Category Archives: Uncategorized

When it comes to roller coasters, the present-day South Bay currently is sadly bereft. With both Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, Orange County has the lion’s share of roller coasters in the region, though Los Angeles County’s Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia currently has several. The Los Angeles area had several more back inContinue reading “South Bay’s roller coaster was a hit 100 years ago in Redondo Beach”

You know that corner on Sixth and Gaffey in San Pedro where the Jack-in-the-Box stands now? Almost eight decades ago, another restaurant opened there that quickly became a hub of the community’s social life. Nick Oreb, nickname “Blachi,” made it all happen. Born on Nov. 18, 1902 in Yugoslavia, Oreb emigrated to the U.S. inContinue reading “Nick Oreb’s restaurant complex on Sixth and Gaffey becomes a San Pedro hot spot”

The back story of the International Printing Museum in Carson actually begins with what has been called the invention that ushered in the modern era of civilization: Johannes Gutenberg’s first printing press using movable type. Gutenberg’s invention became famous initially for the printing of bibles, but soon the printing press would lead to the wideContinue reading “The International Printing Museum in Carson takes its educational mission seriously”

Chester Washington Golf Course opened on 135 acres of land east of Western Avenue and south of 121st St. in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 28, 1928.  Bordered by Hawthorne to the west and Gardena to the south, the 6,465-yard, 18-hole course operated for years under its original name: the Western Avenue Public Golf Course.Continue reading “Chester Washington Golf Course played an important role in golf history”

A handful of Hermosa Beach residents came up with the idea for a South Bay writers club in the fall of 1949. They were inspired by an earlier, larger group, the Los Angeles Manuscripters Club, which had begun to founder in the late 1940s. Ramoncita O’Connor, Zella Allison, Kay Snow and Walt Darby founded theContinue reading “Southwest Manuscripters has been guiding aspiring writers since 1949”

In the year 2000, San Pedro residents Camilla Townsend and Sandra Bradley began to agitate for the creation of a new charter high school in San Pedro. San Pedro High School, which opened in 1903, had grown overcrowded, and Townsend and Bradley felt that its class sizes were too large. (By the year 2005, schoolContinue reading “San Pedro’s POLA High School weathered rocky seas on its road to success”

On the occasion of the imminent closure of the Redondo Beach landmark restaurant Millie Riera’s Seafood Grotto in 1997, Millie Riera recalled its origins more than half a century earlier. She and her husband, Joe Riera, used to take weekly Sunday drives along the Esplanade in Redondo in the early 1940s. They’d stop to look outContinue reading “Millie Riera’s Seafood Grotto served diners in Redondo Beach for more than half a century”

 Walteria Lake was a nameless basin of lower-level land where rainwater naturally collected back when A. Richard Walters built the Walters Hotel in the area in the late 1800s. Walteria was little more than a stagecoach stop between Redondo Beach and Wilmington at the time. The lake was a well-known fixture in the area duringContinue reading “Encroaching development forced Torrance to deal with Walteria Lake”

Myron Floren was four years old when he discovered the accordion in 1923. Born on Nov. 5, 1919, he was living with his family on a small farm in Roslyn, South Dakota at the time. A nearby farmer picked up a Hohner “button box” smaller accordion to entertain at one of the informal house dancesContinue reading “Accordion virtuoso Myron Floren starred with Lawrence Welk, and in the community”

Cynthia and Patrick David Bradley both had enjoyed long and successful careers in dance when they decided to start a ballet company in San Pedro in 1994. The husband-and-wife team located a space for rent in the Terraces shopping center on Western Ave. in San Pedro that was large enough for two dance studios. TheirContinue reading “San Pedro Ballet School’s most famous graduate now a fixture on ballet’s biggest stages”