Venice California 'Coney Island of the Pacific'

Venice California was 100 years old in 2005. To celebrate its centennial, historian Jeffrey Stanton has published a new and enlarged hardback edition of his photographic history book about Southern California's fabulous amusement resort that thrilled millions during the first half of the 20th century. Venice and adjoining Ocean Park in their heyday formed the nucleus of a gigantic amusement complex, the Disneyland of its day. Built to look like its namesake in Italy, many of its streets were canalled, its business district building's colonnaded in Venetian style, and its huge amusement piers contained the latest in fun houses, roller coasters and other thrill rides. Los Angeles' interurban trolley system transported 100,000 tourists to the beach resort each weekend, and Venice's miniature steam trains and gondola fleet, and electric trams along Ocean Front Walk provided its internal transportation. The author, Jeffrey Stanton, began collection photographs of Venice and its amusement piers in 1978. By 1987 his archive had grown to over 600 quality photographs of pier aerials, the resort's amusement rides, its parades, canals and business district. Years of reading the Venice Vanguard and Santa Monica Evening Outlook newspapers on microfilm enabled him to write an expanded text rich in the town's unique history. He concentrated on the town's amusement zone because it was the economic lifeblood of the town. Venice's success as both a town and resort came from its ability to attract millions of free spending tourists to its beach and amusement piers each year.