South Bay History

First things first: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., shown at left, did not design Central Park in New York City.

Born in 1870, he actually was the son of the Central Park architect Frederick Law Olmsted. He took over the firm together with his stepbrother, John Charles Olmsted, when his father died in 1895, renaming it Olmsted Brothers.

He continues to be confused with his father to this day, but his accomplishments while running Olmsted Brothers from 1895 until his retirement in 1950 are  impressive enough to stand on their own.

Olmsted has two major South Bay links. The first came when real estate developer Jared Sidney Torrance hired him to design his new South Bay community in 1911, and Olmsted responded with a creative plan.

As an architect, Olmsted was known for his practice of integrating structures with landscape, a concept which can be visualized by anyone who stands at the main Torrance High School building and looks north along the park-like El Prado in Old Torrance.

El Prado Avenue’s broad median strip adds greenery and open space to the urban landscape.

The tree-lined El Prado was laid out at an angle, so that it would lead the eye toward the towering mountains in the distance (on a clear day). Its open green expanse reflects Olmsted’s deliberate attempt to work green space and natural beauty into his urban designs.

Olmsted’s overall Torrance plan also was innovative for its time. It divided the original town into three districts: the business district at the city’s core, which we know now as Old Torrance, the industrial district to the north and east of the city core, and the residential district to the west.

Olmsted left his mark on the South Bay a second time in the 1920s when he was called in to design parts of the Palos Verdes Peninsula settlements, most notably the northern entry to the Hill at Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes Estates.

Part of his approach was to plant thousands of colorful plants in the plaza and on the surrounding hillsides. He also encouraged residents to do their own planting by arranging for them to be able to buy plants at the local nursery at cost.

The resulting Malaga Cove Plaza and surrounding area, above, remains one of the most beautiful urban locations in the South Bay to this day. In 2000, a small parcel of parkland was created in Olmsted’s honor in the Plaza and named Olmsted Place, below.

His South Bay projects really were just part of Olmsted’s total legacy. In addition to Torrance and Palos Verdes, he created master plans for the Baltimore suburb of Roland Park, Forest Hills Gardens, a community just outside New York City, and the Mountain Lake Club in Lake Wales, Florida.

Olmsted built his public reputation in the early 1900s with designs for prominent Washington, D.C. landmarks such as the White House grounds, the Federal Triangle, the Jefferson Memorial, Roosevelt Island, Rock Creek Parkway and the grounds of the National Cathedral.

He was also heavily involved early on – from 1910 – with projects involved with the national parks. He played a key role in the development of plans for Acadia, the Everglades, and especially Yosemite National Park. His involvement with attempting to save California’s redwoods resulted in the naming of a stand of redwoods in the Redwood National Park as the “Olmsted Grove” in 1953.

Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. died at 87, his reputation secure as one of the premier landscape architects of the 20th century.

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. is shown outside of his Rosita Place house in what now is Palos Verdes Estates, where he lived for a time in the 1920s. 

Sources:

Images of America: Old Torrance Olmstead Districts, by Bonnie Mae Barnard and Save Historic Old Torrance, Arcadia Publishing Co., 2005.

Palos Verdes Peninsula: Time and the Terraced Land, by Augusta Fink, Western Tanager Press, 1987.

The Palos Verdes Story, by Delane Morgan, 1982.

Web site: “Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., Cornelius Amory Pugsley Gold Medal Award, 1953,” http://www.rpts.tamu.edu/Pugsley/Olmstead.htm.

