Category Archives: Uncategorized

You’d never mistake Dick Dodd for a former member of “The Mickey Mouse Club” after hearing his snarling vocal on the 1966 smash “Dirty Water” by The Standells. Though many child actors who wore the mouse ears did go on to later stardom in one form or another, few had later careers as starkly contrastingContinue reading “1960s garage band icon Dick Dodd of the Standells grew up in the beach cities”

Infrastructure has become quite the buzzword in Washington, DC in the last few years.  The movement toward a major government initiative to rebuild roads, bridges and other public structures finally resulted in the passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, which President Biden signed into law a year ago in November 2021.Continue reading “Works Progress Administration infrastructure work remains part of the South Bay landscape”

The South Bay History blog will return with its next new post on Friday, Nov. 25, 2022, the day after Thanksgiving.

Near the Torrance City Hall building at Torrance Blvd. and Maple Ave. stands the city’s elegant veterans memorial, which calls the roll of residents who lost their lives in defense of our country. In the years following World War II, though, a far more elaborate veterans memorial nearly became a reality. The idea to createContinue reading “Torrance scaled back its once-grandiose plans for a veterans memorial”

The South Bay and Harbor Area have been blessed with beautiful beaches. But if you’d gone to one wearing even a modest modern-day swimsuit a century or more ago, you’d have been carted off to jail. Male or female. When one sees the bathing suits being worn on beaches in photos from the late 19thContinue reading “Looking back to the days when bathing suits could bring about prosecution”

The long road for the Los Angeles Clippers to their new Intuit Dome now under construction in Inglewood began at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in New York state on Oct. 14, 1970. The NBA franchise now operating as the Clippers played its first game on that date as the Buffalo Braves, one of three newContinue reading “The winding road to the Los Angeles Clippers’ new home in Inglewood”

It’s difficult to overestimate the degree to which World War II affected every household in the U.S. The country had lived through one world war already, World War I. American forces saved the day against the Germans and their allies with our late entry into the first “war to end all wars.” But more thanContinue reading “Winning the messaging battle at home was key to the World War II effort”

Recent news that UCLA has purchased the closed campus of Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes and its housing annex in San Pedro warrants a look back at the school’s history. Its earliest roots lie in Westwood at 10643 Sunset Blvd. near UCLA, where Marymount was founded by the Religious of the Sacred HeartContinue reading “Marymount California University’s roots on the Palos Verdes Peninsula go back to 1960”

Don Murphy was working as an aerospace artist at the North American Aviation plant near LAX in 1953 when he heard about an upcoming company-sponsored Soap Box Derby competition open to children of employees. The Manhattan Beach resident was disappointed to learn that the father-son activity had an age limit of 12, which meant thatContinue reading “Pinewood Derby founder Don Murphy created a racing phenomenon in Manhattan Beach”

One of the first entities created in the 1880s settlement that would become known as Inglewood was its post office. The “Centinela Post Office,” as its first sign read, operated out of the general store in which it had been established. President Grover Cleveland appointed store owner George Robbins as the settlement’s first postmaster inContinue reading “WPA art works have enlivened the Inglewood Post Office since the 1930s”