Food For Thought #3: Los Al restaurants – On the Boulevard

After two posts on the restaurants of Rossmoor,  (Rossmoor Center food here, Rossmoor Village here) we now move “outside the walls” to take a look at the many restaurants of Los Alamitos proper over the years.   Again, we didn’t grow up here and know we are missing some eateries (especially the older ones).  Let us know … Read more

Food for Thought, Part I: Rossmoor Center

This is the first in a series of posts about all the places to eat around here over the years.     The development of the Rossmoor Shopping center is an interesting story, but too long to deal with here, so look here instead.        The original, very ambitious plans for the Rossmoor Center were … Read more

The Rossmoor Center annexation … Was it really “theft?”

Probably no incident irritates Rossmoor residents more than the annexation of the Rossmoor Shopping Center by the City of Seal Beach.   “If we only had those sales tax dollars… if we only had those property tax dollars…” are familiar refrains from Rossmoor old-timers and newcomers. alike. Probably most irritating for the old-timers was the suddenness … Read more

August 21 marks 75th anniversary for Los Al base groundbreaking

[I know — this article is way too long.  But a real and accurate history covering the beginnings of the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station — now the Joint Forces Training base — has never been printed before.  I wanted to not only finally get a more accurate one published, but to also point out … Read more

The Register looks at Los Alamitos in 1930

The Feb. 19, 1930 issue of the Santa Ana Register, celebrating the paper’s 25 anniversary, featured pages dedicated to each Orange County community.  Los Alamitos had a full page of stories focused on the town’s growth. In one story we learn that City Garden Acres (now Apartment Row) began as a subdivision developed by J.D. … Read more

Los Alamitos area once aspired to be local center of “rabbit and poultry industry” and ended up as Apartment Row

When the local sugar beet factory shut down in 1926, the community scrambled to find new industries and jobs to keep the local population working and profitable. In the newest part of the city was a tract called City Garden Acres (now Apartment Row), located south of town between Katella and Farqhuar and east of … Read more

Seal Beach is a town of “firsts”

With the Santa Ana and Irvine-centric bias (not to mention the Disneyland fanboy-ism) of the mainstream Orange County Historical Establishment, accomplishments in our little corner of the word often gets overlooked, especially when it comes to being included in lists of Orange County “firsts.”  So we felt compelled to attempt to set the record straight.  … Read more