These four photographs provide an almost 180 degree glimpse of Anaheim Landing take from the Pacific Electric tracks ninety-six years ago.
This shot faces north towards where J. H. McGaugh Intermediate School will be built in about forty years. The dock just left from the center was a familiar Anaheim Landing landmark for years.
The photographer turned a bit to his right to give us a nice shot of some homes along the shore of Anaheim Bay. These homes would either be destroyed or moved into Seal Beach when the Navy took over the bay in 1944. Note the man in suspenders taking a break in the sand.
A little more to the right to show some more homes and the marshy area that will someday become the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.
And finally a view towards what would become the Surfside Colony and Sunset Beach.
We’ll share more historical pictures and photos of Seal Beach as the year progresses. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Seal Beach image.
– Michael Dobkins
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The Pacific Electric’s Newport line was crucial to the development of Seal Beach and the coastal cities of Orange County down to Newport Beach. The Pacific Electric red car trolleys once ran along Electric Avenue through the city for most of the first half of the 20th century. A second line came across the bridge from the Long Beach Peninsula on Ocean Avenue and turned down Main Street to join the main line at Electric Avenue.
Here’s an eight minute portion of a Pacific Electric training film from 1914 posted on YouTube. It’s best to keep in mind that this film was originally made to instruct PE employees how to do their jobs and not entertain. Still, it does offer an interesting glimpse into what it was like to ride on a red car in 1914.
This video was taken from an 8mm film compiled by Interurban Films, a specialty film company that compiled railroad footage into film collections for rail fans. Interurban Films was founded and run by the late Bruce Frenzinger, one of the founding members of the Seal Beach Historical & Cultural Society and a driving force in the initial acquisition and restoration of the Red Car Museum back in the seventies. The next time you visit the Red Car Museum, toot the train whistle in Bruce’s honor.
– Michael Dobkins
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We’ll be viewing various images of Seal Beach piers over the next few months, but this week we’re looking at what is probably the first image of the original pier built in 1906. Unfortunately, the image only exists as a poor low resolution reproduction in a Bay City advertisement in the March 13, 1906 Los Angeles Herald.
The tiny caption for the photo reads, “THIS IS AN ARTIST’S ADVANCE SKETCH OF THE NEW PIER NOW BEING BUILT AT BAY CITY. THE PIER WILL BE 1500 FEET LONG WITH SAFE, AMPLE FACILITIES FOR LOADING PASSENGERS.” Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be any of the idealization or design for reproduction you normally see in advance artwork advertising new construction. The pier also seems extremely short for sketch promoting its 1500 foot long length. Frankly, this looks like a photograph to me. What do you think?
P.A. Stanton is Philip Stanton, one of the founding fathers of Seal Beach, and we’ll be also be seeing much more of him in the next few months.
The early newspaper stories and ads about Bay City are perfect examples of Southern California boosterism in the first decade of the 1900s as shown in the following examples from the Los Angeles Herald charting the progress of Bay City pier construction in early 1906.
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PLEASURE PIER AT BAY CITY
Contract Let for Extensive Improvement at Attractive Coast Resort
Another new pleasure pier is about to be added to those providing enjoyment for Southern California and coast resort visitors. Contracts have already been let to Mr. Mercereau for building a 1500-foot pier at Bay City. This will be the longest pleasure pier in Southern California, the one at Long Beach alone excepted, and Mr. P. A. Stanton, the agent for Bay City, says it will be completed by June 1. (trading and sidewalking of all streets In Bay City not so improved is now in progress. The proposed new hotel of sixteen rooms and a large dining room together with several store rooms on the ground floor, will be constructed at the corner of Main and Central avenue. Plans have already been drawn for this building.
