3-Minute Histories
The Santa Monica Conservancy is working in partnership with the Santa Monica History Museum to produce episodes in a new series called Santa Monica 3-Minute Histories. These short videos on a variety of local history topics are being aired at Santa Monica City Council meetings throughout 2024. Each episode features new facts on familiar topics in Santa Monica history, told by a unique narrator active in the community.
Pacific Ocean Park
Location: Pier Avenue and Nielson Way
Air Date: November 12, 2024
Narrator: Richard Orton
Pacific Ocean Park (POP), located at the foot of Pier Avenue, opened on July 22, 1958, to over 20,000 guests and nearly 40,000 visitors the following Sunday. Developed by entrepreneur Charles H. Strub and CBS, the marine-themed park featured attractions like Neptune’s Courtyard, Submarine Diving Bells, Sea Circus, Ocean Skyway, and Space Wheels. Despite initial success, attendance declined due to neighborhood redevelopment, and the park closed in 1967 when the City filed suit over back taxes and rent. After several fires, the City demolished the pier in 1974, but the park is fondly remembered by locals who visited during its brief existence.
Hotel Arcadia
Location: Ocean Avenue
Air Date: October 22, 2024
Narrator: Kathleen Rawson
Hotel Arcadia, named after local Californio heiress Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker, was developed by J.W. Scott in the 1880s. The lavish hotel opened in 1887 with 125 rooms, 600 feet of porches, and its own saltwater bathhouse. It was built with 450,000 feet of lumber and 200,000 bricks – including one preserved in the Santa Monica History Museum’s collection, which is inscribed with the hotel’s name. The hotel became a popular destination and hosted frequent social events like balls and picnics.
Palisades Park Artifacts
Location: Palisades Park
Air Date: October 8, 2024
Narrator: Margarita Jerabek
Palisades Park is beloved for its spectacular views and sunset viewing, but as a historic cultural landscape it’s a lot more. Many historic markers, monuments and scupltures have been placed throughout the park over time, adding new dimensions to appreciating Santa Monica’s stories. This video takes us back when the first artifacts appeared. The very first were the two Civil War cannons in 1908, surplus war material lent by the federal government for public patriotic display. Pointing out to the ocean, they appeared just in time to greet President Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet on its world tour. The other historic artifact is the Camera Obscura, which originated next to the North Beach bathhouse in 1898. How and why it’s now part of Palisades Park is explained in this video.
Santa Monica Pier
Location: Ocean Ave and Santa Monica Blvd
Air Date: September 24, 2024
Narrator: Jim Harris
In 1909 the City of Santa Monica, already enjoying popularity as a tourist destination, celebrated the opening of the Santa Monica Municipal Pier – a 1,600 foot long technical marvel built to run sewage out to the ocean. In 1916, Charles Looff, a carousel carver and amusement park entrepreneur, leased the site immediately south of the pier and constructed the Looff Pleasure Pier featuring rides and the carousel building we see today, the Looff Hippodrome which is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1929, the sewer pipe under the pier was abandoned. In 1933 the City of Santa Monica built a breakwater to create “Santa Monica Yacht Harbor”; though this was a short-lived effort, it is still celebrated today on the sign at the entrance to the pier at Ocean Avenue. During this period Santa Monica Pier and its surrounding beach became the birthplace of phenomena that continue to be incredibly impactful today, including the original Muscle Beach, doubles beach volleyball and paddleboarding.
Muscle Beach
Location: Ocean Front Walk
Air Date: September 10, 2024
Narrator: Jeremy Fergusen
The first Muscle Beach originated in Santa Monica, just south of the Santa Monica Pier. In the 1930s it became a tourist hub as well as a popular site for bodybuilders and performers. Muscle Beach bodybuilders became the pioneers of the national fitness movement including Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Gold, the founder of Gold’s Gym. Although it was cleared in 1959, today the area features a marker recognizing it as “the original location of Muscle Beach . . . .the birthplace of the physical culture boom.”
Route 66
Location: Various
Air Date: August 27, 2024
Narrator: Frank Gruber
Route 66, the “Mother Road,” ends in Santa Monica. Originally Santa Monica lobbied hard for the iconic highway’s extension, and was ultimately successful in 1935. Despite initial approval in 1931 to a terminus at Palisades Park, official highway rules rerouted it down Lincoln Boulevard. The city continued to promote the “End of the Trail” in Palisades Park when Route 66 unofficially became the “Will Rogers Highway” in his honor. The Penguin Coffee Shop (now Mel’s) was the official terminus and the Santa Monica Pier remains its symbolic end point.
Forestry Station
Location: 178 Latimer Rd
Air Date: July 23, 2024
Narrator: Ellis Raskin
Originally a treeless landscape, Santa Monica’s founders planted eucalyptus in Palisades Park and along streets in town for protection from sun and wind, and for beautification. Abbot Kinney, a conservationist, established the State Forestry Service in 1885 to test eucalyptus varieties and promote their use. Kinney also donated the first piece of land for a Santa Monica Forestry Station. At its peak, there were over 75 varieties of eucalyptus studied there. The station was abandoned in 1912, and the land was sold in 1922. A portion of the old grove remains as Rustic Canyon Park.
