Jeffrey Stanton Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990.
Santa Monica Pier on the Skids (1941-1974)
" . . . Sunday, December 7, 1941 . . .
"Sam Reed, the city's harbor master, . . . the following morning refused to allow several boatloads of Japanese fishermen to put to sea. The harbor had become home base to 46 mackerel fishing boats when naval activity in San Pedro caused them to relocate to Santa Monica. . . . [instructed by] the 11th Naval District Headquarters, he prohibited any boats from leaving the harbor and that afternoon a naval patrol was established . . .
" . . . FBI arrested suspected [people] Forty-five Japanese were arrested in Venice and West Los Angeles on Dec. 8th, and hundreds more the following day.
"The harbor fog horn was mounted atop city hall . . . The city was blacked out at night . . . The first black out Dec. 11th at 9:50 p.m. . . . When neon signs and other lights continued to illuminate downtown buildings, angry citizens moved through the streets and smashed dozens of lights that had been left on when store owners closed for the day." p. 100
"A citizen's defense militia was formed along the beach front to guard against possible infiltration by the enemy . . . Men and later women stood watch in four-hour shifts at fourteen stations strung along Santa Monica's waterfront. The beach, protected with barbed wire entanglements, was effectively closed during the day. . . .
"The battery of the 3rd Battalion, 144th Field Artillery, was housed at the Municipal Auditorium in Ocean Park. Other army groups manning anti-aircraft batteries were set up at Clover Field to guard the camouflaged Douglas Aircraft plant that from the air resembled a suburban housing tract.
". . .
"Santa Monica's mackerel fishing fleet resumed operation on May 11th under the Coast Guard's new rules." . . . and with no Japanese American fishermen . . .
"By the summer most young men in the area between seventeen and thirty -five had either volunteered or were drafted into the armed services. But the piers and beaches still played host to thousands of soldiers on leave from nearby military bases and the cadre of defense workers at plants like Douglas Aircraft. Since most had never seen an ocean , the lifeguard service urged residents to publicize safety rules for beach visitors.
"The area's normally brightly lit amusement piers were forced to curtail operations after dark because of dim-out regulations. Santa Monica's pier, which had far fewer amusements, had less of a problem remaining open in the evening. Dance halls on Venice and Ocean Park piers offered one of the few forms of evening entertainment and were especially popular with swing-shift defense workers whose shift ended at midnight. By October the city passed laws . . ." forbidding people under eighteen from attending swing-shift dances and those between eighteen and twenty-one had to leave by 2 a.m.
"Santa Monica's mackerel fleet was busy during the war providing food for the nation's war effort. In October 1942, a three ton weight limit was placed on pier vehicles due to a weakening structure. . .
"A series of winter storms wrecked havoc on the fishing fleet . . . on January 14, 1943 . . . then seven inches of rain during a 56 hour storm in late January and forty eight boats washed ashore . . . and then the fish market crashed going from 21 c to 13 c per pound.
"In February 1943, Security First National Bank sold the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier to Walter D. Newcomb, who was managing their pier under a lease agreement. Newcomb, who owned the pier's gift shop and arcade, had taken over management at the beginning of the war when Lt. Commander Harry E. Walker entered naval service.
" . . . the city . . . assigned Newcomb the bank's twenty-one year franchise that began on June 7, 1936.
[Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller was a frequent pier visitor and an honorary captain of Santa Monica's Municipal Lifeguard service and actually leaped from the pier to save a tiring swimmer, August 6, 1943.]
"The city toughened its lease policy, limiting extent and canceling leases that allowed alcohol sales. Olaf Olson had ben operating a cocktail bar, but had recently vacated the premises.
" . . . the Santa Monica area became a rest and recovery area for returning soldiers and airmen. In late November, the Army began leasing the beach club hotels, first the Grand Hotel, Del Mar and Edgewater Clubs. Later they leased the Miramar, Ocean Palms and Shargri-La to quarter 1500 men returning from combat service. The beach club hotels operated like hotels rather than like an army base, and rotated about 2500 men per month through 14-21 day periods.
"The La Monica Auditorium reopened in the spring of 1944 as the Palisades Dance Hall, considering its proximity to their hotels, it was only mildly popular with the visiting troops. Most soldiers preferred either Ocean Park's or Venice's more exciting amusement zones that offered roller coasters, fun houses, theaters, games of skill, and various spinning rides in addition to several dance halls. Santa Monica's Palisades Dance Hall closed several months later with . . . unpaid debts. When new management tried to reopen, the head of the National Musicians Union refused to sanction . . ."
