Author Archives: Sam Gnerre

San Pedro’s drive to build its own federal building and post office dates back to at least 1913, when the U.S. Congress first authorized funds — $10,000 —  for such a structure. Next came the long process of finding a suitable site for the project, the plans for which included a full-service post office, customsContinue reading “Time stands still at the San Pedro Post Office”

Dale Velzy was born in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 23, 1927, but grew up in Hermosa Beach. His father was a woodworker and part-time lifeguard. As a young boy, Velzy loved to hang out on the beach and watch the surfers and lifeguards on their boards. When he was eight years old, his father usedContinue reading “Dale Velzy: “The Hawk” opened the world’s first surfing store in Manhattan Beach”

Narbonne High School is 90 years old this year. But, the school on Western Avenue in Harbor City doesn’t look nearly that old. And why is it named after a founding father of neighboring Lomita, sheep rancher and property owner Nathanial Narbonne? Hold on, I can explain. Narbonne High School as a separate entity cameContinue reading “Narbonne High School had a nomadic early history”

In 1948, Robert T. McNerney convinced a group of investors to go in with him on the purchase of 120 acres of empty, hilly land where cows grazed on Western Avenue in an unincorporated county area north of San Pedro and south of Palos Verdes Drive North. He planned to build a large cemetery onContinue reading “Green Hills Memorial Park converted grazing land into a solemn landmark”

Running a successful drive-in restaurant and motel complex wasn’t what Norman C. Marsh originally set out to do. Born in the Bay Area in 1902, Marsh had planned to become a dentist and spent one year in the University of California, Berkeley. During that time, he met up with some classmates who had a smallContinue reading “Patmar’s drive-in was a primo hangout spot in El Segundo”

News of the construction of a massive $7 million aluminum plant on 253 acres of vacant land in the Dominguez Land Co. tract at 190th Street and Western Avenue began filtering out to the public in March 1941. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an agency formed during President Roosevelt’s New Deal, financed the operation through itsContinue reading “Harvey Aluminum in Harbor Gateway had a long, sometimes turbulent history”

George W. Hewitt lived during a time when it wasn’t odd in the slightest for small towns such as Manhattan Beach to have much-beloved eccentrics wandering their streets. Hewitt was born in western Illinois, “close to the Mississippi River,” he once told The Daily Breeze, on Aug. 8, 1863. He worked as a brakeman onContinue reading “Old George Hewitt of Manhattan Beach was a real character”

    The Reeves Field story begins with Allen Field, a 410-acre civilian airfield built on Terminal Island in 1927. It was named for Walter B. Allen, then a member of the Los Angeles Harbor Board of Commissioners.The seaside airfield right next to the artificial island’s border with the Port of Long Beach had threeContinue reading “Reeves Field on Terminal Island kept them flying during World War II”

Before the opening of Palos Verdes High School in September 1961, high school-age students on the Peninsula had to attend schools in the flatlands. The Peninsula housing boom was on, but the region had to yet to establish its own indepedent school district, so its students came under the auspices of the Los Angeles UnifiedContinue reading “Public high schools on the Palos Verdes Peninsula”

Playa del Rey, “The King’s Beach,” had rustic beginnings. In 1871, a man named Will Tell built a lodge at the unnamed area near a lagoon that existed where Ballona Creek emptied into the Pacific Ocean. It became a popular spot for hunters and fishermen until an 1884 storm wiped out the small resort. TheContinue reading “Playa del Rey’s early days”