The Roundhouse at the end of the Manhattan Beach pier is one of the city’s most recognizable icons. But it wasn’t part of the city’s original Iron Pier, below right, which stood from 1901 until the winter of 1913-14, when it was destroyed by violent storms.
The city’s residents spent several years coming up with designs and financing for a fitting replacement, one that hopefully would rival the efforts of pier builders to the south in Redondo Beach.
Construction of the new pier officially was completed on Sept. 15, 1920, without the distinctive Roundhouse. The structure, then called the pavilion, would be added in a second phase.
The city’s special engineer, A.L. Harris, gave two reasons for the round design at the pier’s end. One was practical: the circular design was “much stronger against the action of the waves.” The other was aesthetic: no other pier on the coast featured a round end at that time, to his knowledge.
The round end of the pier was reinforced with concrete in preparation for construction of the pavilion, which began on Nov. 18, 1921. The pavilion opened on July 4, 1922, and featured a bait shop, tackle rental business and cafe.
By July 1928, an 200-foot extension to the pier had been built beyond the Roundhouse. During the 1930s, a fishing barge would operate from the pier extension.

This aerial view of the pier from the late 1920s shows the Roundhouse and the 200-foot extension completed in 1928.

Unfortunately, the wooden structure was weakened by storms in 1937 and 1938. 90 feet of the extension, shown below at right, was destroyed in a 1940 storm, and the rest was washed away in 1941. The city never rebuilt it.
The pier and Roundhouse fell into fairly serious disrepair in the 1950s, when much civic concern was expressed over unsafe and unsanitary conditions above and below the pier, and its increasing use as a teenage hangout.
A youth canteen that operated out of the Roundhouse in the 1950s seemed to catch a lot of the blame. A Sept. 17, 1957 Daily Breeze story reported that the city’s Recreation Board had sent a letter to the city manager asking him to close the canteen, calling it “filthy” and “a disgrace to the city.”
Issues stemming from the pier’s use as a teen hangout would continue throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1969, the cafe proprietor was evicted, and only bait and coffee could be sold at the Roundhouse.

Cafes and restaurants of various types operated in the Roundhouse up until its transformation into a research center in 1979.

Vehicles were banned from the pier in 1973. Police from three cities had to be called to the pier in 1976 to control a large crowd of teens, some of whom insisted on jumping from the pier into the ocean. A 16-year-old from Cudahy died when he was swept out to sea after such a jump on June 23, 1976.
Everything changed in 1979. The idea of having a cafe and bait shop at the Roundhouse was discarded, and the decision was made to transform the structure into an oceanographic research center.
The nonprofit firm Oceanographic Testing Stations Inc. (OTS) was contracted to run the research facility.

Hey, what happened? Something went missing from the pier during the remodeling of 1991-1992.

In 1991, a major remodeling of the pier was completed. The plan included completely rebuilding the Roundhouse to include an aquarium to go along with the marine research facility. The Roundhouse was leveled, rebuilt and reopened in 1992 with several fish tanks and other amenities added.

The new Roundhouse building in July 1992, shortly before a suspect crashed into it at the sudden end of a police chase.

 

One month after the new facility opened, a suspect crashed his car into the brand new structure after racing his car down the pier at the end of a brief police chase. He narrowly missed the fish tanks, but did cause $18,000 in damage, which was soon repaired.
Today, the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium is open free of charge to the public. OTS states its mission as being “to foster and promote the public study of, and interest in, the oceans, tidelands and beaches of Southern California, the marine life therein, and the impact of human population on that environment.”
The group’s 30th Anniversary Celebration will be held on Friday, October 9, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at the Roundouse on the pier. Check its Web site for further information.

 

Sources:

A Walk Beside the Sea: A History of Manhattan Beach, by Jan Dennis, Janstan Studio, 1987.
Images of America: Manhattan Beach Pier, By Jan Dennis, Arcadia Publishing, 2005.
Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium Web site, http://www.roundhouseaquarium.org/.

 

 

 

Of the three lighthouses that dot the South Bay coast, the Angels Gate lighthouse, right, has the lowest profile.

The Point Fermin lighthouse is surrounded by a lovely park with its famous cliffs, while the lighthouse at Point Vicente, long-rumored to be haunted, is situated on one of the most scenic stretches of coastline on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

 

By contrast, the Angels Gate Lighthouse, also known in as Los Angeles Harbor Lighthouse and the Los Angeles Main Entrance Channel Light, sits at the end of the 9,250-foot-long San Pedro Breakwater. It is neither as accessible or as picturesque as the other two.