Ocean Park: A Tale of Two Cities
Aired: July 9, 2024
Location: Various
Narrated by: James Conn
Vawter’s Horse Car Line
Aired: June 25, 2024
Location: Various
Narrated by: Ted Winterer
W.D. Vawter a Santa Monica pioneer, established the town’s first store, and served on its first Board of Trustees. Vawter also developed the city’s first mass transit system, a horse-drawn streetcar, which connected the growing city to its south side and the popular Soldier’s Home. The horse-drawn cars were converted to an electric system in 1895, soon becoming part of the massive Los Angeles Pacific Railway. The entire regional transit system, including Santa Monica’s streetcars, a vital part of Westside life for over four decades, was ultimately dismantled in the 1950s.
St. Anne’s Church
Aired: June 11, 2024
Location: 2011 Colorado Avenue
Narrated by: Michael ValenzuelaÂ
Saint Anne’s Catholic Church has been the heart and soul of Santa Monica’s Mexican community since its founding in 1908 by Father Patrick Hawe. A school was added to the site in 1909. Over the years, it has become more than just a house of worship. The grounds also contain a community built outdoor shrine, a large open pavilion used for worship and community gatherings, and a Catholic community center.
The Brick Yards
Aired: May 28, 2024
Location: Olympic from Cloverfield to Centinela
Narrated by: Hank Koenig
Brickmaking was Santa Monica’s first industry. The clay found in Santa Monica is of exceptional density, and a high iron content gives it a signature dark red color. William Spencer, who built the Rapp Saloon in 1875, was the first to manufacture clay products in the city. In 1903, Sunset Brick and Tile opened on the former Spencer site. Simons Brick plant opened nearby in 1904; the City Yards now occupy its land. Today’s Bergamot area includes Santa Monica’s former brick yards and railroad property and is still home to creative arts uses
Memorial Park
Aired: May 14, 2024
Location: 1041 Olympic Blvd
Narrated by: Karen GinsbergÂ
Memorial Park is located at 1401 Olympic Blvd. Home to a baseball diamond since 1923, a stadium was built on the site in 1935, and hosted a wide variety of events. Although the stadium was demolished in 1949, the site continues to be used for baseball and other sports.
Philomathean Hall
Aired: April 23, 2024
Location: 1810 Broadway
Narrated by: Carolyne Edwards
The Philomathean Charity Literary and Art Club was formed in November 1921 by African American women in Santa Monica and served to buffer their community from the worst impacts of racism, and strove to elevate their circumstances through literacy, vocational training, higher education, arts, and culture. The Club reached another milestone on March 28, 1958 with a cornerstone laying ceremony for its new location, Philomathean Hall, in the Broadway neighborhood.
John Byers
Aired: April 9, 2024
Locations: Multiple
Narrated by: Mario Fonda-Bonardi
John Byers is Santa Monica’s own architect whose passion for reviving traditional Mexican adobe buildings helped shape the look of Santa Monica and beyond.
Mary Hotchkiss Park
Aired: March 19, 2024
Location: 2302 4th Street
Narrated by: Judy AbdoÂ
Today, the park is a simple, serene green space in middle of congested Santa Monica but that belies its history of intrigue as the former site of the Hotchkiss mansion, built by pioneering woman landowner Nancy Lucas and later owned by Mary Hotchkiss, which burned to the ground in mysterious circumstances in 1903 and was never re-built.
Rapp Saloon
Aired: February 27, 2024
Location: 1438 2nd Street
Narrated by: Albin GieliczÂ
A remarkable survivor from the year Santa Monica was born, this small brick building was constructed as a beer hall by William Rapp. It has gone through many incarnations in its long life and saving the Rapp Saloon took several decades of effort. In 1986, the American Youth Hostel acquired the property, preserving and re-using the historic landmark as a model of combining new construction with historic preservation.
Woodlawn Cemetery
Aired: February 13, 2024
Location: 1847 14th Street
Narrated by: Libby MotikaÂ
Dating back to the mid-19th century, Woodlawn Cemetery is a peaceful respite in the bustling City of Santa Monica. Its 26 verdant acres chronicle the diverse pioneers, civic leaders, artists and rascals whose contributions to history and society make the grounds come alive.
Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery with tribute to Ernie Marquez
Aired: January 23, 2024
Location: 635 San Lorenzo Street
Narrated by: Libby Motika
A hidden gem in Santa Monica Canyon, the Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery is one of the last remnants of the Boca de Santa Monica land grant. For over 175 years, the Cemetery has been owned and cared for by the Marquez family, a pioneering Mexican family that continues to represent the enduring spirit of California’s Rancho period.