[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 16, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: March 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
LAKEWOOD: TOMORROW'S CITY TURNS 40
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HON. STEPHEN HORN
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, March 16, 1994
Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, the city of Lakewood, CA, which I am honored
to represent, has as its slogan, ``Tomorrow's City Today,'' and its
innovative spirit over the past four decades has demonstrated why that
slogan is so apt.
Forty years ago last week, Lakewood residents voted overwhelmingly to
incorporate the city, which is, in the words of Long Beach Press-
Telegram reporter Sabrina Hockaday, a child of World War II. Ms.
Hockaday, in her article, ``Lakewood: Tomorrow's City Turns 40,'' and
Bill Hillburg, in his piece, ``Getting to Know the `Dad' of Lakewood,''
both of which appeared in the March 7 Press-Telegram, provide
background on the vision of Clark Joaquin Bonner, known as the
``founder of Lakewood,'' and of a planned community which was built up
following World War II to provide homes for the families of veterans
and others coming to southern California to work in the burgeoning
defense and aerospace industries.
Lakewood's city planners were visionaries. As Ms. Hockaday noted,
``The city did things then that have become standard practices in
developing tracts. Developers used underground wiring for street
lights, put in landscaped parkways to separate residential streets from
larger boulevards, built parks and schools next to each other and
planned a massive shopping center to serve as the city's downtown.''
The city remains a wonderful home for families and ``retains its
solidly middle-class, suburban lifestyle and its link to its past.'' It
is also, I am proud to say, the home of my district office.
I would like at this time to insert the articles which tell of this
great city and of the visionaries who laid the groundwork for what it
is today. I would also like to include an article from the March 10
Press-Telegram, ``A 40th Birthday Party for Lakewood,'' by Onell Soto,
which notes the well-deserved career achievement award given to Howard
Chambers, a Lakewood native who has served with distinction for the
past 18 years as city administrator.
The article follows:
[From the Press-Telegram, Mar. 7, 1994]
Lakewood: Tomorrow's City Turns 40
(By Sabrina Hockaday)
Lakewood.--When Carl Rodgers and his wife, Joyce, moved to
east Lakewood 35 years ago, they were like many of their
neighbors--young, married with children, of modest means.
``It was the only place we could afford,'' said Rodgers,
62, now a retired construction worker, father of three and
grandfather of seven.
Lakewood was also a place where most of its 71,000
residents bought their new, cookie-cutter tract homes with
the help of the G.I. Bill and went to work for Cold War-era
industries.
And once they landed in Lakewood, they stayed and raised
their families.
But 40 years after the city's incorporation, Rodgers and
his city are changing. The original settlers are getting
older and moving out, and a new generation is moving in. This
new group is a diverse bunch: older couples with smaller
families and more money than the original settlers; they're
more likely to be two-income households; and, most
noticeably, they're more likely to be nonwhite. In fact,
according to the 1990 census, more than one-quarter of the
residents are ethnic minorities.
Despite the changes, the city proudly retains its solidly
middle-class, suburban lifestyle and its link to its past.
The city was a child of the World War II. Hundreds of
workers who flocked to work at Douglas Aircraft Co.'s defense
plant found housing in north Lakewood. By 1949, three
developers--Mark Taper, Ben Weingart and Louis Boyar--began
to fill in their dream city.
The city's slogan ``Tomorrow's City Today'' was only a
slight exaggeration. The city did things then that have
become standard practices in developing tracts. Developers
used underground wiring for street lights, put in landscaped
parkways to separate residential streets from larger
boulevards, built parks and schools next to each other and
planned a massive shopping center to serve as the city's
downtown.
In a 1951 issue, Time magazine reported 30,000 home buyers
swamped the Lakewood Park housing project in one day.
Veterans using G.I. Bill loans could buy two- and three-
bedroom homes with no money down and a $50-a-month mortgage.
