Just a year after Santa Monica was founded in 1875, the first bathhouses were opened on North Beach. Duffy Bath House, the Santa Monica Hotel, and the Santa Monica Bath House were forerunners of the leisure industry and modern tourism, greeting visitors with porcelain tubs for bathing and basic dressing rooms. Southern Santa Monica offered a wilder side with dance halls, plunges, saloons, amusement rides, and casinos. Moving into the 1920s, booming business in oil, transportation, aeronautics, real estate, and entertainment brought professionals and industry that established Los Angeles as a major city. Along with growth came change, and the glamorous private beach clubs that proliferated shared in the rewards and pitfalls of both. Prosperity favored the privileged over the broader public.
99 Steps
This postcard shows the ninety-nine wooden steps to the beach, built in 1875, that allowed access to the beach from the Palisades. In 1935, the wooden steps were replaced with concrete.
Douglas Aircraft Company
Donald Douglas was a man of vision who reshaped the world of aviation. He led its transformation from an oddity into a truly reliable mode of transportation. The Douglas World Cruiser was the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe on a record-setting flight in 1924, putting Douglas Aircraft Company and Santa Monica on the map. The company evolved into a world leader of aircraft design and manufacturing, employing over 45,000 workers during the war. This photo of the World Cruiser was taken at Clover Field (now Santa Monica Airport) just prior to its famous flight.
Japanese Fishing Village
About 300 Japanese fishermen and their families established a village north of the Santa Monica Canyon at the turn of the 20th century. A fire destroyed the village in 1916.
Santa Monica Pier
The Santa Monica Municipal Pier was revolutionary in its design and the first of its kind on the Pacific Coast. Five thousand people came to the grand opening of the steel-reinforced, all-concrete pier on September 9, 1909.
Santa Monica Pier
Santa Monica Pier and a busy day at the beach, ca. 1920.
Santa Monica Pier
Pleasure piers were a big draw for Santa Monica in the 1920s. They featured carnival-like games and roller coasters, such as the Blue Streak Racer roller coaster, and The Whip ride shown here on the Santa Monica Pier in the 1920s.
Beach Clubs
Private beach clubs were an indication of growth and prosperity. However, the clubs favored the privileged over the general public and boasted “limited membership.” Pictured here are three popular early beach clubs: from left to right, the Breakers (1725 Promenade), Edgewater (1855 Promenade), and the Del Mar Club (1901 Promenade), ca. 1928.
Beach Clubs
The first private beach club in Santa Monica was the Gables, built in the early 1920s. A fire destroyed the club not long after it was built.
Bathhouses
The Crystal Plunge was built in 1887 as an open-air, cement swimming pool. It was located at the intersection of Ocean Avenue and Front Street, where Casa del Mar stands today.
Bathhouses
The Santa Monica Bath House was the second bathhouse to the area, built in 1877. Duffy’s was the first, but the Santa Monica Bath House was much larger, with twenty-five rooms for rent, steam rooms, and hot saltwater baths.
Bathhouses
Various forms of entertainment increased the popularity of bathhouses in Santa Monica Beach. Some had bowling lanes, or like this bathhouse, a trapeze over the pool.
Santa Monica Outlook
The Santa Monica Evening Outlook had a 123-year run before it ceased publication in 1998. This is an interior view of the Outlook from before 1900.
The Arcadia Hotel
Collis Potter Huntington led and developed the Southern Pacific Railroad, shown here, as well as the Long Wharf, Santa Monica’s attempt at becoming a large seaport.
The Arcadia Hotel
Built in 1886, the Arcadia Hotel was the largest structure in Santa Monica. It was torn down in 1909 to make way for new development.
Ice Cream Camp
The bathhouse boom brought tourism and service industries to Santa Monica. Pictured here is an ice cream concessions camp set up on Santa Monica Beach in 1885.
The Long Wharf
Built in 1893, the Long Wharf was a venture by Collis Potter Huntington and the Southern Pacific Railroad to make Santa Monica a major port. Merchants gradually abondoned the Long Wharf, dubbed Port Los Angeles by Huntington, for the official Los Angeles port at San Pedro. Huntington’s death in 1900 effectively ended the venture, with his successors having little interest in maintaining it. By 1920, the wharf had been completely dismantled.
The Long Wharf
Circa 1890, Port Los Angeles, also known as the Long Wharf, was located at Santa Monica Canyon.
The Long Wharf
Southern Pacific Railroad built the Long Wharf, in 1893. The wharf was 4720 feet long and was supposed to establish Santa Monica as a the major port for Los Angeles.
Santa Monica Coast
The view from the ninety-nine steps looking south along the Santa Monica coast, ca. 1889.
Santa Monica Coast
Looking south from the bluffs at the California Incline and Santa Monica Pier around the 1920s.
Victorian Bather
An unidentified bather stands in front of Breakers Café on the pier known as Fraser’s Million Dollar Pier, which later became Pacific Ocean Park.
Southern Pacific Railroad
Collis Potter Huntington was one of the Big Four of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first transcontinental railroad.
Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific railroad tunnel under Ocean Avenue. The tunnel was eventually enlarged for today's Pacific Coast Highway, ca. 1890s.
Sunset Trail
This color postcard depicts Sunset Trail from the top of the Palisades.