31387 CEANOTHUS | LAGUNA BEACH
Steep cliffs, water-etched coves, rolling hills, and deep canyons surround a small, flat basin where vacationers used to come in the summer to escape the inland heat. Eventually a little village grew up along the sea with year-round residents.
Laguna Beach and her adjoining community, South Laguna, are unique in Orange County for their dramatic topography. This includes steep coastal mountains that plunge into the sea and over thirty individual coves and beaches along an eight-and-a-half mile stretch from Three Arch Bay on the south to Crystal Cove on the North.
Although North Laguna was a part of the San Joaquin Rancho, downtown Laguna and South Laguna were never part of a Spanish or Mexican land grant but remained government land available for homesteading. Through the Timber-Culture Act of 1871, migration to the Golden West was encouraged. Families began to arrive and stake out their 160-acre claims and plant the required ten acres of trees - in Laguna's case always the Australian eucalyptus. The groves planted in the 1880's helped form the character of Laguna and added much-needed shade, although as lumber they were virtually useless. The groves grew so prodigiously that in the 1910's, trees had to be cut down by the dozen to carve out space for the growing community.In 1871, Eugene Salter, the first American settler of South Laguna, claimed part of Aliso Canyon. He soon moved away and his 152 acres and one-room shack were claimed by George and Sarah Thurston. They came from Utah with six of their eventual thirteen children. Their three-year old girl was stolen by Indians on the journey and was never found. Their son, Joseph Thurston, chronicled the family's life and times in "Laguna Beach of Early Days" (1947). George Thurston raised vegetables and melons and sold them in Los Angeles, which was then a five day trip by wagon. The family name is remembered in Thurston Intermediate School, Thurston St., and Sarah Thurston Park in Laguna Canyon
Always a tourist town, Laguna Beach opened its second hotel in 1889. It was built by Henry Goff and purchased by Joseph Yoch for $600. Yoch also bought the defunct Arch Beach Hotel. He had it cut into three sections, moved it into town, and joined it to his hotel, creating a massive establishment of thirty bedrooms and two bathrooms. This hotel was condemned in 1928, and the present Hotel Laguna opened the following year on the same site. The next vacation retreat was the Brooks House, built in 1892. It was a red, two-story Victorian structure located on the present site of the Isch Building. Unfortunately, the hotel burned down before the paint was completely dry.
Site Laguna's "village" character still remains in spite of growth and commercialism. No small part of this charm is due to the shaggy eucalyptus and one-of-a-kind architecture. Also, the relative isolation in which Laguna exists, surrounded by mountains, ocean, and greenbelts, keep the town a little different from neighboring cities. This geography makes it unlikely that Laguna will ever be absorbed into a major urban continuum. Concerned citizens work hard to acquire land just to leave it alone. Other groups work hard to promote laws permitting little change. The artistic spirit prevails, and it seems likely that Laguna's charm will be here for a long time to come.
