Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Torrance post office was authorized to operate on Sept. 18, 1912, a few weeks before the city’s official founding date of Oct. 24, 1912. 68 cents worth of postage stamps were sold on its first day of business.  The post office’s first location was in the office of the Campbell Real Estate Company acrossContinue reading “The early years of the Torrance post office”

An estimated 1,500 people came to the dedication ceremonies for the auditorium at the Chautauqua Assembly in Redondo Beach on Feb. 22, 1890. Many of them streamed into the nascent city, which would not be incorporated until two years later, on the Santa Fe railroad line or the newly built Redondo Railway . When theyContinue reading “Redondo Beach’s Chautauqua Assembly hosted ambitious, short-lived educational movement”

Walter Mitchell was earning his living as a house painter in Redondo Beach before running for and winning a city council seat in 1977. By November 1978, he had become embroiled in controversies that ultimately would cost him his office and land him in prison. After being elected, Mitchell announced plans to build a funContinue reading “Walter Mitchell and Robert Ferrante turn Redondo Beach politics on its ear”

U.S. Army veteran Ron Updike was working at the Palos Verdes Peninsula branch of the U.S. Postal Service in 1990, the year that its new building in Rolling Hills Estates opened. In honor of  National POW/MIA Recognition Day, which had been designated by the U.S. Congress in 1979,  Updike raised the POW/MIA flag at 6:00Continue reading “The battle to fly the POW/MIA flag at federal buildings began in the South Bay”

Fern Elementary School in Torrance began in 1926 as a group of bungalows assembled as a remote addition to Torrance Elementary School. The school originally was known as Redondo Boulevard School, named after the nearby street that would later become Torrance Boulevard. The school’s name changed to Fern Avenue School in 1928, after the streetContinue reading “Torrance’s Fern Elementary School survives, and thrives”

Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle’s exploits as a test pilot, war hero and postwar military expert make him one of the greatest aviation figures of the 20th Century. He was born on Dec. 14, 1896, in Alameda, Calif., and spent much of his childhood in Nome, Alaska. Doolittle, who was 5-foot-6, became a champion amateur bantamweightContinue reading “American military hero Gen. James ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle’s postwar career brought him to the South Bay”

  Major media attention recently has focused on a roughly 180-acre piece of land in Carson as a potential site for a new NFL stadium. The plot of land bounded by Del Amo Boulevard, Main Street – its address is 20400 S. Main – and the 405 Freeway has had only one development on itContinue reading “Tracing the history of a very important South Bay vacant lot”

By the end of the 1950s, overcrowding had become an increasingly hard-to-ignore problem in the booming South Bay. Population had increased, and school facilities in areas such as Redondo Beach, Torrance and Carson were being taxed to their limits. In Carson, the Los Angeles Unified School District had seen the need for a new seniorContinue reading “Carson High School opened before the city was incorporated”


The Crest in Old Torrance has been a part of the local landscape for so long that its presence is easy to take for granted. Turns out the Crest is only the latest of several  colorful establishments occupying that same location for the past 87 years. 
The Crest’s origins date back to 1928, when theContinue reading “The Crest in Old Torrance is just the most recent tavern at 1625 Cabrillo”

On March 20,1962, the Redondo Beach City Council committed itself to the development of a large park in the southern section of the city. In May, it went ahead with the purchase of a good-sized chunk of it, a 7.9-acre piece of land from the Huntington Land Company, for $156,000. The land was part ofContinue reading “Development of Redondo Beach’s Alta Vista Park took some time”