 

The original plans for the structure, which was built in 1913 at a cost of $36,000, called for it to be smaller and constructed out of wood. Wisely, those plans were overruled in favor of a larger and sturdier steel-framed building whose Romanesque design remains unlike any other lighthouse on the California coast.

Built on a 40-foot-square concrete platform, the building has withstood much buffeting over the  decades. It has weathered storms and earthquakes without alterations, though a 1939 storm’s assault apparently left the structure leaning slightly shoreward.

A paddleboarder passes in front of the Angels Gate Lighthouse in this August 2007 file photo.

At 73 feet high, the five-story lighthouse is bigger than it appears from the shore.
For its first 59 years, the lighthouse was manned by a four-man crew of U.S. Coast Guard personnel, who lived in its lower octagonal base.

 

The original foghorn had a low, two-toned sound that led locals to nickname it “Moaning Maggie.” It was replaced in 1959 by a higher-pitched horn, which was dubbed “Blatting Betty.”

In 1973, the lighthouse’s functions were automated, and it no longer became necessary for it to be staffed, but its familar green light still welcomes incoming ships into Los Angeles Harbor. The green color distinguishes the light from all the other white light ships see from shore as they move into the harbor.

The lighthouse’s original Fresnel lens was replaced in 1989, and is on permanent display at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in San Pedro.

In the years since it has been unmanned, the lighthouse has fallen into disrepair. A drive to raise funds for its restoration is now being spearheaded by Gary Dwight and Allen Johnson of the Cabrillo Beach Boosters. 

Sources:

 

“Automation Hits Lighthouse,” By John Hart, Copley News Service, Daily Breeze, September 12, 1972.

Lighthouse Friends.com: http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=99

Los Angeles Metblogs: http://la.metblogs.com/2006/01/22/angels-gate-lighthouse/

Wikimapia: http://wikimapia.org/553950/Angel-s-Gate-Lighthouse

 
A new high-tech Los Angeles Fire Department fire boat passes the Angels Gate Lighthouse as it enters Los Angeles Harbor in July 2007. 

“Nothing is permanent but change,” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, sounding like he would have felt right at home on the South Bay landscape.

Another philosopher named Joni Mitchell once sang, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” That’s certainly happened in the South Bay, too, though maybe not as often as one would think.

Arguments can be made over whether transformations over the years have always have been for the better.

The Point Vicente Interpetive Center, above, the whale-watching site in Rancho Palos Verdes, would seem to beat the heck out of the former firing range/Nike missile site that once stood there, at least in terms of aesthetics.

Theme park buffs might bemoan the loss of Marineland, shown above in 1981, but developers have crafted a sumptuous luxury hotel and resort, Terranea, shown below, on the same coastal land where trained whale shows once delighted onlookers.

 

The part of the giant Unocal oil tank farm south of Lomita Boulevard on Crenshaw Boulevard was sold to developers in 1989. It became the heavily used Torrance Crossroads shopping center.

Above, the mostly vacant lot, part of Unocal’s tank farm, that the company sold to developers. Below, the Torrance Crossroads shopping center that took its place.

The distinctive Parasol restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance (interior shown, below left) is now a less-distinctive Walgreen’s pharmacy, while the old-school favorite Del Conte’s Restaurant (below, right) became Pacific Porsche, a gleaming auto dealership.

 

The Metlox potter plant in Manhattan Beach went from a thriving industrial site to a hole in the ground, above photo, lower left. After toxic chemicals were cleaned from the site, it was transformed into an outdoor shopping center, below.

When 13-year-old Johnny Maus of Hermosa Beach started to sing at the Beverly Hills home of casting director Bob Corcoran in April 1957, he thought it would be for a couple of songs, not for a 45-minute performance.

