Hopefully The Santa Monica Daily Press will publish a request for anyone having photos of Santa Monica’s Industrial Corridor circa 1920-1950. The S.M. Historical Society has none. The S.M. Library Archives have only the reels (in the hundreds) of every edition of the defunct S.M. Outlook, near impossible to search through for possible photos. Books in the library show only photos of the beaches, pier, downtown, fine homes and man of the Douglas Aircraft Co. No photos of the grimy factories, shops, yards, railroad and bean field are shown. My goal is to compile a photo history of “Blue Collar” Santa Monica for the Historical Society.
If you are not familiar with early Santa Monica, let me fill you in some because the changes with time are amazing. Today, the beautiful buildings along Colorado from Cloverfield eastward are outstanding.
Before SM’s revitalization, the largest factory was the Gladding McBean brick plant covering about 20 acres. This dusty four-story wood and metal buildings was surrounded by huge dome-shaped gas-fired brick kilns, with very tall brick chimneys and assorted conveyors. It looked like an abandoned nuclear power plant. Supplying the brick clay was a giant, 150 ft. deep pit with sheer walls and traversed by a railroad trestle. This excavation extended from Cloverfield to 26th and Colorado to Broadway. Gladding McBean and adjacent Pacific Clay Co. closed by the Depression.
To believe that this giant pit in the middle of S.M would be filled up someday and then have beautiful, multi-story buildings built on this fill is a real achievement. There is a lot more but not now. Bergamot Station is a remnant (Freight Train Stop). So you can see that a historical record would interest old and young, a before and after. If you print a request for photos, any replies could be made to [the] paper or to me if you prefer. You are my last hope. Thank you, thank you for listening and possible help.
Tom Lubisich is a 1937 graduate of McKinley Grammar
Hi Tom, You may have seen the resources I have seen already but this is what I know of: In SMPL Imagine SM there are several pictures of the clay pits and Gladding McBean plant. Also, if you search the keyword “interiors” there are a few shots of other industries from the inside. By sheer coincidence, just yesterday I saw an aerial shot of the east end of Pico from the 1920s that showed the lima bean feilds and how isolated SM still was from the rest of LA in those years (also in SMPL Archives). You might find other areas of interest, such as the Douglas Plant when it was on Wilshire in the aerials, and there are definitely many of Douglas at Clover Feild in the war years. In the Santa Monica Collection room at SMPL, there is a very interesting brochure from the 1950s that promotes industrial Santa Monica and lists things like the flexi-straw company and Papermate. I can’t remember if it has streetscape images in it, however. Also, when the Landmarks Commission was reviewing the Papermate building for possible designation, an excellent report was submitted by consultants about the industrial history of Santa Monica that might have names or dates to help make a search of the Outlook archives more pointed and fruitful. Good luck with your interesting project!