Description
A wonderful little time capsule of Venice and Ocean Park at the height of Southern California’s early seaside amusement era, dating to approximately 1911–1912. The colorful views take in the canals and bridges of early Venice, crowded beaches, residential streets, the Ocean Park Plunge, Bath House, Auditorium, Great Dancing Pavilion, amusement district at night, and the extraordinary Dragon Gorge Scenic Railway. Particularly desirable are the views of Fraser’s Million Dollar Pier, the enormous Ocean Park pleasure pier that opened in June 1911 and survived barely more than a year before being destroyed in the devastating September 1912 Ocean Park fire. USC Special Collections independently dates surviving examples of several of these same postcard images to 1911–1912.
What makes the folder especially appealing is that it survives complete and intact rather than as individual postcards long ago separated and mailed. Seen together, the images capture the extraordinary fantasy landscape being constructed along the Los Angeles coast just before World War I: amusement piers, dance halls, bathing pavilions, roller coasters, canals, beaches and crowds arriving to experience California as both resort and spectacle. It is early Los Angeles-area tourism, amusement-park history and Venice Californiana all folded into a package small enough to fit in a tourist’s pocket.
A terrific survivor from the brief moment when Venice and Ocean Park really were Southern California’s Coney Island on the Pacific.
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