But the show biz audience at the high society gathering loved him and insisted that he run through his whole musical repertoire. Here’s the Daily Breeze clipping from Friday, April 26, 1957:

And, although he had already made many singing appearances around Los Angeles and the South Bay, the talented Hermosa Beach resident also didn’t know that he would go on to become one of the Walker Brothers, who had huge hits in the mid-1960s with “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” “Make It Easy on Yourself.” “My Ship Has Come In” and “Love Her.”  (By the way, none of them were brothers, and none were born Walker. Maus’ band mates Scott and Gary originally were named Scott Engel and Gary Leeds before becoming “Walkers.”)

A mid-1960s publicity photo of the Walker Brothers, (l to r) Gary, Scott and John. 

Though the first two were big hits in the U.S., the Walker Brothers actually were much more popular in Europe than they were at home. The group eventually sold 23 million records worldwide.

This European reissue of Walker Brothers hits was released in 2008. John Walker is shown at far right.

 

Maus continues to tour Great Britain and release albums under his professional name, John Walker (see photo, below left). Earlier this year, he played 55 dates on “The Solid Silver 60s Show,” an English revival tour featuring The Searchers, Wayne Fontana, The Merseybeats and The Dakotas. His typical live set consists of the biggest Walker Brothers hits together with selections from his solo albums.

Walker and his “brother” Gary Leeds have just written the definitive history of the group, The Walker Brothers: No Regrets, Our Story, which will be published in the UK this month.

 

 

 

The Lady Alexandra floating restaurant at its Redondo Beach mooring in the late 1970s, before disaster struck.

 

The Lady Alexandra’s saga begins in Vancouver, Canada and ends at the bottom of the sea 50 miles off of Redondo Beach.

The vessel was built by Scottish craftsmen in 1923 and was designed specifically for short excursions in the area between Vancouver, Bowen Island and Howe Sound. During the 28 years it was in service in Canada, the ship carried an estimated 16 million passengers  for picnic journeys, moonlight cruises and other tourist adventures.

Demand for the 225-foot ship’s services declined after World War II, and it was retired from service in 1952.

 

A biplane shadows the Lady Alexandra as she enters the Vancouver harbor on June 25, 1924.
Photo by W.J. Moore, courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives.

 

The Lady Alexandra first became a floating restaurant in Coal Harbour in Vancouver in 1959.

A dozen years later, investors purchased the Lady and brought her to Redondo Beach, where she was re-dubbed the Princess Louise II. The original Princess Louise at the Port of Los Angeles was a highly successful floating restaurant at the time, and the PLII was envisioned as her Redondo Beach sister ship. (Read a South Bay Yesterday history of the original Princess Louise here.

Heavy tides  scotched the first attempt to moor the Princess Louise II in King Harbor on November 6, 1972. The ship broke loose from its moorings and was damaged. It had to be returned to San Pedro for repairs.

On January 23, 1973, she returned to King Harbor, where a permanent berth was established successfully and the ship/restaurant opened for business.

Though business was brisk, it was not enough to keep the restaurant afloat, and its owners filed for bankruptcy in 1975.

Into the breach stepped former “Our Gang” comedies star Chuck Johnston, pictured at left in the 1980s. (He played the character of “Stinky Davis.”) In addition to being the master lessee of the Redondo Beach Marina, he owned a variety of businesses in King Harbor, including the Blue Moon Saloon.

In the late 1970s, he reopened the restaurant under the ship’s original name, the Lady Alexandra. A disco/nightclub, Dirty Sally’s, was added. The ship also became the home of the Palos Verdes Yacht Club.

But the ill-fated vessel would soon meet its match. A record high tide, combined with wind-whipped waves, battered the Lady Alexandra in mid-January 1980, suffering enough damage to close down the businesses for a few days.

The Lady Alexandra lies toppled on its side following the high tides and stormy seas of February 1980.

 

It would reopen, but the death blow came a month later on February 19, 1980, when more high tides and even more violent storm-driven seas toppled the ship. The same storm also tossed rocks around seaside parking lots, inundated the Blue Moon Saloon and threatened the Portofino Inn.

