Category Archives: Uncategorized

Last month, I wrote about Tom Ishibahi’s longtime produce stand at the Torrance Municipal Airport, acknowledging at the time that it was just part of the larger Ishibashi family farming story. Today we’ll take a look at the family’s agricultural operations in in the rest of the South Bay, namely its farms on the PalosContinue reading “Kumekichi Ishibashi launches an agricultural industry in the South Bay”

When Alabama football coach Nick Saban turned to freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in the second half of the national college football championship game against Georgia on Jan. 8, 2018, Tagovailoa rewarded him by leading the team to a come-from-behind victory. In the process of driving the Crimson Tide to the overtime win, the Hawaiian phenomContinue reading “Jamelle Holieway: The first true freshman quarterback to win a college football championship”

Orchestra leader Auguste Bosc opened the original Bal Tabarin nightclub in Paris, France in 1904. Its elaborate entertainments and floor shows featuring beautiful women dancing in stunningly ornate dresses and costumes helped the club become a sensation. American nightclub entrepreneurs picked up on the trend. Unrelated Bal Tabarin nightclubs trading on the exotic image ofContinue reading “In its heyday, Gardena’s Bal Tabarin brought exotic entertainment to the South Bay”

The Wilmington Branch Library is the second oldest branch library building in the Los Angeles Public Library system still in existence. Only the Vermont Square Branch Library near USC, built in 1913, is older than the small one-story structure at 309 W. Opp Street in Wilmington. (The main LAPL Central Library was built in 1926.)Continue reading “Wilmington saves its historic branch library building as it gets a new one”

For years, the small fruit stand at the western end of the Torrance Municipal Airport had become a familiar part of the landscape to drivers headed down Crenshaw Boulevard. The business grew especially crowded with customers in the spring, when strawberries harvested from land leased from the airport ripened and were made available for sale,Continue reading “Tom Ishibashi’s Torrance roadside produce stand was one of a kind”

I’m recovering from recent knee surgery, so there won’t be a South Bay History blog post this week. Next post will be Friday, Jan. 5, 2018. Thanks for your patience!

When you look back at the history of local developments, one theme keeps resurfacing: Sometimes, it takes a long time for drawing-board plans to become reality. A recent blog post about Columbia Park noted this phenomenon, and the theme crops up again in this week’s entry, as we examine why what is now is knownContinue reading “Houses finally go up on the Normandie Avenue right of way land”

  Victory gardens arose out of wartime necessity. The food shortages that resulted in Europe as a result of lower production due to farmers and workers fighting World War I meant that the U.S. needed to step up to help its allies. Part of this help came in increased food exports to Europe from theContinue reading “Victory gardens supplied food to the home front during World War II”

If you are under a certain age, the concept of “the milkman” may be foreign to you. But dairies were a big part of daily life for a good chunk of the 20th century. The early-morning clink of milk bottles being placed on the porch by white-clad deliverymen became a familiar sound to many. MayfairContinue reading “Mayfair Creamery provided dairy products to generations of South Bay residents”

If the medical office building on the lot at 4469 Redondo Beach Boulevard in Lawndale looks like it used to be a Pizza Hut, that’s because it was one for several decades. But what concerns us today is what came before Pizza Hut, specifically what existed on the site from 1961 to 1965. Connoisseurs ofContinue reading “Lawndale’s Tiki-Kai Polynesian Restaurant was short-lived but memorable”