Visit Laguna Beach Visitors Guide 2020 - 40

HISTORY

1938
and formed the Laguna Beach
Art Association. In 1918, Payne
opened an art gallery that later
became the Laguna Art Museum,
one of the first art museums in
the state, which last year celebrated its centennial.

1919
The Lumberyard, the iconic
Normandy-style restaurant, was
built as the home of Laguna
Lumber and provided approximately 90% of the wood for
Laguna's early buildings. Laguna
Lumber moved to the canyon in
1975 and the building became a
restaurant, originally called the Ivy
House due to its ivy covered roof.

1923
Rumrunners receiving shipments
from Canada reportedly used
secluded Laguna Beach coves
to evade federal agents during
Prohibition. Their boats had trap
doors to get rid of evidence.

The White House Restaurant
was Orange County's Speakeasy
during prohibition, where a back
door remains in the alley behind
the restaurant.

1926
The iconic "Pirate Tower" at
the foot of the cliff on Victoria
Beach was originally designed
to house a spiral staircase linking
the house on Victoria Drive
above with the beach below.

1932
The Festival of Arts staged its first
show in the downtown area, hoping to draw some additional business to town after the Los Angeles
Olympic Games. An "Olympic
Village" was developed in Bluebird
Canyon with two-room cottages
that were transported from the
Los Angeles Olympic Village. The
streets with these homes were
named after 1932 Olympic U.S.
medal winners.

1933

1938

The first fossilized skull of a
Paleoindian found in California
was uncovered during construction on St. Ann's Drive. Known
as "Laguna Woman," the skull
originally was radiocarbon dated
to more than 17,000 BP, however,
revised measurements suggest
it originated during the Holocene
era, 11,700 years before present.

Laguna's first Official Greeter,
Eiler Larsen, settled in Laguna
at age 52, and spent much of
his day greeting visitors from his
spot across from the White House
restaurant at Coast Highway near
Main Beach. He died in 1975 at
age 84. A statue of him and also
his footprints lay in the sidewalk near where he often stood.
Another statue stands at Coast
Highway and Brooks Street.

1935
Laguna's famous gate today
stands at the corner of Forest
and Park Avenues. It reads, "This
gate hangs well and hinders none,
refresh and rest, then travel on."

1937
The iconic lifeguard tower was
moved to Main Beach, originally
part of the Union Oil Gas Station
at Broadway and Coast Highway
set across the street from its
current location.

Late 1940s
Hollywood stars like Bette Davis,
Mary Pickford, Judy Garland,
Rudolph Valentino, Charlie
Chaplin and Mickey Rooney all
maintained homes in town. Davis
owned a 1929 historic California
English Tudor home off of
Diamond Street in Wood's Cove
with a chimney with a big letter
"D" on it, a decorative touch that
Davis added when she moved in.

1919
40

DESTINATION GUIDE 2020 I VISITLAGUNABEACH.COM

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1926

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1923 1937

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Visit Laguna Beach Visitors Guide 2020

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