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  • July 30th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1916, Aileen Allen and Her Company of California Mermaids gave a diving and swimming exhibition from the Seal Beach pier, both during the afternoon and during the night. These night-time splish splash-capades were probably scheduled to highlight (Ha! A pun!) the “surf bathing at night” recreational activity made possible by the powerful lighting from the scintillators at the end of the pier. Aug_26_1917_Aileen_Allen_photoIn 1916, Seal Beach’s publicity mill did its best to grind out as many attractions for the new city as possible. Sunset dinners! Carnival and prize dancing! Scintillator surf bathing Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights! Weekend fireworks! All this to convince the public that there were “Just Two Places To Go — Seal Beach and Home.”

    Jul_29_1916_SB_AdAileen Allen with or without her mermaids was an impressive woman. A member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and one of the first female athletes registered with the Amateur Athletic Union, she placed fourth in the women’s 3 meter springboard diving competition for the 1920s Olympics and once held the world record for woJuly_22_1917_Aileen_Allen_Photomen’s high-diving. 

    Born in 1888, Allen discovered swimming and diving after she married and remained devoted to water sports for the rest of her life. She coached at the Los Angeles Athletic Club after her personal competition days were over and guided many world class athletes to success. She even had a brief movie career as a double for Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties when they did water stunts. 

    But Aileen Allen’s connection to Seal Beach doesn’t end with the one-day only diving and swimming exhibition on July 30, 1916. She was back in town twice more for more water sport athletics in September 1918 and July 1919, but perhaps her most notable connection to Seal Beach came in 1947 when she saw a young diver, Pat Keller, at a Long Beach dive meet and invited her to join the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s team.

    Keller honed her diving skills at the club and won her first national meet in 1949 (and she also got married.) In 1952 and 1956, she won the Olympic gold medals for springboard and platform diving under her married name and the name she still uses today.

    She is, of course, Seal Beach’s own Pat McCormick, local businesswoman and Swimming Hall of Famer.

    So let’s all raise a special splashy toast to Aileen Allen in honor of her contributions to Seal Beach’s divey history!

    Aileen_Allen_photo

    –

    – -Michael Dobkins

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  • July 18th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1948, the Long Beach Independent shared that good news that any lady with a paid escort and the following ad could enjoy fishing on either the Super Express boat or Fishing Express boat every Friday — for free! The Horseshoe or Hunting Flats fishing spots were only 15 or 40 minutes away! Lady anglers rejoice!

    July_18_1948_Fishing_Boats-Ad– Michael Dobkins

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  • July 4th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1938, a thirteen year old boy had a very bad day in Seal Beach. Mr. and Mrs. Carl J. Nelson of Los Angeles celebrated July 4th by visiting their friends,  Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Anderson of 1507 Seal Way in Seal Beach. Dick, their teenage son came along, no doubt anticipating a full fun and active day at the beach, in the ocean, and in the sun. What could possibly go wrong? 

    In a string of bad luck worthy of a bad folk song ballad, young Dick Nelson suffered one injury after another, requiring medical attention three times and two applications of basic first aid.

    First, young Dick Nelson handled a sculpin caught by a fisherman on the old pier, and needed to visit the doctor to cauterize the lacerations on his hands.

    Then young Dick Nelson managed to find the only piece of broken glass reported in the water that day and sliced open his foot enough to require his second doctor visit of the day.

    Parental guidance insisted that young Dick Nelson cross swimming and fishing off his list of activities for  the rest of the day, so what was left for a young teen-aged boy to do? Light a Roman Candle firework, of course.

    The Roman Candle lit young Dick Nelson’s hair on fire, burning his scalp, requiring first aid. Some of you may be starting to detect the faint shape of a pattern here.

    The Nelson family then visited a neighbor of the Andersons. A neighbor with a dog. Who bit young Dick Nelson on the nose for a third visit to the doctor.

    Feeling sorry for young Dick Nelson, his dad and Mr. Anderson took him on rowboat out on Anaheim bay, but played it safe by restricting him from rowing or fishing.

    Young Dick Nelson fell overboard.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • June 22nd in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1916, fishermen on the Seal Beach pier had a close encounter with a large California gray whale. Not only were the fishermen surprised by the whale spouting a large spray of water over them, but the whale also forced the anglers to take cover by rocking one of the pier pilings while attempting to scrape barnacles from his (or her) back.

    After an hour, the friendly aquatic mammal swam out to sea, leaving the fishermen to their normal activities and with a large sea mammal of a tale to share.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • June 6th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1924, the city of Seal Beach was to launch the summer season with a weekend celebration starting with a Friday night Grunion Dance, according to May 28 reports in both the Santa Ana Register and the Los Angeles Times. The night of June 6 was pinpointed by an almanac mentioned in both stories that predicted high tides and the arrival of a grunion run.

