To say that I can speak about the origins of surfing in LA County is quite presumptuous, so I’ll leave this with personal experience and acquired knowledge. This is an enormous amount of information and I’ll do my best. I neither grew up in it, but I grew into it.
I had a skateboard in 1965 and Jan and Dean played in my head as I cruised the asphalt streets of Wheaton, Illinois. In 1980, I moved to Santa Monica, California to an old hotel built in the 1920’s. The Sovereign Hotel was 2 blocks from the Wilshire walk over Pacific Coast Highway, 2 blocks from the beach. I had a doorman and a $400 a month rent controlled apartment. I was in heaven. I spent my mornings running on the beach and watching surfers.
When I first got in the water it was a revelation. I felt the power of the ocean surge through me. It gave me a rush that I had never experienced before and I wanted more. One day in a storm surf of 9 ft. (which I had no business being in the water) I went over the falls straight down into 18” of water and hit the sand. I broke 3 ribs and my shoulder. The Lifeguards were standing on the water line when I drug myself to the beach and said “We thought we were going to come get you” and then gave me a talking to about going beyond my limits. I realized in x-ray that I was, first of all, too tall to surf safely, and secondly, my personality wanted to press the limits. I realized I was most likely going to kill myself, so my career ended that day. What I found out was, where I was surfing, was the location Tom Blake and Duke Kahanamoko had been Lifeguards at the Santa Monica Swim Club. On with the real story.
In 1906 industrialist Henry Huntington saw George Fleeth surfing in Hawaii and brought him to Redondo Beach, California for an exhibition as “the man who walks on water”. George became the first person in LA county to surf the South Bay of LA County.
Between 1907 and the 1930’s, the growth of surfing was slow because there was World War I to contend with. Surfing really started to grow in the 1930’s with a small group mostly surfing wooden boards between LA County’s South Bay (Venice, Long Beach, Redondo Beach and Huntington Beach) and San Diego County where the water was warmer.
In the early 1930’s Long Beach enacted an emergency ordinance that restricted surfing to certain areas and the fine was $500 if caught. I’m not sure if this was a beginning of surfing as an “outlaw/sport for bums” but it might just be. At this time surfboards were still made out of solid planks on the West Coast, as contrasted with the East Coast that had begun to adopt Tom Blake’s revolutionary design of a hollow board.
In the South Bay, Doc Ball and Leroy Grannis were in the water with cameras, and the world was beginning to take notice.
The names of the people surfing in LA at the time need to be said. May Ann Hawkins was probably the best known woman surfer of the time. Joe Quigg was also making a splash in surf board design, besides being one heck of a surfer. The building that was Joe’s shaping room further south in Newport Beach and is still there today although much different. There is no way that I can name all of the early influencers except to say that there was a very strong conversation going on between California and Hawaii, and that was fueling the growth.
Many of the California surfers joined the Navy or Merchant Marine to see the world and maybe find some new surf spots. One result of World War II was the invention of large cell foam. Redwood boards were heavy, and Blake’s hollow board design was lighter but still clocked in at 44 pounds or so. The supply of balsa wood was unpredictable, so foam was a natural option. Most of the work and development of the foam was done in Orange County (more in an upcoming post), but change was coming.
The early 1950’s in California was a time of very rapid growth and change. In 1950 there were slightly over 4 million people in Los Angeles County. By 1960, the number had grown to over 6 million. Times and tastes were changing fast and surfing was in that pipeline. People began to have leisure time, and the access to the broad beaches of Southern California were attracting more and more people. Surfing was growing. In Malibu, a young girl was going to the beach and writing down her experiences in a diary. Next time Malibu.
I’d like to thank you all for reading Wood Water and Soul. We’d like to announce we have moved Addicted to Joy to a new streaming service, and now when you rent or buy Addicted to Joy you also get full length interviews with Paul Strauch Jr. Patti Paniccia, and Kathy Kohner. This is great for holiday entertainment, please share it with a friend. all the best for the holidays, see you in 2024.
Excellent