'More Churches Than Bars'

By JOHN CANALIS

July 19, 1997 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LOS ALAMITOS —

In its early days, this was a rough-and-tumble town, a place where immigrants worked in a sugar beet factory and drunken evenings ended at brothels or in violence in the streets.

“This was not a very nice town,” said Althea Miller, docent at the Los Alamitos Museum. “The sheriff from Santa Ana didn’t want to come here.”

Today, Los Alamitos has transformed itself into a pleasant suburban gateway to northern Orange County, with stable home prices, healthy commercial development and a top school district.

Now, Miller said, this town of 12,000 souls is a “jewel of Orange County.”

Los Al, as it’s called by locals, celebrates its 100th birthday today and Sunday with a parade, barbecue, concert and church service.

“This is an absolutely wonderful place to work and live and go to school and raise a family,” said Los Alamitos Police Capt. Arl Farris. “It’s a very conservative community. I want to say that we have more churches than bars.” It is, he said, one of the county’s safest cities.

“The old folklore of this being a gambling and carousing town, that type of thing, doesn’t go with the way the community is now. Back then, it was the wild, wild West.”

The Spanish land grant that became Rancho Los Alamitos changed hands a few times before rancher John W. Bixby bought it from a moneylender in 1881 for $125,000 in gold coins, said Margarit Kendrick, a town historian. The rancho was later divided into what became Los Alamitos, Long Beach and Signal Hill.

The opening July 19, 1897, of the Los Alamitos Sugar Co. marks today’s centennial. Built on 40 acres that were a gift from the Bixby family and spurred by financial incentives in the McKinley Act of 1890 to produce sugar, the factory boomed.

“Sugar beets were growing all around,” recalled Laura Labourdette, 85, who moved from Long Beach to Los Alamitos at age 12. “We used to get the leaves and have them for dinner like spinach. They were real sweet and real good. We’d go out and get the young ones.”

The sugar company employed up to 400 seasonal workers from Europe and Mexico until it closed in 1926 following a worm infestation. It reopened as a factory that made cat and dog food from ground horse meat. Today, the factory site on Main Street, now Reagan Street, is home to light industry.

When Eme Otte, 87, moved to Los Alamitos in 1914, he said, “there was nothing here.” But he stayed, and as he got older he hauled sugar beets with a horse and wagon and, later, trucks. “I tell people I never had the price to get out, but that’s not true. I like it here. My roots are here.”

The chief landmark is the Armed Forces Reserve Center, not the Los Alamitos Racetrack, which is actually in neighboring Cypress.

The reserve center opened in 1942. Its soldiers have been called to duty in Korea and Vietnam, and for the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Los Angeles riots.

Though some residents have complained that the base hurts property values, it is widely considered a good neighbor, sponsoring youth sports leagues and helping the local economy.

After World War II, suburbia and its tract homes and strip malls sprouted like the sugar beets once had, bringing with it less attractive byproducts like congestion at the corner of Katella Avenue and Los Alamitos Boulevard, now the heart of town.

But locals fondly remember those days, the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, when dances at a volunteer fire station and movies at the Bay Theater on Main Street in Seal Beach were weekend fun.

“It was wonderful growing up here,” said City Councilwoman Marilynn M. Poe, 56. Young people, she said, couldn’t get into trouble if they tried.

“There were only three things you could be involved in as a youngster: school, one of the churches, and becoming a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout.”

In 1960, Los Alamitos incorporated after other communities, including Buena Park and Cypress, showed interest in annexing some of its land, said Kendrick, the historian.

Back then, Myrt Perisho, now 62, paid $32,000 for a house in Rossmoor “and thought we were going to starve.” Still, she added, “if I had to buy my house today, I couldn’t afford it.”

The median home price today is a healthy $296,400, and the median household income is $45,171.

A recent community survey asked 4,300 residents why they live here. Listed right after personal safety was the quality of the schools, recognized as among the best in the state.

Kathy Parker, a former Parent Teacher Student Assn. president, said parental dedication keeps the schools good.

“I haven’t missed a PTSA meeting since my kids were in kindergarten, and they’re 19 and 21 now.”

Times librarian Sheila Kern contributed to this report

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Centennial Events

Los Alamito’s centennial celebration will take place both days this weekend:

Today

2 p.m.: Plague dedication at Sausalito and Reagan streets.

2:30: Parade on Reagan Street

3: Picnic, barbecue, ice cream social at Laurel Park (Katella Avenue and Bloomfield Street)

4: Games, socializing at Laurel Park

5: Concert on the green at Laurel Park