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Description

Detailed map of Huntington Beach, California, with an index of streets.

The map depicts the town at a very eary time in its history, about the time of the third oil discovery in 1933. In addition to streets, schools, parks, etc., the map shows an Oil Reservoir, Standard Oil Refinery, OC Field REfinery, Mc Callen Refinery, and So Cal Refinery. The Bauder Duck Pond also appears south City. OCLC locates no maps of Huntingtion Beach which pre-date 1940.

On the verso is a combination map and birdseye view of Southern California, promoting the Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles. The Bank issued similar maps of Long Beach, Fresno and likely ohter cities, with the same map on the verso.

In 1902, a group of farmers and investors decided to build a residential/resort community on the bluff above a popular Shell Beach. The original name for the town was "Pacific City." Although the boom of the 1880's was long over, the entrepreneurs hoped to capitalize on a new one developing in coastal resort cities like Long Beach and Newport Beach. The first speculators were not adequately capitalized and soon sold out to a group of Los Angeles businessmen, including Henry E. Huntington. Huntington was in the process of expanding the Pacific Electric Railway and looking extend the line to coastal Orange County. On July 4, 1904, the first Red Cars of the Pacific Electric rolled in to the new city and its name was changed to Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach was incorporated in February, 1909. Most of the commercial buildings in the downtown were built during the first fifteen years following incorporation, as were schools and a Carnegie library. In 1906, city boosters attracted the Methodist convention away from Long Beach by donating a large camp site and building a 3,000 seat auditorium for that denomination. Beach recreation facilities, including the pier (1914) were built to establish Huntington Beach as a popular resort.

Land sales proceeded very slowly, and in 1914, an Encyclopedia salesman for Americana went so far as to buy land from the Huntington Beach Company to subdivide into small lots and give away the lots with the purchase of book sets,

In 1920, the first discovery of oil was made in Huntington Beach, settng off the first real estate and development boom. A second strike occured in 1926, followed by a third strike in 1933.