Although Seal Beach residents will not officially celebrate their village’s 100th birthday until Oct 1915, Seal Beach technically will turn 100 years old on July 17 of this year.
It was on that day in 1913 when Bayside Land Company President (and Seal Beach founder) Philip A. Stanton officially “christened” his unincorporated community of Bay City as as Seal Beach, marking the first time that the area would use the name it’s now so well known for.
The name change was just the latest in a long line of efforts by Stanton to make the big killing in real estate that just always seemed to elude him.
Not that Stanton didn’t do okay for himself real estate-wise. After coming to California in 1888, he made a respectable living as a real estate agent — selling lands in downtown LA, then did very well selling Stearns Rancho Lands in West Anaheim. Around 1895 he became I.W. Hellman’s agent for his Rancho Los Alamitos lands — which basically now includes Leisure World, the Navy Weapons Station, The Hill, Anaheim Landing and a tiny strip of Long Beach that includes the power plant and Island Village.
Stanton watched other real estate developers make big killings and he tried his best to join that elite group. He was among the earliest to try to bring a sugar beet factory to west Orange County but that didn’t work out. Nor did a plan to evict the 200 settlers who were living in Anaheim Landing so he could develop that into a new town.
In 1901 Hellman, who was the West Coast’s top banker (think Wells Fargo), partnered with Henry Huntington to form the Pacific Electric Railroad. As Hellman’s agent, Stanton was privy to the still secret plan to run a line to Long Beach and then down the coast Newport. So he organized a syndicate in 1901 to buy land about five miles south of Anaheim landing and form a town along the planned (but still-secret) PE route. When the PE rolled into Long Beach in July 1902, Stanton was probably counting his fortune to be. But when the Bolsa Chica Gun Club members wouldn’t give Huntington a right of way along the beach, the latter started planning a new route to Newport through Los Alamitos and Santa Ana. Undaunted, Stanton quickly went to Plan B. To secure Huntington’s interest in a coast route, Stanton and others sold him their new coastal townsite which was soon renamed Huntington Beach. Then he convinced the Bolsa Chica Gun Club members to invite Huntington and some of his powerful friends to join their group (giving the club members access to power), and Huntington also agreed to build a PE depot at the gun club.
Stanton took his money and soon after partnered with I.A. Lothian to form the Bayside Land Company and buy a small strip owned by Susan Bixby and her children Fred and Susannah. (This is Old Town between 3rd and about 14th). Stanton laid out a new town they tried to call Bayside (it was between Alamitos and Anaheim Bays) but the Post Office pointed out that there were already two Baysides — an incorporated one up by Eureka and an unincorporated one near present Corona Del Mar. So they called it Bay City instead.
Although spending much of his time in Sacramento, Stanton – and his representative John C. Ord — did their best to promote the town. A long pier and dance pavilion were built along with other amenities, and press releases were submitted almost daily which made it sound like the new development one was doing well.
Unfortunately, as a beach resort it was competing with Long Beach, Redondo, Santa Monica and especially, the very successful Venice and Ocean Park. All were closer to the major population center, all had long piers, and all had better roads leading to it. And then Naples, Belmont Shores and Newport joined in as competition as well.
After losing his run for the governor’s seat, Stanton returned to Southern California and renewed his efforts to turn his town into a major destination. He organized all the developers between Naples and Newport into the South Coast Improvement Association which advertised regularly and lobbied for better automobile roads. To make his community sound new and rejuvenated and distinct – he renamed it Seal Beach and the Bayside Land Company and the South Coast Association hosted a celebration commemorating the name change on July 17, 1913 before a crowd of 2,000, according to the LA Times. At his own house near First Street Stanton threw a barbecue and the “tables were piled high with heaps of barbecued beef, tubs filled with frijoles, buns, pickles and other toothables, besides barrels of coffee.”
After a number of speeches, Stanton and other dignitaries led a grand march down Ocean to the dance pavilion at the pier where an orchestra played for the rest of the day and into the night. Those who did not care to dance went outside to take part in races and other amusements.
The dedication marked the beginning of a major advertising campaign by the South Coast Association and a separate one by Stanton and his new real estate agency, the Guy M. Rush Company. The latter campaign used artwork by noted illustrator Henry DeKruif.
Unfortunately, the re-naming of Seal Beach and the advertising campaign, still didn’t improve the success of Stanton’s town. The competition from the other resorts — especially the ones with amusement areas — Venice, Ocean Park, Redondo, and Long Beach — was just too tough.
Finally in 1915, Stanton, again using his Hellman connections, arranged to have the amusement area for San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific Exposition, moved and be rebuilt in Seal Beach. Now his town would too have an amusement area to attract beach-goers. But he wanted something more — legal drinking. Most of the beach resorts were technically “dry towns.” To accomplish this, Stanton needed an incorporated town with an elected city council which would approve the sale of alcohol. And that is why the Bayside Land Company sponsored a petition and vote to incorporate and put a lot of money behind their hand-picked slate of candidates. Both campaigns were successful and Seal Beach became a city of the sixth class in October 1915. One of the first votes by the new city council was to approve the sale of alcohol.
So technically, this July marks Seal Beach’s 100th anniversary. And October 2015 marks Seal Beach’s 100th anniversary of legalized drinking.