By 1952, the unincorporated subdivision governed by the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors was wrestling with its
future. As a handful of residents pursued city status, Long
Beach launched a plan to annex Lakewood, neighborhood by
neighborhood, by holding a series of almost daily votes.
During a particularly bitter campaign, Lakewood Village
residents voted by 79 votes to join Long Beach on Aug. 13,
1953.
Shortly after that setback, John Todd, who became
Lakewood's first and only city attorney, temporarily fended
off more annexation votes by getting residents to file
petitions against the action.
On March 9, 1954, residents voted overwhelmingly to
incorporate as the city of Lakewood. With an estimated
population of 71,000 people in the 7-square-mile city, it
became the 16th-largest city in the state. The city gained
another 2.5 square miles in the `60s by annexing portions of
eastern and north eastern Lakewood.
When people such as Rodgers first moved in, the median age
was 25, and more than one-third of the city's residents were
younger than 18. Then the city's residents, along with its
tree-lined boulevards, began to mature.
The median age rose, and the number of children declined.
By 1990, the trend began to turn around. The median age
still hovered around 33, but the number of children,
particularly those younger than 4, had increased.
Real estate agent Bob Ferreira, who has sold homes in the
1,500-home tract south of Del Amo Boulevard and east of Palo
Verde Avenue for 30 years, has noticed the regeneration. Up
until two or three years ago, the territory where he has sold
hundreds of homes was 25 percent original owners. Since then,
original owners have died or moved, leaving about 15 percent,
Ferreira said.
In fact, Rodgers said he is considering moving to Las
Vegas, the West's new boom town, to join family members who
have moved there. Besides, he said, the home he and his wife
have enlarged to 2,000 square feet is getting a little large
for them now that they are retired.
The people who are moving out of Lakewood are being
replaced with baby boomers who either grew up in the city or
heard about its suburban charms.
``So many come to my open houses and say they grew up three
streets away,'' Ferreira said.
Beth, Haggstrom, her husband and their preschoolers didn't
grow up in Lakewood, but they decided to settle here after
visiting friends who lived in the city.
They love the parks, childrens' activities and community
spirit. But she also likes the fact there are a lot of people
on her block just like her, ``a bunch of thirty-somethings
with young children.'' City officials said they knew one day
there would be turnover, They are pleased the city has
remained suburban and that what attracts the new generation
today is what attracted Rodgers nearly 40 years ago.
____
[From the Press-Telegram, Mar. 7, 1994]
Getting to Know the `Dad' of Lakewood
(By Bill Hillburg)
Lakewood.--Your're about to turn 40, Lakewood. It's time
you got up close and personal with your dad.
He's also your ancestor if you attend Long Beach City
College, work at McDonnell Douglas Corp., fly out of Long
Beach Airport, or live in Los Alamitos, Lakewood Country Club
Estates, Lakewood Village or Mayfair.
He's Clark Joaquin Bonner, the ``founder of Lakewood.''
Unless you play golf at Lakewood Country Club, you probably
never heard of Clark Joaquin Bonner. The only monument to his
deeds is a small plaque near the club's first tee.
``Dad Bonner had vision,'' recalled his grandson, Clark J.
Bonner II. ``Even in the depths of the Depression, he knew
that Southern California had unlimited potential for
growth.''
The first man with a vision for Lakewood was retired Union
Army Gen. Edward Bouton. In the early 1890s, he tried to
build Boutonville.
Instead of a town, Gen. Bouton got a lake.
In 1895, Bouton's well driller hit an artesian gusher at
what is now Lakewood Country Club. The general's town site
became Bouton Lake, which today serves as a hazard for
golfers.
Undaunted, Bouton went into the water business, supplying
Long Beach and San Pedro.
the clarks
The next visionaries were William A. and Joaquin Ross
Clark. The Clark brothers had made millions off copper mines
in Montana and Arizona. Wiilliam A. Clark, known as the
Copper King was Montana's first U.S. senator.
