Author Archives: Sam Gnerre

Jared Sidney Torrance founded the city that bears his name in 1912 with the express purpose of creating an industry-friendly community where workers could live close to their place of employment. The Union Tool Co. became the first large firm to take him up on his idea, with construction on its massive plant beginning inContinue reading “A glass factory relocated from Ohio becomes one of Torrance’s earliest manufacturers”

Arizona and Florida now serve as the primary spring training hubs for Major League Baseball, but that wasn’t always the case. In 2009, I wrote about the Chicago Cubs holding spring training on Catalina Island during the 1920s, thanks to the Wrigley family connection. Chewing gum magnate Phillip K. Wrigley owned both the team andContinue reading “The 1911 Red Sox stay in Redondo Beach was brief and somewhat stormy”

The Busy Bee Market occupies an unassuming small building in a quiet residential section of western San Pedro. But, come lunchtime, it’s not unusual to see trucks and vans driven by cable installers, phone linemen, city utility workers and more parked up and down the surrounding street, along with LAPD motorcycles and fire trucks. TheContinue reading “San Pedro’s Busy Bee Market continues to serve up tasty sandwiches to all comers”

Before the arrival of the Torrance Sears store in 1959, South Bay residents had to rely on the Sears location in Inglewood for its appliances, Craftsman tools, everyday apparel and assorted other little-bit-of-everything needs. Shoppers were enticed during the 1950s by full-page ads in local papers such as the Torrance Herald extolling the bounteous goodsContinue reading “Torrance Sears store anchored southern end of Del Amo Fashion Center for decades”

Horse lovers have enjoyed the facilities offered by the Empty Saddle Club in Rolling Hills Estates for decades. But the club wasn’t always a Palos Verdes Peninsula fixture. According to William D. Canfield’s 1990 work, A History of the Empty Saddle Club, Its Origin and Development 1935 to 1990, the club’s origins instead can beContinue reading “Equestrian enthusiasts find a home at the Empty Saddle Club in Rolling Hills Estates”

Jared Sidney Torrance, founder of the city that bears his name, needed a little help from his friends before he could announce Torrance’s founding in March 1912. The Pasadena businessman envisioned an industrial city with amenities for workers that would keep them happy enough to avoid the labor-management violence plaguing Los Angeles at the time.Continue reading “How Joseph Francis Sartori came to have a Torrance avenue named for him”

Recently, in telling the story of Rudecinda Florencia Sepulveda de Dodson, daughter of Spanish land grant baron Jose Diego Sepulveda, I mentioned that she agreed to have the family’s house moved to make way for the construction of a large theater complex on her property in the heart of San Pedro. The theater, to beContinue reading “Land grant heiress fostered development of San Pedro’s landmark Fox Cabrillo Theatre”

El Segundo’s popular nine-hole golf course began as the International Meadows Golf Center in 1962.  The unusual name arose from the city’s chamber of commerce declaring the area where it was located south of LAX along Sepulveda Blvd. as the “International Mile” in March 1962, an attempt to encourage business and industrial development on theContinue reading “El Segundo’s golf course undergoing radical transformation for its 60th year”

A recent post on Jim McDonald’s Facebook private group, “Growing Up in Torrance, CA,” calls attention to the days of yore when a short-lived Torrance concert venue called The Bank hosted concerts by some of rock music’s biggest stars. McDonald based his post on information from the Rock Prosopography 101 website administered by Corry342, whichContinue reading “Pink Floyd appearing live in Harbor Gateway? Yep, it happened at The Bank.”

The need for a two-year junior college in the South Bay area had been discussed as early as the 1930s. Ever since the first such school in California was established in Fresno in 1910, junior colleges bridging the gap between high schools and universities had been built in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Monica, Fullerton,Continue reading “The founding and early days of El Camino College”