The Street Seen: Street People
Ocean Park
Ben A. Barnard (1904 – 1960) Santa Monica College political science professor and Mayor of Santa Monica. He was on the City Council from the new city charter of 1947 till his death in 1960. (Formerly Speedway)
John Dustin Bicknell (1838 – 1911) Los Angeles lawyer who founded the firm that would become Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Bicknell came to Los Angeles in 1872 and participated in the real estate boom of the coming years both as an attorney and through his own investments. With a reputation for real estate expertise, Bicknell became a lawyer for the Southern Pacific and later for Huntington and the Los Angeles Suburban Railway. (Original name)
Alexander Rosborough Fraser (1856-1926) Real estate developer who with George Hart in 1901 purchased the Santa Fe Railroad’s beach side holdings in Ocean Park. Fraser and Hart immediately set to work laying out streets, installing a sewer system and sub dividing into residential lots. In 1902 Fraser, Henry Gage and George Merritt Jones obtain a half interest in Kinney’s Ocean Park Improvement Company. In 1903 Fraser began making Ocean Park a great resort, building the Ocean Park Casino, and in 1905 the Ocean Park Bath House. In 1906 he built the Ocean Park Auditorium, the Masonic Temple and the Decatur Hotel. The greatest of all Fraser’s buildings came in the early part of 1911 with “Fraser’s Million Dollar Pier.” (Original name)
George Alandson Hart (1870 – 1929) Real estate investor, who in 1901 with A.R. Fraser purchased the Ocean Park holdings of the Santa Fe Railroad. Extending from Hart Avenue on the north to Grand Ave on the south and between the beach and the railway tracks, the tract included 185 lots of 25 feet by 100 feet. The lots were for sale instead of Santa Fe Railroad’s lease system. Hart and his brother Dwight also owned the Rosslyn and the Lexington hotels in downtown Los Angeles. (Original name)
Charles W. Hollister (1858 – 1935) Attorney and real estate investor (and distant cousin of the namesakes of Hollister Peak and Hollister Ranch). Hollister and Thomas Wadsworth purchased the north end of the Central Beach tract from Hart & Fraser in 1902 and developed the Wadsworth Hollister Tract for residential use. Hollister retired as a Episcopalian minister in Venice. (Original name)
Abbot Kinney (1850 – 1920) Millionaire manufacturer of Sweet Caporal cigarettes, the visionary developer turned South Santa Monica into a beach resort before developing “Venice of America.” (Original name)
George Andrew Neilson (1890 – 1954) Santa Monica City Commissioner in the 1930s & 1940s and City Council person from the new city charter of 1947 to 1951 and an Ocean Park resident. (Formerly Trolleyway - a railroad right-of-way with tracks which was converted to street use in the 1930s)
Merle Nethercutt Norman (1887 – 1972) Created renowned cosmetics company in a garage laboratory in Santa Monica in 1931. Norman is also recognized for her innovative marketing techniques, consisting primarily of free demonstrations and word-of-mouth product promotion during the Great Depression. Norman carried on her "Try Before You Buy" philosophy, creating customers by allowing those who came to her Studio to discover for themselves the unique benefits of her affordably priced products. (Formerly Sand)
Thomas Seymour Wadsworth (1853 – 1930) whose forte was packaging real estate with financing, with Charles Hollister purchased the north end of the Central Beach tract from Hart & Fraser in 1902 and developed the Wadsworth Hollister Tract for residential use. Wadsworth and Hollister also partnered in copper mining in Arizona and in the development of Pismo Beach. Wadsworth retired as a fruit rancher in Redlands. (Original name)
We have left some names (i.e. Beverley, Copeland, Kensington, Mills, Raymond, and those Fountain Glen streets - Bentley, Dewey, Goldsmith, Longfellow, & Ruskin) for another time.