It took salvage crews operating cranes, left, until March 19, 1980 to right the ship, which was fully insured. Marine surveyors went aboard to see if the ship could be rehabilitated and moved to another location, as the King Harbor mooring was destroyed in the storm. Crews can be seen pumping water out of the newly righted ship in the photo below right.

Unfortunately, the Lady Alexandra was declared a total loss. On March 23, 1980, she was towed out of King Harbor and taken 50 miles offshore. According to a March 24, 1980 Daily Breeze news story, “There, her sea valves were opened and she gently sank to the bottom for an ignominious ending as a fishing reef.”

The sea life that now calls the sunken ship home might quibble with “ignominious.” The Lady brought a lot of people happiness in a lot of different ways while afloat. Looking at it that way, her final resting place seems fitting.

 

Spectators on the Redondo Beach pier watch as the Lady Alexandra is towed out to sea toward her final resting place on March 23, 1980.

A sign at the left of James Collins’ original Hamburger Handout stand advertises 10-cent hamburgers in celebration of its sixth anniversary in this 1958 photo.

 

Sometimes pop-culture phenomena only capture the public’s imagination for a short time. Sometimes they catch on, and eventually turn into worldwide mega-corporations.
Hamburger Handout is a good example.

The 19-cent burger chain that eventually grew to four outlets began in 1952. Founder James Collins had studied the new hamburger operation that New Hamsphire brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald had begun in San Bernardino on December 12, 1948.

He decided to use their concept for his own version, Hamburger Handout, which opened at the corner of Sepulveda and Centinela boulevards near the Culver City/Westchester border in October 1952.

The Handout’s 19-cent hamburger soon became a fixture in the area, so much so that alumni Web sites from four different nearby high schools – Culver City, Hawthorne, El Segundo and Westchester – have postings from 1950s grads who fondly remember it.

1950s students at Dorsey High in Los Angeles also have made note of the Hamburger Handout location at Slauson and Buckler as being a favorite hangout.

Collins opened the additional restaurants in the Hamburger Handout chain in 1957, 1958 and 1960. These included the branch on Slauson and one in Orange County, with the location of the fourth branch still a mystery unless someone can enlighten us.

In any case, by the early 1960s, Collins had begun to abandon the concept after meeting up with Col. Harlan Sanders over this new fried chicken concept and closed the Hamburger Handouts down. As a result of the Sanders discussions, in 1962 Collins became the exclusive agent for Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Southern California. By the mid-1960s his group owned more than 200 KFC outlets in the West.

In June 1967, Collins, shown at left in a photo from the mid-1980s, bought out Del and Helen Johnson, the originators of the Sizzler steak restaurant chains. His company, Collins Foods International Corp. built the chain into an international success.

Collins retired in 1991, but is still active in community affairs. The Boys and Girls Club of Venice operates out of the James A. Collins Youth Center there, and in 1999 Cal Poly Pomona renamed its hotel and restaurant management school as the Collins College of Hospitality Management after him.

Not bad for a guy who began his career selling 19-cent burgers. Which reminds me, whatever happened to those McDonald guys?

 

No, it’s not one of those old homes in downtown Torrance, the Banning Residence Museum in Wilmington or the Centinela Adobe in Inglewood.

The honor goes to the Dominguez Rancho Adobe in the Rancho Dominguez area near Carson, which was built by Manuel Dominguez in 1826. He built it on 75,000 acres of land that his uncle, Juan Jose Dominguez, had been given in 1784 by the King of Spain in return for his military service in what was the first private land grant in Southern California.

The Rancho San Pedro encompassed most of what we know now as the South Bay, from the Los Angeles River on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. The Dominguez Rancho Adobe was built atop a hill in the middle of the Rancho.

Manuel Dominguez (left) lived in the six-room structure he built with his wife, Maria Engracia Cota. Between her and her six daughters, who married, among others, lawyer and land owner James A. Watson (Watson Land Co.), George Henry Carson (for whom the city of Carson was named) and Gregorio Del Amo y Gonzalez (for whom all things Del Amo in the South Bay are named), the family pretty much had an early monopoly on South Bay street and place names.

