Author Archives: Sam Gnerre

While “indoor” movie theaters have been hit hard by preventive measures imposed in the battle against the Covid-19 coronavirus, that outmoded old stand-by, the drive-in theater, has been proposed as a temporary new venue for religious services, concerts, sporting events — and films. Opened in 1933, the Park-In Theater in Camden, New Jersey gets creditContinue reading “The San Pedro Drive-In Theatre was a local landmark for 37 years”

Ted Takayuki Tanouye was working at his friend Ray Takayama’s grocery story, Ray’s Friendly Market in Torrance, when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor over the store’s radio on Dec. 7, 1941.  It would change his life forever. Tanouye, nicknamed “Tak,” was born in Torrance on Nov. 14, 1919. HisContinue reading “Ted Tanouye: The only Torrance recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor”

Charles Frederick Holder didn’t set out to revolutionize big-game sportfishing when he used a rod and reel with light tackle to catch a 183-pound bluefin tuna on June 1, 1898 off the Catalina coast. Holder, a Pasadena resident, had been alarmed when he observed men fishing from the shore using hand-held heavy tackle. Their crudeContinue reading “Members of Catalina Island’s exclusive Tuna Club pioneered big-game sportfishing”

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, stunned the nation as only a handful of other events in our history have. Initial national news reports of the shooting hit the airwaves shortly before 11:00 a.m. Pacific time. At Torrance High School, many students were at lunch when the music regularlyContinue reading “How the South Bay chose to honor President John F. Kennedy’s memory “

I’ve mentioned John Olguin’s name in seven different South Bay History blog posts over the years, so it’s about time to take an in-depth look at this San Pedro legend. John Main Olguin was born in San Pedro on Feb. 18, 1921. His father, Roy, had moved from Mexico to work in the port area, whereContinue reading “John Olguin’s lifelong love affair with San Pedro and the sea”

Lennox, the 1.1-square-mile community flanked by Inglewood, Hawthorne and Los Angeles International Airport, once was about seven times larger than it is today. It began as a small agricultural community in roughly 1905. Farms, including those in neighboring Inglewood and Hawthorne, dotted the South Bay landscape in the early 1900s, often worked by immigrant laborers.Continue reading “Lennox retains its identity despite decades of annexations, unincorporated status”

The late 1950s and early 1960s brought peace and prosperity to the South Bay, along with a rapacious need for more housing to help buyers live out the American dream. Empty lots, once plentiful in the area, were being snapped up right and left for developers for residential and commercial projects. Standard Oil owned oneContinue reading “New Horizons in Torrance among the first wave of condo developments in California”

Emitt Rhodes lived in a house on 132nd St. in Hawthorne for most of his life, just across the street from the house where his parents raised him.  He celebrated his 70th birthday this past Feb. 25 on a beach getaway up the coast with Valerie, his fiancee and partner of nearly a decade. RhodesContinue reading “Emitt Rhodes engineered his musical career from a shed in his parents’ Hawthorne backyard”

When a group of investors led by E.G. Ekstrom announced plans in November 1916 to build a large shipbuilding plant on Smith’s Island, a peninsula in the West Basin of the Port of Los Angeles, the U.S. still was a few months away from entering World War I. The 69-acre site for the new LosContinue reading “The Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. weathered some storms, but not all”

The lot near the corner of 190th St. and Western Ave. on the eastern edge of Torrance isn’t much to look at now. The paved vacant lot has only an empty restaurant building and lots of chain link fencing, and doesn’t look much like it did when Thomas H. Wright operated his greenhouses there. WrightContinue reading “Torrance flower producer once supplied gardenias and orchids nationwide”