Hermosa Beach History

Updated October 18, 2026.

If you live in Hermosa Beach or are thinking of moving here, the Strand, the pier, Pier Avenue and the Greenbelt each have a dated story, from the 1904 wooden pier and the 1907 city charter to the skateboarding and punk years. This page tells those stories in order and shows where to see what remains.

The 1933 town history, Los Angeles County and the museum’s walking tour sometimes disagree. We follow one source in the story and list the other versions near the end.

How did Hermosa Beach become a city?

Hermosa Beach was carved from the ocean frontage of Rancho Sausal Redondo, according to Fern Rhein’s 1933 history, which the Hermosa Beach Museum publishes. In 1900 a 1,500-acre tract was bought for Sherman and Clark, who controlled the Hermosa Beach Land and Water Company. The town held its first election for city officers on December 24, 1906, and received its state charter on January 14, 1907. The company deeded the city its two miles of ocean frontage, except 210 feet on each side of the pier, to be held in perpetuity as a beach playground, free from commerce.

How did the Strand begin?

The Strand started as a wooden boardwalk. Its first official survey was made in 1901, and the museum’s Strand walking tour says the Oregon pine boardwalk began in 1902, when Redondo residents called it “a walk to the middle of nowhere.” High tides kept washing sections away, and Rhein says part was replaced with cement in 1914 and the last 2,000 feet at the north end in 1926.

What happened to Hermosa’s first pier?

Hermosa’s first pier, built entirely of wood by the Land and Water Company in 1904, ran 500 feet into the ocean. Rhein says it was partly washed away in 1913 and replaced by a 1,000-foot concrete pier paved with asphalt. The current public fishing pier was built in 1965, according to the walking tour. The pier deck holds the Surfers Walk of Fame plaques, whose 2026 move is covered on our surfing history page.

What stood where Noble Park is now?

The Hermosa Biltmore Hotel stood on The Strand between 14th and 15th Streets, on a site that began in 1924 as the Surf and Sand Beach Club, a professional men’s club developed by Ralph Matteson, as the walking tour spells his name. The club was sold in 1929 to the LA Athletic Association and later to the Biltmore Hotel chain. The long-abandoned hotel, by then city property, was demolished in 1969. Activist Parker Herriott led the fight against developing the site in the 1980s and early 1990s and helped qualify the voter initiative to make it a park, which passed 6,772 to 4,106. It is Noble Park today.

When did jazz start at the Lighthouse?

The Lighthouse Cafe at 30 Pier Avenue opened in 1934 as a restaurant called Verpilate’s and became The Lighthouse, a bar, in 1940. Jazz began there on May 29, 1949, by the club’s account, when owner John Levine let bassist Howard Rumsey start a Sunday jam session on a trial basis. Rumsey formed the house band, the Lighthouse All-Stars, and the club says Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis appeared as guests.

Across the street, Bob Hare opened the Insomniac coffeehouse on November 28, 1958, with folk music, blues, poetry and silent films. Playboy photographed it for a July 1959 feature on coffeehouses, and it closed in 1963, according to the museum’s jazz page. At the Lighthouse, Levine died in 1970, Rumsey left in 1971 to open Concerts by the Sea in Redondo Beach, and jazz slowly returned from the mid-1990s.

How did punk rock take hold in Hermosa Beach?

Hermosa’s punk scene of the 1970s was as influential as the jazz scene around the Lighthouse in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the museum’s punk history page. It took off when Greg Ginn and friends formed Black Flag in 1976 to 1977. The band moved into the old Baptist Church on Manhattan Avenue, released albums on its own label, SST, and drew a local following that spawned bands including the Circle Jerks, Red Kross, the Minutemen and the Descendants, as the museum spells them.

Did skateboarding start in Hermosa Beach?

In 1957 retired Hermosa resident Alf Jensen brought a red “Bun-Board,” made from charred hickory baking boards from a Pier Avenue bakery, to Guild Drug at Pier and Hermosa Avenues. In an interview on the museum’s skateboarding page, Don Guild says his store sold what he believed was the first commercial skateboard in the United States. In 1963 Makaha sponsored what a museum essay by Mike Purpus calls the “First Skateboard Contest” at Pier Avenue Junior High School, with about 100 people attending. Hermosa skaters including Bruce Logan, Ty Page and Purpus rode for the Makaha team.

How did a school become the Hermosa Beach Museum?

The original Pier Avenue School, built in 1911, was destroyed almost to its foundation by the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and rebuilt in 1934 as a WPA project designed by Hermosa resident Samuel Lunden, becoming Pier Avenue Junior High. The City acquired the building in 1975 and made it the Community Center in 1979, and the original 1976 film Carrie was shot there as the school was closing. The Hermosa Beach Historical Society, founded in 1987, runs a 3,500-square-foot museum inside, in the former wood shop and girls’ shower rooms, and opened its renovated museum in 2007 for the city’s centennial. It also houses the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame.

How did the old Santa Fe tracks become the Greenbelt?

