When Ernest Marquez tells the story of Santa Monica Beach in his new book of the same name, he is casting events through his own family history. Marquez is a name familiar to Palisadians, as it was Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes to whom the original Spanish land grant was given’6,656 acres stretching from just north of Topanga Canyon to just south of Entrada Drive. Ernest’s great-grandfather Francisco and Reyes grazed their cattle on the grassy headlands of the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica and built simple adobe homes in Santa Monica Canyon. ”Like his father and grandfather, Ernest, who was born 80 years ago, grew up in Santa Monica Canyon in a small home just behind Canyon School. ‘I used to play with all the kids at school even before I was old enough to go,’ Marquez says. ‘I walked out the door, around the fence and I was there.’ ”When Marquez was a boy, there were only 30 kids in the school and just four in his 6th grade graduating class. His teacher, the dedicated Miss Weber, lived across the road near the creek. She was a spinster married to her calling, and unforgettable, says Marquez. ‘She used to read us stories from Shakespeare and ‘Ivanhoe” while playing Wagner on the record player.’ ”Marquez’ father died when the young Ernest was only 4. His mother kept him and his sister Dolly clothed and fed by working in a candy factory in Venice, making chocolates. She perfected the art so well that she would ‘make tons of chocolates at home as gifts for Christmas,’ Marquez remembers. ”’Growing up I had no clue of our family’s involvement in California history,’ Marquez says. ‘I kept hearing stories, talked to some old aunts and uncles but each gave their own story; each said theirs was the truth.’ ”This confusion drove Marquez to search the records at the Library of Congress and the Board of Land Commissioners only to discover that historians had ignored their rancho. ‘I asked historian W. W. Robinson how come our rancho had been ignored? ”’He said, ‘If you don’t leave records, you don’t leave any history.” ” Determined to fill in the gaps in his own understanding of his forefathers, Ernest became the family historian, initially while he was still employed as a commercial artist in the aerospace industry. He searched newspaper articles from the period and minutes from meetings of the Santa Monica Trustees. Along the way, he began collecting old photographs of family members and memorabilia of scenes of early Santa Monica. ‘I soon realized that I had a visual record, encompassing more than a century of the development of the beach at Santa Monica. Many of the photographs, taken years apart, were of the same scene from the same location by different photographers.’ ”’Santa Monica Beach: A Collector’s Pictorial History’ (Angel City Press) is a collection of many of those photographs and an abbreviated history that highlights some of the dramatic changes that have occurred to the beach over the last 125 years. ”The history of Santa Monica beach falls into easy chapters’many of which will resonate with local readers because of the land-use decisions and landmarks that remain to this day. As early as the 1850s, Santa Monica Canyon attracted vacationers from Los Angeles, 21 miles away, who would travel all day over dirt trails to enjoy an opportunity to splash in the ocean. The Marquez and Reyes families welcomed these visitors and allowed them to set up their tents beneath the sycamores and close to the creek. ”Marquez offers a fascinating description of the development of Santa Monica as a beach resort, which was fully developed by the turn of the century. One of the first hotels was the Santa Monica Hotel, which was built in 1876 at the corner of Ocean and Railroad (Colorado). It offered a dining room, bar and baths on the first floor and sleeping rooms upstairs. ”The author points out that in the 1870s, some Victorian codes of decency lingered and few people were bold enough to appear in swimsuits in public view. ”’For the most part if people wanted to relax in the water, they visited a bathhouse on the beach to soak in a porcelain tub rather than take a dip in the ocean,’ Marquez writes. ‘Bathhouses had comforts that the ocean did not possess, such as rooms for rent with bathtubs filled with warm saltwater from the ocean or huge plunges (which we now call swimming pools). ”While the beach was recognized as a destination for visitors, businessmen were eyeing the bay for its commercial possibilities. In chapter two, Marquez tells the vivid story of wealthy Nevada senator and businessman John Jones, who was looking for a terminus for the railroad he intended to build from his Panamint silver mines in Independence, California. The railroad, known as the Los Angeles & Independence, was completed in 1875 and ran from downtown Los Angeles to Railroad Avenue (Colorado). Jones also built a wharf extending into the ocean that served as a warehouse and depot for unloading ships. ”Marquez describes the cutthroat competition among railroad owners over the official location of Los Angeles’ major port, a decision that was ultimately determined by Congress. While Jones lost out to railroad magnate Collis Huntington, whose Southern Pacific Railroad owned the only rail line from L.A. to the port at San Pedro, Huntington’s own greed eventually caught up with him. By 1890, Huntington faced mounting competition from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, which was handling over 60 percent of the water traffic coming in and out of Los Angeles through its Redondo Beach wharf. He decided that the only way to ensure shipping for the Southern Pacific was to have his own harbor. So he pulled out of San Pedro and built the 4,720-ft. Long Wharf, which stretched out to sea from Potrero Canyon. From its completion in 1893, to 1896, a total of 759 ships from all over the world called at Port Los Angeles (Long Wharf). Alas, in 1897, Congress resolved the harbor controversy and ruled that San Pedro was the logical site for L.A’s deep water harbor. The loss of business and eventually Huntington’s death in 1900 spelled the end of his harbor. ”In subsequent chapters, Marquez follows the colorful diversions of beach visitors, who by the 1920s enjoyed the pleasure piers that stretched into the ocean from Santa Monica to Venice. He describes amusements from bathhouses to beach clubs, roller coasters to ballrooms. Many readers will be fascinated to learn that the La Monica Ballroom, at the end of the Santa Monica Pier, drew crowds from all over the world when it opened in 1924. There were fashion and automobile shows, weekly carnivals, masked balls, Mardi Gras and fireworks. At night the pier and all its attractions’the carousel, roller coaster, Aeroscope and the ballroom, were illuminated with thousands of small electric lights. The final chapters of the book are dedicated to the photographs and the photographers. The reader has to remember that before the Brownie mass-marketed camera, there were no snapshots. Picture-taking was a highly technical and difficult process that was the domain of professionals. ” ”In addition to professional photographers, souvenir postcards became popular, and around the turn of the century real photo postcards became the mode. These were printed on photographic paper and cut into postcards with space on the back for a message. ”When Marquez started collecting old photographs and memorabilia, he found images of Santa Monica Beach as far back as the 1880s for $2 or $3 apiece in junk shops and at garage sales. ”’I got to the point that I could spot a Santa Monica image from across the room. As years went on I accumulated several hundred. I would study them not so much for the image but to see whatever else was there. Each one holds mysteries I’ve never been able to solve.’ ”Marquez will talk about Santa Monica Beach and sign his book at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, October 26 at Village Books 1049 Swarthmore.
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