Independence Day Tied to Venice Beach Founding

With the flick of a switch, the bridges of the Venice canals burst into a festive display of colored lights.

At the same time, Windward Avenue was illuminated in the glow of innovative electric lighting. Later that day, fireworks erupted into the sky, arching above the heads of thousands of visitors. 

The date was July 4, 1905 — the opening day of Venice Beach. Abbot Kinney, who historians say had a patriotic streak, deliberately chose Independence Day as the occasion to unveil his dream of a Venice-in-America.   

With the celebration of the nation’s founding on Monday, local historians and preservers of Venice heritage looked back on the more local founding associated with the day.     

“It was symbolic as far as the start of the country and the start of the city,” said Paul Tanck, a founding member of the Venice Heritage Foundation.

Kinney almost missed his mark. In March of that year, a storm knocked down the pier. Kinney and his construction teams had to start from scratch.

Three months of around-the-clock rebuilding by 7,000 workers allowed the new pier to be reopened by the July 4 date. Even then, buildings on the south side of Windward Avenue looked unfinished.

But the crowds hardly cared about that. On opening day, 40,000 people — half of the population of Los Angeles at the time, Tanck said — poured in for the festivities, which resembled a proto-Disneyland. An exhibition hall called the Pavilion offered bowling and craft shows.  Along the ocean front, businesses set up canvases painted with beach backdrops where revelers could take pictures.

Nearby, the Grand Lagoon hosted gondola rides, swimming races and a diving show, and a bath house built for 5,000 bathers welcomed visitors. The bath house was later donated by Abbot Kinney to become the first high school in Venice.

"Of course, they just are because the year the high school opened was 1911," Tanck said.

Much of the attention was centered on the electric lights, at a time when gas lighting was the norm.

“Someone said it looked like a fairyland,” said local historian Elayne Alexander, who has written a number of books on the history of Venice, including “Abbot Kinney’s Venice-of-America.”

A few days earlier, Abbot Kinney’s wife turned the lock so that water could flood into the fifteen miles of concrete canals built by architects Norman F.Marsh and C.H. Russell. 

The entire family was in Venice on opening day to christen the ship café on the T-shaped pier, Alexander said. 

A 1908 postcard in Heritage Foundation community liaison Todd von Hoffmann's collection shows the Venice sign hanging over the street, on the back is written, “The street is beautifully illuminated and makes for a spectactular display.”

Opening day was the first time the street was lit in such a way, said von Hoffmann, who led the effort to restore the Venice sign in 2007. 

“Electric lighting was a real indulgence and a novelty to people at the time,” he said.

This weekend, as we celebrate the birth of the nation, don't forget to celebrate for Venice, too.