Several handsome new houses are also under construction or planned for early building. Early Inquiries of home, seekers or investors for Bay City lots presage an early and active season for the Southern California beach resorts. – Los Angeles Herald, 4 March 1906
Los Angeles Herald, 1 April 1906
About $28,000 will be expended in building the 1500-foot pleasure pier, the new hotel and store building and for other improvements at Bay City. – Los Angeles Herald, 5 May 1906
Los Angeles Herald, 6 May 1906
PLEASURE PIER AT BAY CITY
Passenger and Freight Depot to Be Erected by the Pacific Electric Company
The first carload of lumber for the 1500-foot pier at Bay City Is on the ground, and the contractor promises to complete the structure within thirty days. The new two-story hotel and store building at the corner of Main street and Central avenue Is well under way, and the passenger and freight depot to be constructed by the Pacific Electric company Is planned for the coming Summer. When contracts now being carried out are completed, over $28,000 will have been expended for street cement work alone In Bay City. – Los Angeles Herald, 6 May 1906
Los Angeles Herald, 20 May 1906
BAY CITY IS BOOMING
Long Stretch of 1500-Foot Pier Is Built— Bath House Open for Business
Rapid progress is being made on the new 1500-foot pleasure pier at Bay City. It already extends eight hundred feet into the ocean, so that the aspect of the water front is materially changed. The pier will be completed within thirty days. The new hotel and store building is about half done and the bathhouse at Anaheim landing is open for business. Although it is still early, P. A. Stanton reports a lively inquiry for lots at Bay City, and predicts a lively season. – Los Angeles Herald, 20 May 1906
Los Angeles Herald, 27 May 1906
The reduction in the round trip rate to Bay City has stimulated public interest in that enterprising beach resort and the improvements now being made foreshadow a busy season. The new 1500-foot pier will be completed in a few days; the hotel is nearly ready for the plasterers and the street improvements well under way. No definite date has been set for beginning work on the new Pacific Electric station, but it in hoped that it will be built during the coming season. – Los Angeles Herald, 27 May 1906
Sales Active at Bay City
A residence building boom is adding to the gayeties of construction at Bay City, where a new 1500-foot pier and a hotel and store building are approaching completion. Mrs. Dwight Whiting, of Los Angeles, has let the contract for a handsome two-story cottage on First street; W. J. Edwards has ordered plans drawn for- a two-story home to be located at Central avenue and Second street: Dr. V. J. Nance will build a two-story cottage at Fifth street and Ocean avenue, and John L. Plummer is preparing to build on Fifth street. This makes four two-story cottages started or planned within a week past.
It has leaked out that Phil Stanton has evolved a plan which is to make Bay City “the best lighted city on the Southern California coast.” This is a pretty big contract, and the outcome is awaited with considerable interest. The Bayside Land company has a habit of carrying out its promises. – Los Angeles Herald, 3 June 1906
Los Angeles Herald, 17 June 1906
Long Pleasure Pier Completed
Dr. H. I. Nance, of 1834 West Twenty-ninth street, has just signed a contract for the erection of a six-room cottage on the corner of Fifth street and Ocean avenue, Bay City, and work will begin Monday. This is the fifth good sized cottage to be started or contracted for within two weeks. The 1500 foot pier at the foot of Main street Is now fully completed and is much frequented by anglers, pleasure seekers and cottagers. Work is progressing on the new hotel. P. A. Stanton reports a largely increased inquiry for Bay City property since warmer weather set in. – Los Angeles Herald, 17 June 1906
We’ll share more historical pictures and photos of Seal Beach as the year progresses. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Seal Beach image.
– 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 intriguing little photograph shows a rare close view of the The Joy Zone with a man standing in front of two concession windows. This is probably late in the afternoon, judging by the shadows. In the background, there is a glimpse of the four month old Derby roller coaster midpoint along the right hand edge.
These concession windows were located near what is now the center of the pier’s east parking lot. They were housed in a wooden building immediately east of of the dance pavilion as shown in this postcard. This building didn’t last long. It had already been demolished by the time a 1921 aerial shot of Seal Beach was taken.
LOOKING CLOSER
The actual size for the original photograph for this image measures only 1.33 inches by 1.9 inches. This is much too small to allow even a viewer with the sharpest of eyes to discern many details. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology however, this image can be scanned at a high resolution and blown up to reveal details that would have been once been impossible to see in such a small damaged photograph. Thank you, modern technology!
A minor but interesting detail is the light bulbs underneath the awning fore each concession window, indicating that this building was wired for electrical power and the concessions could remain open after sundown to serve the night time crowds. One hopes they only had to stay open nights during the summer and off season weekends because the beach could get mighty chilly and lonesome during the winter.
A closer look at the the window on the right reveals that this concession was a game of chance. Inside the window, rectangular boxes of chocolate are stacked at an angle. A banner reads:
WIN A BOX OF CHOCOLATE FOR 1 CENT
QUICK RESULTS ONLY 40 NUMBERS
If anyone reading this is an ex-carny, let us know what this game was and how it would work.
Here’s an indication of how much times have changed in the past 94 years. In 1916, tobacco were sold right on the beach. The concession window on the right specialized in cigars and cigarettes. Modern non-smoking beachgoers can sigh a deep smoke-free breath of relief.
Inside the cigar and cigarette shop, advertisements for Fatima and Obak brand cigarettes can be seen. Before bubblegum companies licensed baseball cards, brands like Fatima and Obak included baseball cards in their cigarette packs.