"Both Pacific Mutual Life Insurance's beach erosion lawsuit, better known as the Carpenter case, and Los Angeles Athletic Club's beach accretion lawsuit were retried in April 1944 by the U.S. District Court of Appeals. The court ruled in both cases against the plaintiffs and for the City of Santa Monica." p.101
"The court found that the city was not responsible for either the erosion or sand accretion caused by the construction of the breakwater. It also ruled that the city had a legal right to protect its harbor and the property of others within its boundaries from the action of the ocean. In the Carpenter case it found that all the eroded beach in front of the Del Mar Club had been artificially created from 1875-1921 by man made structures in the Santa Monica Bay and that they belonged to the state and city, not the upland owner. Therefore it was state tidelands that had been damaged. . . .
[The ruling was appealed to the California Supreme Court who refused to hear the appeals.]
" . . .
"Los Angeles County's Regional Planning Commission had much more ambitious plans for the ocean front along Santa Monica Bay. T.D. Cooke, their division engineer, unveiled plans on July 10, 1945, that called for the elimination of the Santa Monica Breakwater and all the amusement piers along the coast. . . ." p. 102
" . . . Both Los Angeles City and County . . . insisted that all man-made structures. . . be removed because they interfered with the free movement of sand by the prevailing currents.
"Finally, . . . commissioners W.W. Milliken and D.C. Freeman opposed the plan . . .
"They would only support a plan that preserved the identity of Santa Monica's waterfront . . .
"In response to a proposal for even further development north of the pier, protests included Morton Anderson who was the Santa Monica member of the State Shoreline Planning association. who said that to permit a carnival construction on the beach would be a "return to the horse and buggy days and would wreck Santa Monica's development as a leading resort city."
" . . ." p. 103
" The city . . . placed deputy city clerk Ralph Kruger in charge of all Municipal Pier leases in February 1946. He instituted new lease procedures that put expired leases out to public bid. The first was the Porthole Cafe . . . Then when Bay Fish Market . . . the Commissioners out of a sense of fairness overruled him and extended the lease until those of California Seafood and Santa Monica Seafood companies lapsed.
" . . .
"Beach activities were beginning to return to normal during the spring. The Army vacated all the hotels and beach clubs . . . and those that were owned by insurance companies were sold to private investors. . . . The Del Mar Club reopened in June and both the Grand and Edgewater Hotels remodeled in time for summer reopening as a tourist hotel and beach club respectively.
"Santa Monica scheduled its first annual Santa Monica Fiesta at the Municipal Pier . . .Hundreds of thousands . . . while fifty combat aircraft from Alamitos Bay Naval Air Station . . .
"Foremost was the bathing beauty contest to crown Miss Santa Monica. Leo Carillo, a noted Santa Monica actor was the master of ceremonies. Judges, mostly from MGM Studios, judged the thirty eight contestants and crowned eighteen year old Mary Joe Devlin . . . . Governor Earl Warren presented her with the trophy.
"The Monoa Paddleboard Club opened their show with a fifteen girl paddleboard ballet, then held races and an exhibition polo paddleboard contest in the calm waters north of the pier . . .
"Acrobatic and gymnastic exhibitions were featured at the playground several hundred feet south of the pier. This area that had become known as "Muscle Beach" was built in The early 30's as a Works Progress Administration "time-killer". The WPA built a weight lifting platform to provide work and recreation facilities for the crowds of unemployed and relief recipients who had nothing to do during the Depression. It was eventually taken over by the Santa Monica Recreation Department after the original users found jobs and moved on.
"These exhibitions, that were usually held on Memorial Day weekends since 1935, featured weight lifters, gymnasts, balancers, muscle control artists, and tumblers. some of the better known performers included Wayne Long, Glen "Whitey" Sunby, Pudgy Stockton "queen of the barbells" and Beverly Jochner who was known as the strongest girl in America. She could lift three people weighing 350 pounds overhead. Russ Sanders, the gymnastic coach would fill out the program with high school and college athletes. The Fiesta, however, marked the first time that they had staged a men's physique competition for the title of Mr. Santa Monica.
