[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

                                 ______


                           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.''

                          ____________________