A tin sign advertising London Life Turkish Cigarettes has been installed just on the edge of the cigarette shops window. Ironically, this brand was manufactured neither in Turkey or England, but in New Jersey.
Here a color picture of the same tin from an eBay auction in 2008. Tally ho!
And finally, a larger image also reveals that there are actually two men in this photograph. We can now see a clerk behind the counter next to what is now an antique cash register. It looks like he is reaching into the glass counter display case for whatever high quality tobacco product his discerning customer in the jaunty cap has just chosen.
Imagine the world these two gents lived in. Judging by their looks, they were both old enough to be born in the nineteenth century. The Wright Brothers had first flown at Kitty Hawk only thirteen years earlier. The last war the United States had fought had been the Spanish American War in 1898. The Civil War was still within living memory, and these two men probably were acquainted with old but still living Civil War veterans. The Boy Scouts of America had just incorporated. The Saturday Evening Post ran its first Norman Rockwell cover in 1916. Monet had started painting water lilies in January. And the Chicago Cubs played their first game in what would later be known as Wrigley Field. (And they won!)
Three months after this photo was taken, President Wilson would be re-elected as a man of peace committed to keeping the U.S. out of the European war. In early 1917, Germany introduced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare that also targeted neutral ships, and American finally entered the war. Would either of these two men fight “over there” in European trenches?
Three years later in August 1920, American women would finally get the vote. The twenties would bring flappers, the Volstead act, the rising popularity of that wild sinful jazz music, talking movies, broadcast radio networks, and Wall Street boom times. And, ultimately, quite a few years in the future, laws that prohibited smoking in public places.
But for the “now” in the moment of this 1916 photo, all of that existed only as possibility. One can’t help wondering how these two men, names lost to history, would feel about all the changes their future would soon bring.
We’ll share more historical pictures and photos of Seal Beach as the year progresses. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Seal Beach image.
– 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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These stacked buoys (without the guards) were once a familiar sight to motorists traveling on Pacific Coast Highway between Anaheim Landing and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.
See the buoys?
Eleven years later buoys are still being stacked in the same spot as shown in this aerial photograph taken on October 14th, 1966.
We’ll share more historical pictures and photos of Seal Beach as the year progresses. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Seal Beach image.
– 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 colorful letterhead was used for official city correspondence in the early years of Seal Beach. The fanciful view of the beach and pier was more a product of wishful thinking than an accurate depiction of the beach in 1916. The artist signed his name on the curb at corner just below the light post. It seems doubtful that “SYMMES” had even visited Seal Beach before he drew this.
Early promotional copy for the city sometimes made it sound as if almost the entire 1915 San Francisco Panama Pacific Exposition was going to be rebuilt on the beach of the city formerly known as Bay City, and this artwork probably reflects that “sky’s the limit” optimism of early Seal Beach boosterism. No band shell was ever built on the pier, the architecture and landscape of the beachfront never quite looked like this, and I doubt the beach fashions were actually this colorful.
However, the roller coaster and the scintillators were exported to Seal Beach from San Francisco after the expo closed, and one of the expo’s stunt fliers, Joseph Boquel, became a popular regular attraction in the skies above Seal Beach 1916. So perhaps this artwork was accurate in spirit, if in not in detail.
We’ll share more picture and photos of the beach, the pier and more as the year progresses. Be sure to check back every Monday for a new Seal Beach image.
– 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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One of the local history treats of 2008 was the hardcover publication of Frances Dinkelspiel‘s Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California. Dinkielspiel, an award-winning journalist, researched and wrote this fascinating biography of her great-great grandfather, financier Isaias Hellman.
For those of you who think that the biography of a financier must be an incredibly dry read, I suggest you watch this Frances Dinkelspiel interview.
Interesting stuff, huh? But what does this have to do with Seal Beach?
First and foremost, Isaias Hellman was instrumental to the growth and development of California in the latter part of the 1800s and the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Hellman helped nurture Southern California into a thriving and prosperous region and thus set the stage for the creation of cities like Seal Beach. If you truly want to understand the world of Philip Stanton and the other founders of Seal Beach, you should learn how Isaias Hellman created it.
The other connection with Seal Beach is more personal. Isaias Hellman and the Bixby family bought Rancho Los Alamitos in the early 1880s. The southern region of the Rancho Los Alamitos property became the Hellman Ranch, and Isaias Hellman once rode horses and raises crops on the land now known as Seal Beach.
The trade paperback edition of Tower of Gold was just published on January 5th. You can buy it at a local bookstore (they need the business), or you can order it online at the following links:
Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?
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