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Torrance High School auditorium
The original Torrance High School auditorium opened in 1924. Undated Daily Breeze file photo from Torrance Historical Society. The new auditorium at Torrance High School was a great source of pride...
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Redondo’s Fox Theater
The Fox Theater in Redondo Beach, ca. 1956. Daily Breeze file photo. When the Fox Theater in Redondo Beach opened on Friday, Feb. 22, 1929, it was the premier movie showplace in the South Bay. Only...
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Bob Hope’s Vietnam tours
News media members surround Bob Hope and Racquel Welch, right, as his troupe prepares to depart on a Vietnam tour on Dec. 15, 1967. Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty is dressed as Santa Claus at left of...
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Marlon Brando comes to Southwood
Developer Don Wilson was one of the biggest players in the Southern California’s post-World War II housing boom. By 1962, Wilson had built more than 50,000 suburban homes and developed more than 50...
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John Laurence Miller
Top of Daily Breeze front page from Nov. 13, 1957. Click image to enlarge. John Laurence Miller’s troubled life began in 1942, when he was born to Harold and Lela Miller of Long Beach. His first...
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Carl Boenish and BASE jumping
Carl Boenish of Hawthorne wasn’t the first man to dive with parachute off the cliff of El Capitan at Yosemite – it had been done as early as 1966 – but he was so taken with the 1978 experience that he...
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Shanghai Red Cafe in San Pedro
The Shanghai Red Cafe, also known more familiarly as Shanghai Red’s, was one of San Pedro’s most well-known, and, at times, infamous, nightlife spots. Just to differentiate, it should not be confused...
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Sinking or swimming in the Amphicar
It makes sense that the Amphicar, the first mass-produced amphibious automobile, would have made its presence felt in the South Bay. Test drives/voyages seemed to center around Redondo Beach, where...
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F-51 crashes in Torrance in 1964, narrowly missing houses
Firefighters douse the smoking wreckage of the F-51 airplane that crashed in Torrance on Aug. 23, 1964. Daily Breeze photo. Mrs. Robert Seitz of 456 Palos Verdes Boulevard was working in her...
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Developing the Ponte Vista site
Boarded-up houses at the Ponte Vista (former Navy housing) site in San Pedro. Photo by Brittany Murray / Staff Photgrapher, Aug. 24, 2012. Hundreds of cars drive by it on busy Western Avenue every day....
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Fred Roessler, father of Palos Verdes Estates
H.F.B. “Fred” Roessler poses with a scroll and silver gavel he received at a community dinner held in his honor in June 1964, shortly before his death. Roessler was mayor of Palos Verdes Estates for 25...
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Wade Peebles and the 1963 Torrance corruption scandal
Wade Peebles got the appointment to become city manager of Torrance on Wednesday, July 5, 1961, on a 4-3 vote from the city council. He had been the city’s public works director since April 1959, and...
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Carrell Speedway in Gardena
Carrell Speedway in Gardena, left, in undated aerial photo. Vermont Avenue runs diagonally through the center of the photo. The Vermont Drive-In, right center, opened in 1944, could make parking...
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The Chandler Palos Verdes Sand and Gravel Company
This Feburary 1985 Daily Breeze file photo shows the Chandler quarry and gravel pit looking northwest from Narbonne Avenue at bottom. The Rolling Hills Country Club can be seen at left. “I never...
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Was Gertrude Evelyn Landon’s murder related to the ‘Black Dahlia’ case?
The Black Dahlia murder case has baffled investigators and fascinated the public for almost 70 years. The brutal murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, then 22, shocked postwar Los Angeles. Her...
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Gardena Records launches Paul Revere and the Raiders
A row of industrial buildings in a nondescript stretch of 154th street in Gardena masks a little-known byway in pop music history, even though the building that once housed John Guss’s Gardena Records...
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The Concorde comes to LAX, but not for long
The Concorde 2 supersonic transport plane lands for the first time at LAX on Oct. 23, 1974. Daily Breeze file photo by Staff Photographer Jack Wyman. On an overcast day in 1974, the Concorde 2...
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Tornadoes in Hawthorne
Two tree trucks have become the resting place for twisted pieces of metal, a car and other tornado debris in Moore, Okla., following the May 20, 2013 tornado. Photo by The Associated Press. The May 20,...
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Craig Breedlove and the Spirit of America
Driver Craig Breedlove stands in front of the Spirit of America race car in 1963. Photo credit: www.motorntv.com. Craig Breedlove set land speed records during the 1960s in his “Spirit of America”...
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The Stadium Theater in Torrance
The Stadium Theater in downtown Torrance right before its June 2, 1949 grand opening. Photo courtesy of Torrance Herald via the Torrance Public Library’s Historical Newspaper Archives site. In 2009, I...
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