    It didn’t happen that night.

    As announced in those May 28 reports, Seal Beach’s Boosters’ Club planned to hire a brass band to arrival of grunions on the shore. Bonfires would would be lit, free marshmallows would be distributed, and a fun Friday night would be had by all but the grunions captured by beachgoers to be cooked and eaten.

    Grunions are two species of fish found off the California coast from Baja to Point Conception. They are slender, tiny fish with silver sides and bellies. From March through August, grunions spawn for a few hours on nights after a full or new moon by swimming as far as possible on high tide waves up on the sandy shores of California beaches. Without getting into the specific details, male and female grunions mate, leaving eggs buried in the sand before returning to the water minutes later. This is known as a grunion run.

    Consider a grunion run for a moment from a grunion’s point of view. You’re about to have the time of your life and fulfill your biological destiny when suddenly large creatures grab you and you get eaten. The human equivalent would be if a couple who had just paired up in a singles bar was grabbed and devoured by a great white shark in the parking lot on their way home to get lucky.

    So one cannot really blame grunions for not being punctual.

    In 1924, a predicted grunion in May run didn’t happen. Thousands of people with sacks showed up on Southern California beaches, but the grunions stayed in the water, perhaps exchanging the fishy equivalent of abstinence rings.

    Come early June, the predicted June 6 grunion run was adjusted for one date earlier at 10:30 pm on Thursday, June 5th.

    According to the June 7 Santa Ana Register, early in the evening, a mock wedding party left the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and made its way to Seal Beach. At the border, the party was met by the Seal Beach Mayor and city council and escorted to a raised platform at Central Avenue and Main Street where Miss Sealette Beach and Mr. L. Beach were married by Judge G. R. Morrison. This was a purely symbolic act commemorating the good will and co-operation between the two cities.

    The bride, played by Miss Elsie McClellan, “wore a lovely gown of orange and black, with an elaborate veil of lemon chiffon, pinned by orange blossoms symbolic of Orange County.” The groom, played by W. E. Mellinger, wore black.

    The best man was J. A. Armitage of Huntington Beach, and the matron of honor was Mrs. Walter Hilliker of Seal Beach. Flower girls were Seal Beach pupils and members of Miss Doris Greenwald’s dance class. Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Armstrong played the father and mother of the bride, and representatives from various beach cities were the maids of honor.

    After the ceremony, the wedding party moved down to the pier where three minute talks were given by local and visiting officials. Then the amusement zone boardwalk was transformed into a dance floor with Glenda Boston Smith’s orchestra providing music at one end of the boardwalk and an unnamed boys band at the other.

    Thousands of free marshmallows were handed out by a committee of Seal Beach women. Thousands of grunions also showed up in what was described as “one of the best runs of the season.” Reportedly hundreds of Seal Beach visitors left with bags of fish, and one assumes that a larger percentage of romantic and randy grunions successfully made woo and then escaped with their lives.

    So Thursday’s celebrations probably continued into the early morning of June 6th, and the participants probably spent the rest of the day resting and recovering from the event, no doubt to be ready for the upcoming weekend.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • 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

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  • April 24th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1920, the Santa Ana Register invited people who liked it snappy to the grand opening of the Famous ‘Frisco Five at the Jewel Cafe!

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 27th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1917, the Santa Ana Register took some swimwear instruction from Luella Rogers from Seal Beach. The article focused on women who put on brightly hued bath suits for a beach visit, but never actually went swimming. Apparently the Non-Bathing Bathing Girl was one of the great issues of 1917. Fuddy-duddies felt that women who had no intentions of entering the water should wear more conservative clothes while on the beach.

    Miss Rogers disagreed. “Wouldn’t a woman look fine running around the beach wearing a street dress? You’ve seen them try it and you usually see them trip and fall or they take a few steps and then stop for breath. Sometimes I like to go in swimming. Then I wear a close fitting bathing suit. But when I want to romp on the beach and do not want to go into the surf, I wear my latest, prettiest, stripped bathing costume, and I have a good time on the sand in spite of what I know the ‘old hens’ with their long black skirts say about me.”

    I think we all know which side won this fashion war.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • 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

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  • March 12th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1939, the Los Angeles Times featured this photograph of the Seal Beach pier titled, “Sea Patriarch” by Los Angeles Times staff photographer Robert Jakobsen for its Camera Corner photography column. The photo was highlighted for its artistic composition in “eye-arresting silhouette mode” and was shot with a yellow filter to create the effect.

    This was most likely taken during 1929 construction of the pier weeks prior to the grand opening in May. The railing had not yet been constructed, and the nubs of the old pier’s pylons are still jutting up from the sand next to the new pylons.

    – Michael Dobkins

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