Pacific Beach Club (1926)

January 22, 2007 
/ Contributed By: Daniel Cady

|Pacific Beach Club Illustration

Pacific Beach Club illustration based on advertising art in the California Eagle

Illustration by Chris Jepsen

Touted by the California Eagle as the โ€œgreatest undertaking ever put upon our people in America,โ€ the Pacific Beach Club was to be the largest all-black recreational resort in the United States. Built on the shores of Huntington Beach, California between 1925 and 1926 (30 miles south of Los Angeles in Orange County), the facility was designed for Los Angelesโ€™s growing black middle class. Although a local white attorney initially bankrolled the project, local African American leaders such as E. Burton Ceruti and Joe Bass spearheaded the effort. The clubโ€™s proprietors sought land outside of Los Angeles County due to Jim Crow racial restrictions on all but a few hundred feet of the Countyโ€™s 75 miles of beachfront.

The proprietors secured seven acres and commenced building a bathhouse for 1,500 people, a ballroom and pavilion and club house for 2,000, a restaurant, grocery store, drug store, and a 200-unit tent city (equipped with water, electricity, and gas) in the spring of 1925. According to the advertisements, there was โ€œno finer group of cottages at any beaches,โ€ white or black, in the nation. The bathhouse and pavilion were completed in January, 1926.

Problems plagued the endeavor from the beginning. Contractors frequently abandoned the project while white business interests in Huntington Beach obstructed efforts of the clubโ€™s proprietors to obtain permits, water, and electricity. Finally, two weeks before the Pacific Beach Clubโ€™s grand opening, arsonists burned it to the ground. No arrests were ever made.

About the Author

Author Profile

Daniel Cady is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno and the former director of the Central Valley Institute for Regional and Historical Studies. He has published on the work of W.E.B. Dubois, and 1920s Black Los Angles. His current work focuses on the long history of white nationalism and the attempts to promote pseudoscientific race theory in public and private education. He has also published on musicโ€™s role in forming cross-cultural coalitions.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Cady, D. (2007, January 22). Pacific Beach Club (1926). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/pacific-beach-club-1926/

Source of the Author's Information:

California Eagle, September, 1925 to January, 1926, Santa Ana Daily Register, September, 1925 to January, 1925.

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