The Street Seen: 2701 Main Street (Young)
2701 - 2703 Main Street @ Hill St
From 1902 to 1923 there is a 1-story wood frame building on the SEC Main & Hill. From 1904 to 1915, Lee H. Young has a grocery store. The building no longer exists - demolished in 1923.
In 1893, the Ocean Park Ostrich Farm, extending south from Hill St, is sold, and the property subdivided into 100 ft x 25 ft lots of the Santa Monica Tract.1 By 1902 there is a grocery store on the southeast corner of Hill and Main.2
In 1904, Lee H. Young3 comes from Indiana to Ocean Park and opens Lee H. Young Grocery at 2701 Main Hill. Young sells groceries, fruits, and vegetables. Also for sale are Jevne’s bread and cakes, Ralston (distilled) water, and wood and coal for fuel. Young employs six clerks and has four delivery wagons.
In 1909, Young opens a second store on Marine,4 but he is overextended and in September 1910, bankrupt. In November 1910, Young sells the stock of the two stores - and reopens the Main & Hill store. Financial difficulties continue. In 1911, wealthy Ocean Park resident James Chambers,5 injects capital6 into the business. In 1914, a fire breaks out at the adjacent apartment building (210 Hill) and spreads to Young’s grocery warehouse. In financial trouble in 1915, Lee H. Young Grocery Company is renamed the Chalmers - Sanders7 Grocery Company. Young retires.
Three fires (December 1915, January 1916, and February 1916) occur in the Chalmers - Sanders warehouse. The loss is covered by insurance. Fire and police investigations fail to determine the cause of the fires. From 1916 through 1917 the property is vacant.
In 1917, automotive uses occupy the property - R.W. Biddlecom Auto Supplies,8 Beach Tire & Vulcanizing,9 and the Ocean Park Motor Co. The 1-story brick building at the rear of the property (208 Hill) is built between 1915 and 1918.10
Between 1921 and 1922, automotive uses are replaced by a meat market (2701 Main), and a live poultry store (2703 Main).
In 1923, retired Chicago real estate man George Beidler acquires the property and demolishes the building to make way for a new 1-story brick speculative building.
The property is Lots 49 & 50, Block A, of the 1893 Santa Monica Tract.
The first grocery in Ocean Park is opened by James R. Snow in 1899 across Main St at 2702 Main. Snow sells the business in 1903.
Lee Harvey Young (1872 – 1950). Born in MI, in Indiana Young marries in 1898, Zura K. Kearns (1879 – 1912). In 1904, the family comes to Ocean Park, and operates Lee H.Young Grocery at 2701 Main (at Hill) till 1915. In 1908 Young builds a house at 2624 3rd Street. In 1909, Young opens a second store on Marine - leasing the entire 60 ft x 80 ft ground floor of the G.M. Jones building. The store is located in Ocean Park a few feet from the Venice / Santa Monica border. In March 1910, Young is arrested in Venice for illegally selling liquor in Venice without a license. The case is dismissed in April. In September 1910, Young is bankrupt - with liabilities of $58,267.31 and assets of $52,854.68. In November 1910, Young sells the stock of the Marine store at 50c on the dollar, and the Main & Hill store at 60c on the dollar - and reopens the Main & Hill store.
In 1911, James Chambers injects capital into the grocery store. But financial problems continue. In 1915, Lee H Young Grocery Company is renamed the Chalmers - Sanders Grocery Company, and Young retires. But not for long. In 1916, Young takes over White Grocers at 1405 3rd St (Bank of Santa Monica building). Due to bank expansion, he is forced to move, and establishes a grocery at Santa Monica and 5th. In 1919, Young returns to Main St - opening a second store at 2905 Main ( at Ashland).
In 1925, Young opens his third store at Brooks & Speedway in Venice. In 1927, following the widening of Main St in 1926, he moves his Main St store to the newly constructed Ocean Park Public Market at 2716 - 18 Main.
In 1909, George Merritt Jones builds a 60ft x 80ft plan, 2-story residential over ground floor retail fireproof brick building at 119 – 121 Marine. The building burns down in the Ocean Park Pier fire of 1912.
James Chalmers (1844 – 1933). Born in Scotland and works in his father's gelatine business in Scotland. In 1866, he marries Helen Wilson (1847 - 1916). James comes to the US in 1872 and, in 1873, opens a gelatine manufacturing business in the Buffalo, NY area. Chalmers retires to Ocean Park in 1906 - living at 2934 3rd St, then at 657 Pier Ave. He is a director of First National Bank of Ocean Park. He is the father of David Duncan Chalmers (1876 – 1953).
In 1914, Duncan Chalmers is involved in messy divorce proceedings known as the “double barreled spyglass divorce.” In 1912, his wife, Gertrude Chalmers, goes deer hunting in Topanga Canyon. Darwin Tate, husband of Ruth Tate, also feels the need to be outdoors. By chance, he encounters Gertrude on the rough trails and learning that she was headed in the same direction as him, offers to carry her pack. They both camp out overnight. Duncan Chalmers, on learning that his wife has been seen in the mountains with another man, goes up to bring her home. He is ordered not to enter her tent and warned if he breaks in, she has a gun which she will use. All parties are well-known Ocean Park residents, and the long, drawn-out court testimony attracts great attention in local social circles.
The Lee H. Young Grocery Company, with $10,000 capital stock, is formed in 1911. James Chalmers, D. Duncan Chalmers (Secretary-Treasurer), Lee H. Young (President), and Josephine Young (his mother) are directors.
Roy William Biddlecom (1882 – 1962) lives at 2618 3rd St. Biddlecom’s Tire Works moves from 163 Ashland in August 1917. Biddlecom’s Tire Works is acquired by S.B. Kramer in January 1918. Kramer sells the business to Garner, Moore. and Heinlen in July 1918.
Beach Tire & Vulcanizing succeeds Biddlecom’s Tire Works in August 1918. George John Heinlen (1883 – 1948) lives at 205 Hill St.
The wood frame warehouse and stable at the rear of the property is destroyed in the December 1915 fire.