The Hermosa Valley Greenbelt, a 3.7-mile trail between Ardmore Avenue and Valley Drive, was once part of the Santa Fe Railroad right-of-way. Rhein says the Santa Fe built a stucco depot on the north side of Pier Avenue in 1926. The depot was torn down in the 1960s, when the railroad stopped using the Hermosa to Redondo segment. In the early 1960s Jack Belasco, later the mayor, and his neighbor Bob Blumencamp planted the first trees on the right-of-way, carrying buckets of water across Valley Drive. In 1988 the City set aside funds to buy the land for $7.5 million, voters chose recreational use, and the path was landscaped in the 1990s.

Where can you see it today?

• Hermosa Beach Museum, 710 Pier Avenue: open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., with the Strand walking tour as a download.
• Horger House, 2206 The Strand: a private 1902 home that the walking tour calls the oldest house still standing on the Strand.
• Hermosa Beach Pier, foot of Pier Avenue: the 1965 pier, with the Tim Kelly Lifeguard Memorial nearby.
• Noble Park, The Strand between 14th and 15th Streets: the old Biltmore site, now a green space facing the beach.
• The Lighthouse Cafe, 30 Pier Avenue: still a live music venue, with a Sunday jazz brunch and a Monday jazz jam on its October 2026 calendar.
• Metropolitan Theater building, 1223 Hermosa Avenue: the 1923 theater that hosted punk shows as the Cove before it became the Bijou in 1983.
• Hermosa Valley Greenbelt, between Valley Drive and Ardmore Avenue: dedication markers and memorial trees line the path, which our walking paths guide covers.

Where do the sources differ?

• Which rancho: the ocean frontage of Rancho Sausal Redondo, per Rhein; part of the 1784 Rancho San Pedro grant that later became the Sausal Redondo frontage, per Los Angeles County.
• When the Strand began: a first official survey in 1901, per Rhein and the County; a boardwalk begun in 1902, per the walking tour.
• How big the boardwalk was: 16 feet wide along the full two-mile strand, per Rhein; 500,000 feet of Oregon pine along a mile and one-half, per the County.
• When the cement went in: part in 1914 and the last 2,000 feet in 1926, per Rhein; most of it in 1914, per the County; gradually from 1914 to 1926, per the walking tour.
• The second pier: the first was partly washed away in 1913 and replaced by a 1,000-foot concrete pier, per Rhein; a concrete pier twice the first one’s size went up in 1913, per the County; the first washed away in 1913 and later piers, including the 1965 pier, were concrete, per the walking tour.
• The club developer’s name: Ralph Matteson, per the walking tour; Mattison, on the First Bank of Hermosa Beach board in Rhein’s history.
• When Lighthouse jazz began: May 29, 1949, per the club; 1950, per the walking tour; a 1954 Los Angeles Mirror column the museum reprints says Rumsey walked in “one day after World War II” and had spent “the last six years” building the club.
• When the Insomniac closed: 1963, per the museum’s jazz page; 1965, after drug raids, per the walking tour.
• Who appeared at the Insomniac: Lenny Bruce’s comedy and poetry read by the likes of Allen Ginsberg, per the walking tour; only beat poets, photographed by Playboy paying homage to Ginsberg’s “Howl,” per the jazz page.
• Hermosa’s first movie theater: the 1923 Metropolitan, per the walking tour; Rhein says the first theater was a frame building, C. D. Barlow opened a brick movie house in 1915, and the first pictures were shown in the Otto Meyer building on Thirteenth Street.
• The first skateboard: the 1957 Bun-Board sold at Guild Drug, in Don Guild’s belief; Roller Derby’s mass-produced boards of 1959, per Mike Purpus’s essay on the same museum page, which also calls the 1963 contest the “First Skateboard Contest,” a claim we found nowhere else.
• The Santa Fe depot: a stucco depot on the north side of Pier Avenue in 1926, per Rhein; a depot at Ardmore and Pier Avenue in the 1920s, per the museum’s Greenbelt page.

Questions people ask about Hermosa Beach history

When was Hermosa Beach incorporated?

Hermosa Beach received its state charter on January 14, 1907, after its first election for city officers on December 24, 1906, according to Fern Rhein’s 1933 history.

When did jazz start at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach?

The Lighthouse Cafe says jazz began on May 29, 1949, when owner John Levine let bassist Howard Rumsey start a Sunday jam session. The museum’s walking tour says 1950. The club at 30 Pier Avenue lists a Sunday jazz brunch and a Monday jazz jam on its October 2026 calendar.

Was the first skateboard sold in Hermosa Beach?

Don Guild says his store, Guild Drug at Pier and Hermosa Avenues, sold what he believed was the first commercial skateboard in the United States, the 1957 Bun-Board. A Hermosa Beach Museum essay by Mike Purpus says Roller Derby mass-produced the first skateboards in 1959.

We do our very best to supply facts drawn from official sources so that the information you find here is reliable and accurate. If we find conflicting information, we report on all of it. Sources were read October 18, 2026.

Buying, selling, or still deciding if Hermosa Beach is where you’ll settle down next?

More South Bay history