14 SEP 1898 – Dinkelspiel, Towers of Gold, p.185 – In 1898, I.W. Hellman heads a syndicate of San Francisco bankers which backs Henry Huntington in his $3.5 million purchase of the Los Angeles Railway System (the LARy). The LA Times at first incorrectly reports that the Southern Pacific had bought up the private urban … Read more
The photograph to the left goes to show that Main Street in Seal Beach has changed quite a bit over the past fifty years (and for the better, we think — although there is a certain charm of sorts to its previous treeless landscape.) To see larger versions of this photo and more of Seal … Read more
(Okay, this is real long, but cut us some slack. Seal Beach’s Founders Day is coming up, so how can you have too much information about its founder?) Seal Beach founder Philip A. Stanton must have been a very driven man. By 1913, he had been a very successful real estate agent for over 25 … Read more
Seal Beach has a party coming up — and while to our minds maybe it should officially be called Incorporation Day instead of Founders Day — it still will have lots of events to attend and help celebrate the city’s 95th Birthday. There’s going to be a dinner/dance on Saturday night, October 2nd at Old … Read more
As befitting the reported founder of three cities, Phil Stanton was apparently quite the social guy. From the time he arrived in Los Angeles in 1887, Stanton wasted no time meeting people and making connections. Within his first year he had joined two Sons of Civil War Veterans groups, was President of the Unity Social … Read more
As a person with a long history of spending time on things that don’t bring in money or pay bills, it should be no surprise that I’m a history buff. Over the years of avoiding real work, I’ve spent a lot of time researching the history of our little corner of the world. And we … Read more