'Business on the Newcomb Pier increased during the first postwar summer. Band leader Spade Cooley rented the La Monica Ballroom and his style of country-western music attracted large evening crowds. Then business was also helped somewhat by the elimination of the competing Venice Amusement Pier. It had been forcibly closed down in the spring when the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation refused to renew the Kinney Company's tideland's lease. The closing, however, deprived Walter Newcomb of much of the income that he needed to remodel his[the Santa Monica] aging pier and turn it into a modern tourist attraction. He had operated the merry-go-round and the popular Venice Fun House on the condemned pier.
"While Newcomb was preoccupied with removing his attractions from the Venice Pier, he found a buyer for his Parker carousel located in the Hippodrome building. He then moved his 1922 Philadelphia Toboggan carousel, PTC #62 from the Venice Pier into the building. He had purchased the carousel before the war for $25,000 from an amusement park in Nashville, Tennessee.
"The new carousel opened on June 27, 1947 after a two month long renovation by famed carousel builder, Rudy Illions. It was a fifty foot diameter, three abreast machine with two chariots and forty-four horses hand carved by John Zaler. It was illuminated by 750 electric lights and had a Wurlitzer band organ that played from punched rolls of carousel music. Robert Newcomb, Walter's brother, became manager of the ride.
" . . .
" . . . Myer Simon, president of the California Seafood Company . . .
" . . . the city's second annual beauty pageant in 1947 was staged almost two weeks before the Independence Day festivities. It began with a mile long parade from the Santa Monica Pier to Ocean Park's Casino Gardens. A crowd of 100,000 watched eighty horseback riders, numerous movie stars in parade vehicles, and two bands march past. Spade Cooley, radio western star, acted as Grand Marshal for the event. A panel of movie celebrities judged Susan Brown as the city's . . ." p. 105
"The Independence Day celebration at the pier was just a shadow of the previous year's festival. The Recreation Department staged its 2nd Annual Muscle Matinee on July 4th. A crowd of several thousand watched Charles B. Grayling, a 24 year old studio technician, win the title Mr. Santa Monica. . . .
"The Labor Day contest for the Miss Muscle Beach title was much more exciting and included a show by Pudgy Stockton's Beachettes and a Thrill Circus featuring outstanding Pacific Coast athletes. A sweating, yelling, whistling, hot dog munching, soda pop drinking mob of sun-burned men, women and their children gathered to 'ooh' and 'ah' at the nearly three dozen shapely contestants. The pageant was supposed to prove that a woman could pour beauty and biceps into the same bathing suit. Mrs. Vivian Crockett, a 22 year old housewife and free lance actress won the title.Mrs.
"On September 3rd, the State Board of Health quarantined twelve miles of beaches from the Santa Monica Pier south to Hermosa Beach. This left Santa Monica with only 1.7 miles off swimming beach. The problem once again was Los Angeles' antiquated Hyperion Sewage Plant which had run out of chlorine again and was dumping large amounts of untreated sewage int the bay. While Santa Monica and Ocean Park's beaches reopened the following summer, Venice's beaches remained closed until the new Hyperion Sewage Plant began operation in June 1950.
" . . . .
" . . . City Manager Randall Dorton . . . " p.106
"Santa Monica's harbor finally received official recognition as a government approved small craft harbor on January 31, 1949. It's approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and 11 District Coast Guard entailed no administrative changes . . .
". . .
"Santa Monica officials went to Sacramento and appeared before the State Parks Commission to ask for the remaining $255,000 of the $325,000 dredging fund that was set up in 1943. They planned to move the sand southward and widen the beach by 370 feet between the Santa Monica and Ocean Park Piers. State officials finally approved the plan on April 29, 1949.
"Six months later the federal government approved the breakwater as a barrier to curb erosion of the north beaches with the understanding that the city maintain periodic harbor dredging to replenish its south beaches. . . ."
"Spade Cooley* "King of Western Swing" and his country-western dance band, which performed in the La Monica Ballroom on weekend evenings, had grown to enormous popularity. KTLA, Channel 5, began broadcasting the band in 1948 on Saturday night at 8 p.m. and by 1950 the show was the second most popular Los Angeles television program."p. 111
" . . . Eventually he formed his own band and his "barn dance' style entertainment caught on during the war."
(Back to Sources)
Jeffrey Stanton Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990.