Even today, the streets of Rancho Dominguez near the Adobe are named after Dominguez’s daughters: Ana, Maria, Reyes, Susana, Victoria, Dolores and even Las Hermanas (‘the sisters”).

Manuel Dominguez’s hacienda would go on to play a role in a skirmish during the Mexican-American War known as “The Battle of Dominguez Rancho.” By using hit-and-run fighting tactics and judiciously employing a single cannon, a vastly outnumbered group of Spanish Californians forced a larger American force to retreat from the Dominguez Rancho back to San Pedro. Five Americans were killed in the battle and were buried on a small island in the harbor that became known as Dead Man’s Island as a result. (The island was dredged away, and ceased to exist in 1929.)

 

Portraits of Manuel Dominguez and Maria Engracia Cota adorn the interior of the Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum.

The massive Rancho San Pedro’s tracts gradually were sold off over the years. The Ocean Tract was sold in 1887 for $12,000; its 433 acres would become incorporated Redondo Beach on April 29, 1892. Also in 1892, the family sold Terminal Island (then known as Rattlesnake Island) to the Los Angeles and Terminal Island Railroad Company, which built its southern rail terminus there.

On May 31, 1911, the Dominguez Estate Company sold 2,791 acres to one Jared Sidney Torrance of Pasadena, who also acquired 730 additional acres from Susana Dominguez Del Amo. From these lands, the city of Torrance was carved out in 1912.

The last Dominguez relative to live at the Dominguez Rancho Adobe, Dolores Dominguez de Watson, died in 1924. Two years earlier, the Adobe was deeded to the Claretian Missionaries, a Catholic order. They formed a seminary there, and converted some of its rooms to classrooms.

The Dominguez Rancho Adobe became a State Historic Landmark in 1945. Since then, it has been lovingly restored several times, most recently re-opening in 2004 after a five-year renovation.

The Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum currently is open to the public. It is located at 18127 Alameda Street, in Rancho Dominguez. Tours of the home are given on the hour on Wednesday and Sunday at 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Group tours are welcomed and must be booked ahead. For more information, phone (310) 603-0088.

Sources:

“The Historic Dominguez Rancho Adobe,” City of Carson Web site, http://ci.carson.ca.us/content/department/about_carson/RanchoDominguez.asp.

“Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County – Dominguez Ranch Adobe,” By John R. Kielbasa, http://www.laokay.com/halac/DominguezRanchAdobe.htm.

Rancho Dominguez Adobe Museum Web site: http://dominguezrancho.org.

Rodeo in Torrance? A cowboy displays his lassoing skills at the 1969 Torrance Mounted Police Rodeo, held that year at the Torrance High football field.

 

A full-blown rodeo. A 3 1/2-hour procession described as “the biggest parade in southwest Los Angeles County history.” Game booths, rides, a midway, an aquacade and an annual beauty contest.

All these and more were part of Torrance’s Ranchero Days, a civic celebration that began with a five-day extravaganza sponsored by the Torrance Chamber of Commerce from July 24 through July 28, 1957.

The rodeo event, sponsored by the Torrance Mounted Police Association, predates Ranchero Days by three years, having begun in 1954, the year after the police horsemen’s group was founded.

Proceeds from the annual event originally were used to fund the city’s annual float entry in the annual Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

Organizers decreed in 1960 that the Armed Forces Day parade would take precedence, and dropped the Ranchero Days parade.

But in 1961, it was back. The Torrance Mounted Police Association held a rodeo parade in August of that year attended by an estimated 8,000 spectators. The Daily Breeze report on July 27, 1962 that a million dollars worth of silver would be on display in that year’s  parade in the form of “lavishly ornamented saddles and bridles.”

Longtime local newscaster and equestrian enthusiast George Putnam served as grand marshal of the 1965 event. In that year’s rodeo, spectators donated money for medical treatment of cowboy Jim Matthews of Idaho who suffered an unusual injury in the event. (See clipping, right. Click to enlarge.)

