Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here’s one way to tell that you’ve had an influence on the community you live in: the city names a street after your family. Vaccaro Ave., a street just east of Henrietta Ave. in west Torrance, was named for the family which owned and operated a ranch in that part of town for almost 70Continue reading “Torrance’s Mira Loma Turkey Ranch sold homegrown birds for holiday feasts”

Roughly 2.3 million children between the ages of 6 and 12 currently play in organized youth soccer leagues, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. That number represents a drop of 14 percent over the last three years, but it’s still an impressive achievement for five youth sports coaches and soccer enthusiasts who heldContinue reading “Five soccer boosters and the founding of the AYSO in Torrance”

Smith’s Island and Mormon Island both lie in the inner harbor of the Port of Los Angeles. Except they’re not really islands at all. Both are peninsulas that once were free-standing islands before being connected via backfill to the mainland. They may have lost island status, but both areas are still referred to with “island”Continue reading “The islands of L.A. Harbor: Mormon Island and Smith’s Island”

Before a modern harbor and mammoth shipping complex occupied the coast from San Pedro to Long Beach, the area’s offshore waters were filled with shallows and mud flats. Some of these were well-defined islands; others were little more than sandy shoals that would disappear underwater during high tides. They remained well-known but unnamed physical featuresContinue reading “The islands of L.A. Harbor: Dead Man’s Island and Rattlesnake Island”

In 2010, I wrote a post about the Japanese fishing settlement on Terminal Island that was razed during World War II after its 800 inhabitants were rounded up and sent to internment camps. But the Terminal Island fishing community was only one of many Japanese American communities affected by relocation. According to the 1940 U.S.Continue reading “Relocation during World War II changed everything for Japanese Americans”

  Point Vicente on the Palos Verdes Peninsula was named for Father Vicente Santa Maria, who accompanied the English sea captain George Vancouver on one of his sailing missions along the West Coast around the turn of the 19th century. Seafaring ships had long petitioned for a stronger lighthouse on the point after several shipwrecksContinue reading “The Point Vicente lighthouse has served as a coastal beacon since 1926”

The South Bay History blog is on vacation this week, but will return with a new post next week. Thanks for reading!  

In 2014, while doing research on another topic, I was surprised to see an old newspaper ad promoting the Southern grocery chain Piggly Wiggly’s new location in downtown Torrance. So surprised that I wrote a whole article on the transplanted store, which opened during the 1920s and was taken over by and became a SafewayContinue reading “A&P, Shopping Bag, Jim Dandy just a few of departed past grocery chains”

When South Bay and Harbor Area landowner George Peck began building some bungalows on six acres of land just south of Shepard St. in San Pedro in the mid-1920s, he envisioned a highly desirable little development with fabulous views from the top of a seaside bluff, served by a San Pedro line Red Car railwayContinue reading “San Pedro’s Sunken City began with shifting earth in 1929”

Milton Kauffman, whose firm built a good portion of Torrance’s residential housing base, was born in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 10, 1882. His parents, Isidor and Teany, moved the family to El Monte, California, in the late 1880s. There, Isidor began the Kauffman Mercantile Co., opening a store under the name I. Kauffman & Son.Continue reading “Meet Milton Kauffman, whose company built thousands of houses in Torrance”