On this date in 1917, the following ad ran in the Los Angeles Times listing vendors that carried Christopher’s “always dependable Ice Cream.”
What is this ad’s connection to Seal Beach history? Two “wide-awake Merchants” in the vendor list were located in Seal Beach. The Seal Beach Concessions Company, which ran the amusement zone on the east side of the pier, and the Seal Beach Drug Company, located on Main Street.
The Christopher’s ice cream brand started as ice cream parlor in Los Angeles in the 1890s, expanded to offering their ice cream in concession stands at fairs and exhibitions in the late 1890s, and then shifted to supplying ice cream to drug stores, ice cream parlors, and stands throughout Southern California around the turn of the century.
There are hundreds of Christopher’s newspaper ads during the first three decades of the twentieth century, many of them as well designed and exquisitely drawn as the one in this post. The company that brought the “Cream of Health” to Seal Beach in 1917 seems to have faded away in the late twenties, perhaps bought out by a larger brand.
– Michael Dobkins
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