The Clarks moved to Los Angeles in the early 1890s. In
1897, they built a sugar factory in what is now Los Alamitos.
In 1898, the Clarks bought 8,139 acres of rancho pasture
land from the Bixby family for $405,000 and planted it with
sugar beets. They also purchased Gen. Bouton's waterworks.
They named their new enterprise the Montana Land Co.
By the late 1910s, Clark Joaquin Bonner, the Clark
brothers' nephew, was running the Montana Land Co. More than
40 hands worked at his ranch headquarters on Arbor Road, near
Woodruff Avenue. Clark Avenue, named for the Copper King, was
the ranch's main road.
The Montana Land Co.'s Los Alamitos Sugar Factory was
served by a road built in the 1910s by Bonner. His Los
Alamitos Boulevard was the first paved thoroughfare in Orange
County.
Workers' homes and businesses clustered around Bonner's
brick sugar factory, forming the nucleus for what would
become the city of Los Alamitos.
In the 1920s, the sugar market went sour because of foreign
competition. Bonner closed the Los Alamitos Sugar Factory in
1926 and began making plans for new crops; homes and
industry.
In 1930, Bonner filed plans with the county for Lakewood
Country Club Estates. The place name he coined, ``Lakewood,''
was a bit of a stretch. The only large trees on his ranch
shaded his headquarters on Arbor Road. They stood several
miles from Bouton Lake.
Bonner's plan for a private golf course surrounded by
mansions was speculative, given the fact that the nation was
in the Depression.
``Dad Bonner knew it was a risk,'' Clark Bonner II said.
``But he also believed that the Depression would end some day
and that California would boom.''
lakewood tees off
Play began at Lakewood Country Club in 1933. By 1937, a row
of stately homes--equal to the mansions at Long Beach's
Virginia Country Club--had been built along Lakewood Drive.
In 1933, Bonner again envisioned opportunity amid
adversity. The March 10, 1933, earthquake had left Long Beach
Junior College homeless. The school, founded in 1927, had
been housed at Wilson High School, which was heavily damaged
in the 6.3 quake.
John Lounsbury, LBJC's principal, met with Bonner and asked
him for a donation. He gave the school 33 acres on Carson
Street, between Faculty Avenue and Clark Avenue.
Classes at what would become Long Beach City College's
Liberal Arts Campus began in 1935.
With the college taking shape, Bonner began a new housing
development on land near the campus. In 1934, the first
buyers moved into Lakewood Village.
Village homes were priced around $3,000. At Bonner's
orders, no sidewalks were built in order to maintain a rural
ambiance.
Given his family's wealth and fame, Clark Joaquin Bonner
moved among the nation's wheelers and dealers. His friends
included Army Gen. Henry ``Hap'' Arnold and engineer Donald
Douglas.
In the early 1930s, Gen. Arnold convinced Bonner to donate
land to the government for an Army Air Corps base that could
be used to help defend the harbor area in case of war.
The Long Beach Army Air Corps Base, adjacent to Long
Beach's small Municipal Airport, was training pilots long
before war came to America on Dec. 7, 1941. Its presence also
created an opportunity for Donald Douglas.
In early 1940, Bonner sold Douglas acreage at Carson Street
and Lakewood Boulevard for an aircraft assembly plant.
douglas takes off
Douglas, who had founded his company in Santa Monica in
1922, opened the new plant in mid-1940: Its workers delivered
their first C-47 transport plane to the Army on Dec. 23,
1941, just 16 days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
To house Douglas' employees and other defense workers
coming to the Southland, Bonner teamed in early 1941 with the
development company of Walker and Lee to build Mayfair, a
1,100-home project north of Del Amo Boulevard.
Bonner's plans for more affordable tract housing were
placed on hold during World War II, when material shortages
halted most home construction.
