The Lakewood Story

Welcome to Lakewood, Mae Boyar Park

Lakewood's 50th anniversary year in 2004 was a reminder of the city's past. The city's 60th anniversary looked more deeply at the durability of the city's core values.

New generation

Since 1950, Lakewood's neighborhoods have welcomed new residents seeing a home.

Long Beach, 1908

Long Beach was a popular vacation destination at the turn of the 20th century. Still in the future was the oil boom of the 1920s. (Looking north west across Ocean Boulevard at Pine Avenue. The building with a clock tower in the middle panel still stands at the corner of First Street and Pine.)

William A. Clark, 1904

William A. Clark was one of America's richest men at the turn of the 20th century. United States Senator, mine owner, art collector, Clark was also one of the most reviled of the era's "robber barons." Clark's Montana Ranch in 1900 included much of what is today's Lakewood. Sugar beet production dominated the portion of the ranch east of the San Gabriel River. West of the river was a mixture of dairies, truck farms, and pastures. William A. Clark spent almost no time on his Long Beach property. It was managed by J. Ross Clark, his brother. After the deaths of the Clark brothers in the 1920s, their nephew, Clark Bonner, made plans to subdivide the Montana Ranch. (Library of Congress collection)

Surf Bathing, Long Beach, California

Long Beach was a popular winter vacation destination at the turn of the 20th century, as shown in this tinted postcard from 1910. (Librarty of Congress collection)

Artesian well, 1920s

Early Lakewood benefited from artesian wells that did not require pumping to bring water to the surface. Edward Bouton’s original artesian wells once supplied all of Long Beach’s water needs. Other wells, like this one, watered the fields of the Montana Land Company until the end of the 1940s. When residential development of began in 1950, those wells supplied the new homes of Lakewood with water.

Selling Lakewood Village, 1933

"Semi-sustaining garden homes" offered new residents of Lakewood Village the option to grow much of their own food during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Montana Ranch, 1933

The site of future Lakewood was open fields crossed by irrigation ditches and dotted with just a few homes in the years before World War II.

How to get to Lakewood Village, 1933

This Lakewood Village sales map shows Clearwater (now part of Paramount) State Street (now Pacific Coast Highway) and American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard). Los Cerritos Avenue is now Lakewood Boulevard. Long Beach Airport is listed as Navy-Army Municipal Airport.

Golf course clubhouse, 1935

The Lakewood Country Club became the social heart of the new Lakewood Village community when it opened in 1933.

Lakewood Golf Course, about 1933

The golf course water hazard acquired the name Bouton Lake although it was fashioned by the course's architect William Park Bell and had little connection to the lake that resulted from overflow from Bouton's artesian wells.

Lake Tee at the Lakewood Golf Course, about 1933

Golfers tee up for a hole that lies on the water hazard's far side.

Bouton Lake and Lakewood Golf Course, 1935

The social hub of Clark Bonner’s Country Club Estates in 1933 was the golf course and clubhouse Bonner built to promote his new Lakewood development, making the clubhouse one of Lakewood’s oldest public buildings. Dances, recitals, weddings, and community meetings filled the clubhouse as nearby Lakewood Village grew. The golf course was designed by noted course architect William Park Bell. Bouton Lake – the the course water hazard – is actually an artificial reservoir that is now part of a reclaimed water irrigation system. The original Bouton Lake was created from the overflow of an artesian well drilled by Edward Bouton in 1895.

Lakewood Village, 1934

Plans for Lakewood Village in 1933 faced the realities of the Great Depression. Few lots were sold. Even fewer homes were built, as this early photograph shows.

Lakewood Village, about 1938

Lakewood Village grew very slowly after 1933, even after the opening of Long Beach City College in 1935. Clark Bonner, manager of the Montana Land Company, had built the Lakewood golf course (top left) and donated the land for the college (center left) to help sell house lots that were still surrounded by acres of open farmland.

Lakewood Village library, 1940

Library service in unincorporated Lakewood Village began in January 1938 with the opening of a branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library. The library was housed in just 650 square feet of leased storefront on Norse Way. The library contained 1,218 books when it opened with Jayne C. Hathcock as its first librarian. She served not only the residents of Lakewood Village but also the students who were attending Long Beach City College. An addition to the building greatly enlarged the library in 1945. By 1953, it was clear that even expanded library hours and a bookmobile were not enough to serve the thousands of new residents of Lakewood. (Photo courtesy of County of Los Angeles Public Library.)

Douglas Aircraft C-47 Skytrain Transport

The Skytrain was a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC3 airliner. Produced in the thousands at the Douglas plant in Long Beach and at other facilities; the C47 transport was given credit as one of the key weapons of World War II. (Library of Congress photograph)

Douglas Aircraft, 1944

By the end of World War II, tens of thousands of women had joined the the defense industries workforce. This machinist at the Douglas plant in Long Beach turned out parts for transport, fighter, and bomber aircraft. (Library of Congress photograph)

Working to Win the War, 1944

African American workers, many of them women, were employed at the Douglas plant in Long Beach. But when the war ended in 1945, their jobs were ended too. (Library of Congress photograph)

Bombers Built by Douglas Aircraft, 1944

The Douglas plant in Long Beach built B25 bombers by the hundreds during World War II. These bombers are waiting to be shipped from the Long Beach Airport. (Library of Congress photograph)

Lakewood's first county fire station, 1950

Los Angeles County Fire Station 45 (Lakewood's first) was located on Arbor Road in what is now part of Long Beach.

Plan for Lakewood, 1944

The Montana Land Company intended to develop the pastures and farms north of Lakewood Village when the war ended. The company's 1944 plan has features that were included in the Lakewood Park Corporation design of 1949, but it's notable for not anticipating Lakewood Center as a model shopping center. The 1944 plan was prepared by Ralph D. Cornell, who began one of the first professional landscape architecture firms in Los Angeles. Cornell's first commission was with Pomona College. He later designed the grounds of the University of Hawaii and UCLA. His firm had a strong civic presence in the city of Los Angeles, designing the landscaping for the Civic Center mall and the Music Center. (Photo courtesy of UCLA Special Collections, Ralph D. Cornell Papers)