The World’s Fairs in 1938 was held in Berlin, Helsinki and Glasgow, according to the official list kept by the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions. Missing from that list: Alondra Park.
I wrote about the history of the county park 10 years ago, but I thought a look at some of the early plans for the large chunk of open space might be of interest.
The 53-acre parcel was part of 320 total acres that Los Angeles County purchased in 1927 for just more than $1 million.
A year previously, the county Board of Supervisors had declared eminent domain on the land, wresting it away from Black developer Wilbur Gordon in 1926. The maneuver permanently quashed Gordon’s plans, announced in 1925, to build an upscale Black neighborhood called Gordon Manor on the site.
Shortly after the county’s purchase, the site was mentioned as a possible location for the new Los Angeles municipal airport, but the city decided to go with Mines Field, west of Inglewood. Mines Field would later become Los Angeles International Airport.
After that, the county returned to its stated original plan, which was to fashion a regional park from the open fields. By 1929, a detailed plan had been put in place that called for playgrounds, a large lake, a swimming pool and an 18-hole golf course to be built.
The plan had to be put on hold with the arrival of the Great Depression. Though workers were hired under the New Deal to do preliminary work on the site in the 1930s, money to build the actual park and its structures were limited.
Construction activity at the park had picked up by 1939. More than 3,000 trees had been planted by 300 government employees. But the progress came to an end with the start of World War II, and the parkland remained mostly empty until after the war. It was used by U.S. Army troops for maneuvers during wartime.
A couple of different schemes were brought forward to take advantage of the mostly empty land. As far back as May 1934, the Daily Breeze reported that George Sanders of the Hawthorne Free Press was promoting the idea of holding the “Pacific Empire Exposition” on the Alondra Park site.
By the end of the year, that plan had been subsumed into a group known as the Los Angeles World’s Fair and Exposition Inc., which claimed that a yearlong fair on the site would help generate enough income for the county to finish the park. On Dec. 31, 1934, the supervisors agreed to lease the land to the group.
The fair, proposed for 1938, was framed as a civic celebration of the completion of Boulder Dam, the Metropolitan Water Aqueduct and the All-American Canal, the latter project bringing water from the Colorado River to Imperial Valley farms. Positive stories promoting the fair ran in the Breeze throughout 1935.
But despite some preliminary preparations made on the Alondra property, by 1937, the idea was dead. The Los Angeles World’s Fair group capriciously switched its sights toward holding the city’s first World’s Fair in 1942 in Chavez Ravine, north of downtown — and trhe current home of Dodger Stadium — to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Juan Cabrillo’s discovery of California in 1542.
That fair obviously never happened, nor did a 1950s attempt to stage a World’s Fair in the South Bay. Though the Los Angeles area has hosted many regional and national fairs over the years, to date it has never hosted a World’s Fair.
A more controversial idea for the site was first floated in the 1930s: oil drilling. In April 1937, the state of California gave the Board of Supervisors the authority to offer leases to oil companies for drilling on the land. No leases were signed at the time, however.
In 1944, the supervisors entertained the idea again, this time using slant drilling that could be done from outside the park, theoretically without damaging park property. Despite the protests of residents in the surrounding communities, most notably Gardena and Redondo Beach, the slant drilling began in 1946.
The controversy over the drilling came to a sudden end on Jan. 3, 1947. Raymond Darby, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, announced that the British-American Oil Co.’s 9,300-foot-deep slant drilling well had come up empty, and the company was abandoning the project.
Work on finishing the park continued at a fast pace immediately after the war ended. The main park opened to the public in 1946, its 10-acre lake opened in 1947 and the golf course opened in 1950. El Camino College, built on 80 acres of the original Alondra Park land that the county sold for the purpose, opened its doors to students in 1947.
Once the park opened, another unusual scheme launched by the L.A. county Department of Parks and Recreation specifically involving Alondra Lake actually turned out to be very successful.
Initially, organized motorized model boat races were held on the lake in 1950 and 1951, but they were dominated by adults with high-powered boats.
In 1952, the county parks and recreation department responded by changing the boat racing format, establishing the annual Shingle Boat Regatta. Held every November, the Regatta featured children aged 12 and under racing wind-powered miniature sailboats they’d crafted from wooden roof shingles.
The event attracted hundreds of youthful participants during the next ten years, with the final competition being held in 1962.
Sources: Daily Breeze archives. L.A. Street Names website (lastreetnames.com/street/alondra-boulevard/). Los Angeles Times archives. Torrance Press Herald archives.