Santa Monica Pier on the Skids (1941-1974)
" . . . Sunday, December 7, 1941 . . .
"Sam Reed, the city's harbor master . . . the following morning refused to allow several boatloads of Japanese fishermen to put to sea. The harbor had become home base to 46 mackeral fishing boats when naval activity in San Pedro caused them to relocate to Santa Monica. . . . [instructed by] the 11th Naval District Headquarters, he prohibited any boats from leaving the harbor and that afternoon a naval patrol was established . . .
" . . . FBI arrested suspected [people] Fourty-five Japanese were arrested in Venice and West Los Angeles on Dec. 8th, and hundreds more the following day.
"The harbor fog horn was mounted atop city hall . . . The city was blacked out at night . . . The first black out Dec. 11th at 9:50 p.m. . . . When neon signs and other lights continued to illuminate downtown buildings, angry citizens moved through the streets and smashed dozens of lights that had been left on when store owners closed for the day." p. 100
"A citizen's defense militia was formed along the beach front to guard against possible infiltration by the enemy . . . Men and later women stood watch in four-hour shifts at fourteen stations strung along Santa Monica's waterfront. The beach, protected with barbed wire entanglements, was effectively closed during the day. . . .
"The battery of the 3rd Battalion, 144th Field Artillery, was housed at the Municipal Auditorium in Ocean Park. Other army groups manning anti-aircraft batteries were set up at Clover Field to guard the camouflaged Douglas Aircraft plant that from the air resembled a suburban housing tract.
". . .
"Santa Monica's mackerel fishing fleet resumed operation on May 11th under the Coast Gurad's new rules." . . . and with no Japanesee American fishermen . . .
"By the summer most young men in the area between seventeen and thirty -five had either volunteered or were drafted into the armed services. But the piers and beaches still played host to thousands of soldiers on leave from nearby military bases and the cadre of defense workers at plants like Douglas Aircraft. Since most had never seen an ocean , the lifeguard service urged residents to publicize safety rules for beach visitors.
"The area's normally brightly lit amusement piers were forced to curtail operations after dark because of dimout regulations. Santa Monica's pier, which had far fewer amusements, had less of a problem remaining open in the evening. Dance halls on Venice and Ocean Park piers offered one of the few forms of evening entertainment and were especially popular with swing-shift defense workers whose shift ended at midnight. By October the city passed laws . . ." forbidding people under eighteen from attending swing-shift dances and those between eighteen and twenty-one had to leave by 2 a.m.
"Santa Monica's mackerel fleet was busy during the war providing food for the nation's war effort. In October 1942, a three ton weight limit was placed on pier vehicles due to a weakening structure. . .
"A series of winter storms wrecked havoc on the fishing fleet . . . on January 14, 1943 . . . then seven inches of rain during a 56 hour storm in late January and forty eight boats washed ashore . . . and then the fish market crashed going from 21 c to 13 c per pound.
"In February 1943, Security First National Bank sold the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier to Walter D. Newcomb, who was managing their pier under a lease agreement. Newcomb, who owned the pier's gift shop and arcade, had taken over management at the beginning of the war when Lt. Commander Harry E. Walker entered naval service.
" . . . the city . . . assigned Newcomb the bank's twenty-one year franchise that began on June 7, 1936.
[Johnny "Tarzan" Weismuller was a frequent pier visitor and an honorary captain of Santa Monica's Municipal Lifeguard service and actually leaped from the pier to save a tiring swimmer, August 6, 1943.]
"The city toughened its lease policy, limiting extent and cancelling leases that allowed alcohol sales. Olaf Olson had ben operating a cocktail bar, but had recently vacated the premises.
" . . . the Santa Monica area became a rest and recovery area for returning soldiers and airmen. In late November, the Army began leasing the beach club hotels, first the Grand Hotel, Del Mar and Edgewater Clubs. Later they leased the Miramar, Ocean Palms and Shargri-La to quarter 1500 men returning from combat service. The beach club hotels operated like hotels rather than like an army base, and rotated about 2500 men per month through 14-21 day periods.
