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  • June 9th in Seal Beach History (7 of 8)

    On this date in 1916, this article and these ads ran on the seventh page of a Seal Beach promotional section in the Santa Ana Register. This was on the Friday of the first opening summer weekend under the Seal Beach name, and this was the newly incorporated city at its most ambitious and confident.

    The copy, ads, and illustrations are formatted below for easier reading and a larger view of the graphics.

    HUGE BEACH JOY ZONE IS LINED BY UNIQUE SEAL WAY

    Cement Walk Stretches From Alamitos to Anaheim Bay

    “Seal Way” is the name given to the cement promenade on the ocean front at Seal Beach. It is thirty-five feet wide and 4000 feet long, illuminated by a row of beautiful ornamental lights—lamps which did service at the San Francisco exposition. The bases of the posts are of concrete, mounted with a seal head, the light radiating from the head.

    The posts are conveniently and harmoniously located to the ocean side of the walk, the beach side being lined with pleasure palaces. Most of the concessionaires have taken charge of their respective locations, and are ready for business. The others will follow as speedily as the various exhibits are completed, which will probably be within thirty days, the management asserts.

    Pleasure seekers starting for inspection at the north end of Seal Way will come first to the “Hangars,” and in succession will pass the Picnic Gardens, Rathskellers, Cafe Chantant, a number of small concessions under the wharf; then the enlarged bath house, the Merry-Go-Round, candy and ice cream factory, palmistry, jesters’ palace, shooting gallery, boxball alley, Kelly game, Ahern’s nifty shop, a series of small concessions; a public convenience station, small circus, roller skating, and other concessions, details of which are not wholly complete at this writing. The general architectural scheme throughout is Gothic and Spanish.

    “Seal Way” ball room will be of sufficient capacity to permit several hundred couples on the floor at one time. Directly underneath the ball room is the bath house. It has been extended about two hundred feet and will accommodate some three thousand bathers. The plunge to be built later will cover the entire block between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets and will take care of many bathers. It is to be replete with conveniences and apparatus.

    ——————–

    LARGE SUMMER CROWDS EXPECTED

    It is estimated that from 3000 to 5000 people will summer at Seal Beach this season. Recent Sunday crowds have been very large, anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 visiting the resort. Last Sunday over 1000 automobiles lined the avenues, and a traffic policeman had to be stationed at the corner of Main and Ocean.

    Already many of the cottages have been leased for the season, and apartment houses likewise are being reserved. Every preparation has been made to accommodate a large summer population, expected as a result of the recently completed amusement exhibits and those still in process of construction.

    Check out the other seven June 9th This Date in Seal Beach history post. There are more ads, photos, and illustrations to enjoy.

    Page One

    Page Two

    Page Three

    Page Four

    Page Five

    Page Six

    Page Seven

    Page Eight

    – Michael Dobkins

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    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 3rd in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1906, both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald ran this ad pushing the idea that Bay City (Seal Beach’s original name) was “to Be the Best Lighted Beach On the Southern California Coast” and promising that “Plans to This End Are Now Being Made and They Will Be Carried Out.” The ad also mentioned that “Four New Two-Story Cottages” were “Contracts for or Plans Drawn Last Week.”

    Further details were shared in identically worded articles that ran in the real estate sections for both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald. Mrs. Dwight Whiting of Los Angeles had let a contract for a handsome two-story cottage on First Street, W.J. Edwards has ordered plans for a two-story home at Second Street and Central Avenue (today’s Central Way), Dr. W. J. Nance planned to build a another two-story cottage at Fifth Street and Ocean Avenue, and finally John L. Plummer was preparing to build his, you guessed it, a two-story cottage somewhere on Fifth Street.

    There’s a weak irony that in publicizing so many two-stories, two Los Angeles newspapers ran the exact same single story. I hate to break it to idealists out there, but newspapers printing press releases as news is not a recent trend in journalism. In both stories, the new 1500-foot pier and a new hotel and store building were also mentioned, and, of course, the plans to make light up the beach.

    “This is a pretty big contract, and the outcome is awaited with considerable interest,” noted the Times and Herald. The Times story concluded there, but the Herald added one additional sentence: The Bayside Land company has a habit of carrying out its promises.”

    Also running on this date in both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald were two similar ads for Pacific Electric that mentioned Bay City. The ad copy is exactly the same but the layouts are slightly different with different choices in typography, so ad copy was probably given to each newspaper the ads themselves were designed in-house.

    Both shared that Los Angeles people are fortunate because “If they chance to fare seaward they can get fast cars at almost any hour for San Pedro, the wonderful harbor, and for one Beach, the Atlantic City of the Pacific coast; for Alamitos Bay, Bay City, Huntington Beach or Newport.”

    So Los Angeles people had that going for them. Which is good.

    I’ve shared the Pacific Electric ad below for comparison.

    – 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.

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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.

  • June 1st in Seal Beach History

     On this date in 1923, the Santa Ana Register ran these two photos of beachside activities under the headline “Seal Beach Popular Watering Hole.”

    June_1_1923_Seal_Beach_Watering_Hole 1

    June_1_1923_Seal_Beach_Watering_Hole_2– 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 22nd in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1914, hundreds of people embarked on a Sunday excursion from San Bernardino to Seal Beach sponsored by the Guy M. Rush Company as represented by Edwin R. Post. If the San Bernardino Country Sun’s estimate is to be trusted, there were “over 125 people from San Bernardino, nearly as many from Redlands and nearly 225 from Riverside.”

    The sale of real estate is indelibly entwined in almost all aspects of Seal Beach history and this excursion, the first of two in the early part of 1914, was no different. In publicizing the excursion, Seal Beach was described as “growing rapidly and is one of the great attractions in the Long Beach district” and also as “one of the last close-in beaches of a desirable character.” Folks who were “interested in securing this class of property” were “were invited to see it and get first hand information as to its beauties and advantages.”

    The promotional copy style seems stilted today, but the sales concept is familiar to anyone who has ever sat through a timeshare sales presentation for a “free” dinner or chance to win a big screen television.

    The marketing plan was to entice potential buyers to Seal Beach with its new bathhouse and pavilions with promises of food and fun, but once they were stuck in town for the day, there were real estate salesmen close by, each ready with a hard sell pitch and a contract.

    For a mere dollar, excursionists would leave the Salt Lake station in San Bernardino at 8 am and ride to Riverside and then on to Long Beach. They would then take a Pacific Electric car for short ride a few miles east to Seal Beach. Waiting in Seal Beach was a free bathing suit for a dip in the ocean, a free lunch, and a free band concert, and you can bet that at every point where something free was given, somebody would be there to give a speech, make a pitch, or point out the available lots.

    (If you’re tempted by all this to feel a nostalgia for a simpler and more innocent times, take note of the the odious words, “Rigid race restrictions” openly listed as one of Seal Beach’s selling points in the last ad in this post. Nostalgia is a harsh mistress.)

    This excursion was just a few months after Bay City had been renamed Seal Beach and a year and a half before the city was officially incorporated by election in 1915. The roller coaster and the rest of the amusement zone attractions wouldn’t be built until 1916. Most of the features and landmarks that stood out from this era of Seal Beach’s past don’t exist yet.

    Still, to someone from San Bernardino and its typical inland high temperatures, just standing on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and feeling a cool sea breeze brush across your face must have been a treat.

    – 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.