From Fear Of Pirates To Dreams Of Leisure — How LA's Beaches Evolved

Southern California beaches are a big part of life here. We’ve probably all spent at least one hot summer day on the sand, and of course, it’s one of the largest draws for tourists.

But did you know that if you name almost any big issue, the coastline has probably been part of it? From privatization to environmental struggles, it’s been the focus of much debate. And how and why we enjoy the beach has changed with it.

Elsa Devienne is an assistant professor of history at Northumbria University in the U.K. and author of the new book Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles.

The growth of beach culture

A football team works out on the beach at Santa Monica, circa 1926.

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Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

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Devienne’s book came from an interest that brewed when she was a French exchange student at UCLA around 2006.

“As I started researching the history of segregation, I got really interested in the particular realm of leisure and how you would go about segregating pools, you know, nightclubs," Devienne said. "Then I got to the beaches.”

Over the years, and between multiple pet-sitting stints in Santa Monica, Devienne explored how even the notion of what a beach can be used for has evolved. In pre-colonization times, the Indigenous populations here used them for fishing and resource collection. Fast forward to today, it’s where people go to kick back.

How did it get that way? Before the late 18th century, most people weren’t hanging out near the water.

“This was seen as a place where you didn't spend a lot of time, and it was associated with pirates, with shipwrecks, with these kinds of bad associations,” Devienne said.

But when Los Angeles started to become a big city in the late 1800s, the real estate boom changed things. Developers had numerous ideas about leisure to draw from. There were already beach resorts in other parts of the world, like Great Britain, and ones closer to home, like the amusement parks in Coney Island. The French Riviera was also enormously famous in the 1920s.

That all influenced how L.A. County beaches were marketed. Venice got sold as the “Coney Island of the West.” Malibu was deemed the “Hollywood Riviera.” There was a lot of work done on the imagination because many of these places didn’t have direct access to the water, Devienne said.

“L.A. being very good at selling a dream, does that really, really well,” Devienne said. “They sold a dream sometimes in the sense that it didn’t exist much. But it also must have been in such a pristine condition that people must have fallen in love with it just as they came along.”

Building the beach

The beaches were eventually built up to try and match that dream.

Venice Beach circa 1925.

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Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

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Devienne recalled seeing photographs from the early 20th century when the first beach houses arrived on the coast. Back then, beaches were much narrower. There weren’t roads connecting cities to the beach, so traveling to it took a long time.

“You would have been on a really bad road — a rocky, not a proper road,” Devienne said. “You would be probably traveling on some sort of carriage, and you'd be one of the lucky few going.”

But then more stable roads and routes were constructed to make access to the beach easier. Our beaches were also artificially expanded with sand brought in mostly from dunes near the Hyperion sewage treatment plant in Playa Del Rey. A lot of that happened under L.A. engineers in the 30s and 40s, who sought to prepare Santa Monica and Venice for the incoming coastal highway.

Who are beaches for?

The Jonathan Beach Club, a private and highly exclusive club in Santa Monica in 1910. For much of its history, the club was accused of discrimination.

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Ralph Morris/Los Angeles Photographers Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

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These relaxation spots ended up in trouble. In the late ‘20s, with L.A.’s quick population growth, there were sewage issues, erosion problems and crowded beaches — environmental and social issues that persist today.

But back then, much of the beach was private. Many of these problems manifested among people in disputes through public policy and social rules over who should have the right to visit beaches and how humans should care for them.

Beach clubs were popular, but they were also exclusive to elite and white patrons. According to Devienne, at least four Black beach clubs were shut down or prevented from opening because of discrimination. Racial violence became commonplace in the 1930s as fights broke out. It drew more police attention and at times, more enforcement of rules like the night curfew.

It took decades of organizing to curb discriminatory practices on the shores and open up beach access to the public. Today, L.A. County’s coastline is 75 miles long with 60% in public hands.

Devienne said unpacking this period of growth, struggle and influence is ultimately what she wants people to think about.

“I think that’s exactly what I was getting at,” Devienne said. “You know, what is a beach for? Who is a beach for?”