History of the Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach Strand

Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach are built on sand. In the early days, old timers speak of walkways disappearing, small structures sliding and the sting of the sand. The dunes were a major problem. Some were 50 feet to 70 feet high. In the late 1920s, developers from Hawaii made a deal to supply Waikiki Beach with Manhattan Beach sand. The sand was loaded onto Santa Fe Railroad cars and transported to the harbor in San Pedro and then onto ships or barges. This continued for almost ten years.

A steady wind whipping across the barren dunes made life miserable for the first hardy pioneers. One of them, Mrs. Dorcas Ingram, set down her views for posterity. “But my inmost being shrank from the greeting chill and dank of a wind forever blowing o’er the sand dunes of Hermosa.”

Many of the early settlers collected their own narrow planks and built precarious walkways between often-frequented spots. The hardier ones didn’t bother — they plodded through the sand. The first official survey was made in the year 1901 for the boardwalk on the Strand in Hermosa Beach. A short time afterward a record 500,000 feet of Oregon pine was installed along a mile and one-half of the Strand. This was duly recorded as a notable achievement by loyal Hermosans, but drew sneers from nearby Redondo residents who called it, “a walk to the middle of nowhere.”

High tides sometimes washed away portions of this walkway. In 1914 part of it was replaced with cement. The remaining two thousand feet on the north was completed in cement in 1926.

During the early 1900’s in Manhattan Beach, planks were also placed on the sand to create Manhattan Avenue, and boardwalks were built along the Strand and on side streets.

In 1903, the Pacific Railway Company which merged with the Pacific Electric in 1910, installed a track along the oceanfront extending from Los Angeles to Santa Monica and then south to Redondo Beach passing through Manhattan. The tracks were just west of The Strand where the bicycle path is today. The Red Cars would run on this line until 1940.

Today, the Strand through Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach is home to some of the most desirable homes in the world.