McDonald’s: Reopening eagerly anticipated now, but in 1971 it was unwelcome in Los Al

After a short time down for some remodeling, the Los Alamitos McDonald’s restaurant will be reopening next week, according to an article at Shelley Henderson’s OC Breeze website. What is interesting is that in another bit of wisdom that only they will ever understand, the Los Alamitos City Council turned down in 1971 the construction … Read more

Crawford Airfield – Seal Beach

Aviation has a long history in the Seal Beach area.  When Phil Stanton imported most of the 1915 San Francisco’s Pan-Pacific Exposition’s amusements to build the Joy Zone at Seal Beach, aviation was part of the business plan.  Daredevils like Joe Boquel thrilled attendees with his aerial antics over the waves, and local pilots landed … Read more

Early Mexican workers in Los Alamitos

Source:  The Home missionary: Volumes 74-76 – Page 198  (1902) The Home Missionary was the annual publication of the Congregational Church Missionary Society, which supplied the minister for the Congregational Church in early Los Alamitos.   The minister’s report to the society provides much information about the early religious happenings in Los Alamitos. In this report … Read more

Biography: Frank Capitain, architect of the Los Alamitos Sugar Factory & town

18 JUN 1897 – Land of Sunshine: A Magazine of California and the Southwest. p42- One of the busiest men and the same time the pleasantest in all Southern California is Frank J. Capitain of the Alamitos Land Co., which together with the Alamitos Sugar Co. has within twelve months laid out the town of … Read more

1926-1943 – After the Sugar – The Los Alamitos Sugar Factory and Dr. Ross

  The Los Alamitos Sugar Factory was operated for its original purpose for a little over 20 years – from 1897, when it opened as a state of the art facility and the first beet sugar factory in Orange County.  Within a few years there would be five beet sugar factories in the county, all … Read more

Shark fishing in Alamitos Bay – 1913

Here is an early description of Alamitos Bay from Out West magazine, Charles Lummis booster-istic magazine which played a significant role in publicizing Southern California’s virtues, real and non-existent from the 1890s and into the early 20th century. Reprinted from Out West Magazine, a magazine of the old Pacific and the new, Volumes 37-38 (1913) … Read more

Shark fishing in Alamitos Bay – 1913

Here is an early description of Alamitos Bay from Out West magazine, Charles Lummis booster-istic magazine which played a significant role in publicizing Southern California’s virtues, real and non-existent from the 1890s and into the early 20th century. Reprinted from Out West Magazine, a magazine of the old Pacific and the new, Volumes 37-38 (1913) … Read more

Seal Beach Founders Day – the media onslaught continues

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

Philip A. Stanton – Part III — A new city, the Joy Zone and the not-so-Joyous zone

(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

Dances, Parades, games and rides planned for Seal Beach’s 95th birthday bash

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