By 1966, Ranchero Days had become a two-week event. The Torrance Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored a week-long carnival. The second half of included the rodeo, co-sponsored by the Torrance Chamber, the Torrance Elks Club and the Torrance Mounted Police Association.

In addition, a beard-growing contest was held that year among male city employees. (See clip, left. Click to enlarge.)

The rodeo, parade and beauty contest were scrubbed for the 1967 event, which consisted only of the carnival.

But those events would return the following year.
According to Daily Breeze files, 1974 is the last year in which the Ranchero Days are mentioned in conjunction with the rodeo.

 

The rodeo event continued at least until 1980, when the 26th annual event was held under the sponsorship of the Torrance Mounted Police Association. Finally, the rodeo ceased altogether in the early 1980s.

 

A rodeo cowboy hits the dirt after being thrown during the bronc riding event at the 1962 Ranchero Days rodeo.

 

After visiting San Pedro many times while working as a railroad man for the Southern Pacific, George H. Peck Jr. decided that he liked its look. He settled there in 1886, and would become a wildly successful real estate developer. He also helped organize the original Bank of San Pedro in 1889.

 

He built a rambling mansion on Signal Street overlooking Timms Point in San Pedro, then an area of luxury houses known as the Gold Coast. Due to development of the railroad yards and the port channel, the house had to be moved a few blocks in 1915 to 380 W. 15th Street, where it stands today (see photo below), though in a much-altered form lacking the splendor it once had.

 

Among his large business transactions were the 1913 sale of 104 acres that would become Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, and the sale of land in 1911 to Standard Oil for what would become the Chevron refinery in El Segundo.

 

In addition to the vast land holdings he amassed in San Pedro, Peck also owned real

estate in Manhattan Beach. He developed the El Porto district in the northern section

of the city, which originally had called Shore Acres.

 

Fellow developer John Merrill developed the city’s southern section, which he named

Manhattan Beach after his former home town. Legend has it that a coin was flipped,

probably in 1902, to decide the name of the new city. Peck lost, and the city became

Manhattan Beach.

 

This early-1900s view of Beacon Street looking north shows the location of Peck’s flourishing San Pedro real estate firm, left.

 

Peck built a house at 2620 Alma Avenue in Manhattan Beach, on the street named for

his daughter. It would become the family’s summer house, and still stands today. Peck

Avenue in Manhattan Beach also took its name from the developer.

 

Peck became an extremely wealthy man. He had three children, Rena, Alma and Leland.

Alma and Leland were chronically ill – Leland was in a wheelchair most of his life –

so Peck established trusts in their names. George Peck died at his house in the Adams

district in Los Angeles in 1940. Leland and Alma died in 1954 and 1962, respectively,

with the city receiving the bulk of the Peck estate as a result.

 

Leland Park in San Pedro is one of four parks Peck donated to the city. It was named for his son. Gaffey Street is on the left.

 

Funds from the George H. Peck Trust were used to maintain recreational facilities in

San Pedro, including the four parks that were created from land that once belonged to

Peck. In addition to the largest, Peck Park, for which he began to donate land in

1929, San Pedro’s Rena, Alma and Leland parks all came from Peck’s holdings.

 

When the Peck Trust was dissolved in 1976, then-president of the Los Angeles City

Council John S. Gibson said, “The trust is a remarkable tribute to a man who

possessed a tremendous love for this community.” Certainly, the beautiful parks form

a lasting legacy for man who first saw San Pedro as a train conductor.

 

The Vincent Thomas Bridge can be seen in this view looking eastward from Peck Park in San Pedro.

 

 

Photos of George H. Peck and of his San Pedro real estate office courtesy of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society. All other photos are Daily Breeze staff photos.

 

 

Sources:

San Pedro: A Pictorial History, by Henry P. Silka, San Pedro Bay Historical Society, 1993.

A Walk Beside the Sea: A History of Manhattan Beach, by Jan Dennis, Janstan Studio, 1987.

“L.A. parks agency to liquidate trust,” The Daily Breeze, February 28, 1976.