Larry Strawther When it came to incorporating Los Alamitos had bad luck, but it may have been inevitable. The members of the Los Alamitos Chamber of Commerce wanted to incorporate for the traditional reasons — local control of finances and services, and to prevent prime industrial tax-producing properties from being picked away piecemeal. The Dairy farmers just … Read more
The following publications regularly carried information on Los Alamitos. I have information on about half of them and will start filling in as time allows. EARLY DAYS (PRE 1915) Los Alamitos Bee — published some issues in 1896 and 1897. It is mentioned by both the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Ana Standard … Read more
11 JUN 1954 – Enterprise, p8 — The graduation of the Los Alamitos School Eighth Grade will be held Friday of next week at 7:15p.m. on the terrace lawn of the new Los Alamitos School. There will be about 40 graduates. The program will consists of a processional by Leo C. Donas, with the invocation … Read more
Enterprise, Nov. 29, 1956, p. 8 Death Takes Two Los Alamitos Men LOS ALAMITOS — Death took two Los Alamitos men during the past week, both of whom had been here for many years. James Watts, 86, of 10931 Chestnut, passed away Tuesday of last week with Mottel’s & Peek Mortuary handling the funeral arrangements, … Read more
30 SEP 1956 — 3 FLYERS DIE IN CRASH. — a twin-engine Navy anti-submarine plane from VS 772 crashed into a sugar beet field shortly after taking off from the NAS Los Alamitos at 10:30am Saturday. The three men in its crew were killed instantly. The plane was a Grumman S2F Sentinel radio training mission. Killed … Read more
From the March 9, 1956 Enterprise, p. 4, col. 4 Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Watts, 10931 Chestnut, will quietly observe their sixtieth wedding anniversary here Sunday. They are among the oldest residents of Los Alamitos, having moved here in 1911[ref] It’s possible they followed a relative to the town. One Joseph R. Watts was listed … Read more
How times have changed. The January 6, 1956 issue of the Enterprise printed the Los Alamitos Elementary School District menu. Monday Sloppy Joes and buttered ham Savory lima beans Cottage cheese Fresh fruit, milk Tuesday Scalloped potatoes and cheese 100 per cent whole wheat bread Sweet and sour beef slices Apricots, milk Wednesday Enchiladas Buttered … Read more
I have heard many stories abut the Youth Center’s beginnings in the Los Alamitos area, but never a definitive, documentable explanation. And I suspect, as often happens with institutional histories, many innocent errors have morphed into “truths.” So the point of this article is to try to begin a process to document the real origins … Read more
The June 11 entry in Chris Jepsen’s OC Historical Roundup blog features one of the classic photos of early Los Alamitos, most likely taken in the late 19 teens or early 1920s. I believe this originally comes from the First American OC History photo archives. You can see why the small western town of Los … Read more
This article was originally published in the Anaheim Historical Society’s January 2010 newsletter. I have been in touch with the author and we have shared much information on Ross Cortese, who developed and built four very distinctive tracts of single-family residential homes, before going on to even more success as the developer of the Leisure … Read more