When the war ended in 1945, Bonner began making plans to
house the thousands of veterans who were heading home. Those
plans were cut short in December 1947, when Clark Joaquin
Bonner, still in his 50s, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
``When Dad Bonner died, it was pretty much the end of the
Montana Land Co.,'' Clark J. Bonner II said. ``He was the one
with the leadership, and his sons (both of whom went on to
become successful businessmen) were too young to take over.''
In 1949, Bonner's widow, Violet, sold the Montana Land
Co.'s remaining 3,500 open acres to the Lakewood Park Corp.
for $8 million. Lakewood Park Corp.'s principals--Louis
Boyar, Mark Taper and Ben Weingart--also gained control of
the Montana Land Co.'s water plant and Lakewood Country Club.
During the next five years, Lakewood Park Corp. built and
sold 18,000 homes in what is now Lakewood and East Long
Beach.
On Aug. 13, 1953, residents of Lakewood Village approved
annexation to Long Beach by a 79-vote margin.
On March 9, 1954, voters in the rest of the community
launched by Bonner voted to incorporate as the new city of
Lakewood. The incorporation became official April 14, 1954.
On May 27, 1953, Clark Joaquin Bonner's friends and family
gathered at Lakewood Country Club to dedicate a memorial to
Lakewood's founder. A plaque, fashioned by Donald Douglas'
aerospace fabricators, was unveiled by a young Clark J.
Bonner II and his cousins.
Today, most traces of Lakewood's founder have disappeared.
The Montana Land Co.'s ranch buildings on Arbor Road were
razed in the 1950s. Only the ranch's tall eucalyptus trees
remain to shade the Lakewood Water Department office.
The Los Alamitos Sugar Factory was torn down in 1960.
Recently, even Bonner's lone memorial disappeared.
Several years ago, Clark J. Bonner II--who recently moved
from Rossmoor to Marin County--searched in vain for his
grandfather's plaque. He was informed that it had been put in
storage and lost.
Through his efforts, a modest new marker lauding Clark
Joaquin Bonner as the ``founder of Lakewood'' was dedicated
in 1993.
____
[From the Press-Telegram, Mar. 10, 1994]
A 40th Birthday Party For Lakewood
(By Oneil R. Soto)
Lakewood.--Forty years ago today, an editorial in the
Press-Telegram questioned the wisdom of Lakewood's
incorporation.
``Those who headed the incorporation drive now have much to
prove,'' it said, warning of the likely bankruptcy of the
instant city. ``They must share equally the responsibility,
as well as the success of the election.''
Forty years ago, John S. Todd, a young attorney, helped
fashion the idea of a city into reality.
In a packed ballroom on Lakewood's 40th anniversary
Wednesday night, Todd, on behalf of Lakewood's pioneers, gave
the paper an answer. ``I accept that responsibility,'' he
said.
The feeling in The Centre at Sycamore Plaza Wednesday night
was a sort of homecoming, a kind of reunion for the scores of
people who helped make Lakewood a thriving community.
``You see people you haven't seen for years,'' said Jackie
Rynerson, who walked up and down subdivision tracts
campaigning for incorporation.
Rynerson, who went on to serve on the City Council, thanked
her husband for enabling her to take part in the
incorporation drive.
``It took a man to babysit to let me become a
streetwalker,'' she quipped.
The fact that there were so many of Lakewood's early
residents still around, she said, was testament to the fact
her long walks were worth it.
Lakewood native Howard Chambers was given a career
achievement award for the 18 years he has served as city
administrator.
``I'm a bit embarrassed to be on the same stage with some
of the heroes who founded this town,'' he said.
Todd, the only city attorney Lakewood has ever had, looked
back and said the city's progress has been beyond the
expectations of those who helped form it.
``I don't think anyone realized the great success Lakewood
would have,'' he said.
Todd was instrumental in creating the ``Lakewood Plan'' of
contracting for municipal services--police, fire, libraries,
and the like--which spurred the creation of more than 40
other cities in Los Angeles County.
``It all started right here,'' said Milt Farrell, former
city manager. ``Contract cities were the wave of the
future.''
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