"The La Monica Auditorium reopened in the spring of 1944 as the Palisades Dance Hall, considering its proximity to their hotels, it was only mildly popular with the visiting troops. Most soldiers preferred either Ocean Park's or Venice's more exciting amusement zones that offered roller coasters, fun houses, theaters, games of skill, and various spinning rides in addition to several dance halls. Santa Monica's Palisades Dance Hall closed several months later with . . . unpaid debts. When new management tried to reopen, the head of the National Musicians Union refused to sanction . . ."
"Both Pacific Mutual Life Insurance's beach erosion lawsuit, better known as the Carpenter case, and Los Angeles Athletic Club's beach accretion lawsuit were retried in April 1944 by the U.S. District Court of Appeals. The court ruled in both cases against the plaintiffs and for the City of Santa Monica." p.101
"The court found that the city was not responsible for either the erosion or sand accretion caused by the construction of the breakwater. It also ruled that the city had a legal right to protect its harbor and the property of others within its boundaries from the action of the ocean. In the Carpenter case it found that all the eroded beach in front of the Del Mar Club had been artificially created from 1875-1921 by man made structures in the Santa Monica Bay and that they belonged to the state and city, not the upland owner. Therefore it was state tidelands that had been damaged. . . .
[The ruling was appealed to the California Supreme Court who refused to hear the appeals.]
" . . .
"Los Angeles County's Regional Planning Commission had much more ambitious plans for the ocean front along Santa Monica Bay. T.D. Cooke, their division engineer, unveiled plans on July 10, 1945, that called for the elimination of the Santa Monica Breakwater and all the amusement piers along the coast. . . ." p. 102
" . . . Both Los Angeles City and County . . . insisted that all man-made sturctures. . . be removed because they interfered with the free movement of sand by the prevailing currents.
"Finally, . . . commissioners W.W. Milliken and D.C. Freeman opposed the plan. . .
"They would only support a plan that preserved the identity of Santa Monica's waterfront . . .
"In response to a proposal for even further development north of the pier, protests included Morton Anderson who was the Santa Monica member of the State Shoreline Planning association. who said that to permit a carnival construction on the beach would be a "return to the horse and buggy days and would wreck Santa Monica's development as a leading resort city."
" . . ." p. 103
" The city . . . placed deputy city clerk Ralph Kruger in charge of all Municipal Pier leases in February 1946. He instituted new lease procedures that put expired leases out to public bid. The first was the Porthole Cafe . . . Then when Bay Fish Market . . . the Commissioners out of a sense of fairness overruled him and extended the lease until those of California Seafood and Santa Monica Seafood companies lapsed.
" . . .
"Beach activities were beginning to return to normal during the spring. The Army vacated all the hotels and beach clubs . . . and those that were owned by insurance companies were sold to private investors. . . . The Del Mar Club reopened in June and both the Grand and Edgewater Hotels remodeled in time for summer reopenings as a tourist hotel and beach club respectively.
"Santa Monica scheduled its first annual Santa Monica Fiesta at the Municipal Pier . . .Hundreds of thousands . . . while fifty combat aircraft from Alamitos Bay Naval Air Station . . .
"Foremost was the bathing beauty contest to crown Miss Santa Monica. Leo Carillo, a noted Santa Monica actor was the master of ceremonies. Judges, mostly from MGM Studios, judged the thirty eight contestants and crowned eigthteen year old Mary Joe Devlin . . . . Governor Earl Warren presented her with the trophy.
"The Monoa Paddleboard Club opened their show with a fifteen girl paddleboard ballet, then held races and an exhibiiton polo paddleboard contest in the calm waters north of the pier . . .
"Acrobatic and gymnastic exhibitions were featured at the playground several hundred feet south of the pier. This area that had become known as "Muscle Beach" was built in th early 30's as a Works Progress Administration "time-killer". The WPA built a weight lifting platform to provide work and recreation facilities for the crowds of unemployed and relief recipients who had nothing to do during the Depression. It was eventually taken over by the Santa Monica Recreation Department after the original users found jobs and moved on.
"These exhibitions, that were usually held on Memorial Day weekends since 1935, featured weight lifters, gymnasts, balancers, muscle control artists, and tumblers. some of the better known performers included Wayne Long, Glen "Whitey" Sunby, Pudgy Stockton "queen of the barbells" and Beverly Jochner who was known as the strongest girl in America. She could lift three people weighing 350 pounds overhead. Russ Sanders, the gymnastic coach would fill out the program with high school and college athletes. The Fiesta, however, marked the first time that they had staged a men's physique competition for the title of Mr. Santa Monica.
