 on Alamitos Bay, a more ideal port for shipping, but when an 1867 flood filled the bay with silt and severely limited ocean access, the landing was relocated to what is now known as Anaheim Bay. Local historian Larry Strawther has established that the original landing was approximately where the Island Village tract is today.)

    Eleven years earlier almost to the day of the dedication ceremony, Anaheim Landing’s days as a civilian shipping port, a recreational destination, and residential neighborhood ended when the U.S. Navy took possession of Anaheim Bay and Anaheim Landing to install a weapons depot. On the other side of the fence behind the marker, munitions were loaded and unloaded to and from Navy ships serving in the Pacific Ocean.

    On the civilian side of the fence, a crowd celebrated Anaheim Landing’s past. Perhaps some in that crowd had been Anaheim Landing residents and felt wistful recalling earlier days of swimming, boating, and fishing in the bay before the Navy removed their homes and cottages and dredged it.

    Installing the marker had been a community affair. The project was instigated by the Senior and Junior Women’s Clubs of Seal Beach. Mrs. Bernice V. Smith and Mrs. Sven Lindstrom researched the historical data. Buell Brown designed the seven-foot high monument. Frank Curtis poured the foundation. The local Girl Scout and Cub Scout troops and Veterans organizations gathered the stones that were used in the monument, and surplus stones formed a crescent shaped rock garden on either side of the monument.

    The theme for the ceremony was “Preserve the Past for the Future.” Scout troops presented mixed colors, Mrs. Noel Chadwick gave the devotional, and the Woman’s Club chorus sang a musical piece under the direction of Mrs. Clyde Spencer.

    Officiating the ceremony were Willis Warner, chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Lee Winterton and William Gallienne of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Admiral John McKinney, William Hynds of the recreation development committee, M.K. Hillyard of the marker committee, and Mrs. Albert Sylvia of the Woman’s Club of Seal Beach, and Mrs. Larry Howard of the Junior Woman’s Club of Seal Beach.

    It must have been fine and proud Saturday event for all parties involved.

    The Anaheim Landing monument still stands today, but somewhat diminished. Bay Boulevard is now Seal Beach Boulevard, the monument was moved to make room for a public works lot, and the rock garden is gone, replaced by a couple of bushes and a bus stop.

    – 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.