'Business on the Newcomb Pier increased during the first postwar summer. Band leader Spade Cooley rented the La Monica Ballroom and his style of country-western music attracted large evening crowds. Then business was also helped somewhat by the elimination of the competing Venice Amusement Pier. It had been forcibly closed down in the spring when the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation refused to renew the Kinney Company's tideland's lease. The closing, however, deprived Walter Newcomb of much of the income that he needed to remodel his[the Santa Monica] aging pier and turn it into a modern tourist attraction. He had operated the merry-go-round and the popular Venice Fun House on the condemned pier.
"While Newcomb was preoccupied with removing his attractions from the Venice Pier, he found a buyer for his Parker carousel located in the Hippodrome building. He then moved his 1922 Philadelphia Toboggan carousel, PTC #62 from the Venice Pier into the building. He had purchased the carousel before the war for $25,000 from an amusement park in Nashville, Tennessee.
"The new carousel opened on June 27, 1947 after a two month long renovation by famed carousel builder, Rudy Illions. It was a fifty foot diameter, three abreast machine with two chariots and forty-four horses hand carved by John Zaler. It was illuminated by 750 electric lights and had a Wurlitzer band organ that played from punched rolls of carousel music. Robert Newcomb, Walter's brother, became manager of the ride.
" . . .
" . . . Myer Simon, president of the California Seafood Company . . .
" . . . the city's second annual beauty pageant in 1947 was staged almost two weeks before the Independence Day festivities. It began with a mile long parade from the Santa Monica Pier to Ocean Park's Casino Gardens. A crowd of 100,000 watched eighty horseback riders, numerous movie stars in parade vehicles, and two bands march past. Spade Cooley, radio western star, acted as Grand Marshal for the event. A panel of movie celebrities judged Susan Brown as the city's . . ." p. 105
"The Independence Day celebration at the pier was just a shadow of the previous year's festival. The Recreation Department staged its 2nd Annual Muscle Matinee on July 4th. A crowd of several thousand watched Charles B. Grayling, a 24 year old studio technician, win the title Mr. Santa Monica. . . .
"The Labor Day contest for the Miss Muscle Beach title was much more exciting and included a show by Pudgy Stockton's Beachettes and a Thrill Circus featuring outstanding Pacific Coast athletes. A sweating, yelling, whistling, hot dog munching, soda pop drinking mob of sun-burned men, women and their children gathered to 'ooh' and 'ah' at the nearly three dozen shapely contestants. The pageant was supposed to prove that a woman could pour beauty and biceps into the same bathing suit. Mirs. Vivian Crockett, a 22 year old housewife and free lance actress won the title.
"On September 3rd, the State Board of Health quarantined twelve miles of beaches from the Santa Monica Pier south to Hermosa Beach. This left Santa Monica with only 1.7 miles off swimming beach. The problem once again was Los Angeles' antiquated Hyperion Sewage Plant which had run out of chlorine again and was dumping large amounts of untreated swewage int the bay. While Santa Monica and Ocean Park's beaches reopened the following summer, Venice's beaches remained closed until the new Hyperion Sewage Plant began operation in June 1950.
" . . . .
" . . . City Manager Randall Dorton . . . " p.106
"Santa Monica's harbor finally received official recognition as a government approved small craft harbor on January 31, 1949. It's approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and 11 District Coast Guard entailed no administrative changes . . .
". . .
"Santa Monica officials went to Sacramento and appeared before the State Parks Commisssion to ask for the remaining $255,000 of the $325,000 dredging fund that was set up in 1943. Thye planned to move the sand southward and widen the beach by 370 feet between the Santa Monica and Ocean Park Piers. State officials finally approved the plan on April 29, 1949.
"Six months later the federal government approved the breakwater as a barrier to curb erosion of the north beaches with the understanding that the city maintain periodic harbor dredging to replenish its south beaches. . . ."
"Spade Cooley "King of Western Swing" and his country-western dance band, which performed in the La Monica Ballroom on weekend evenings, had grown to enormous popularity. KTLA, Channel 5, began broadcasting the band in 1948 on Saturday night at 8 p.m. and by 1950 the show was the second most popular Los Angeles television program."p. 111
" . . . Eventually he formed his own band and his "barn dance' style entertainment caught on during the war."