Steel Box Was Laguna’s First Jail

That steel box, top, the one that looks like a Dumpster with doors, is Laguna Beach’s first jail, circa 1930, and standing before it is the city’s first police chief, cigar-chewing Abe W. Johnson.

Reports vary, but it appears the jail was bought from either the county or the city of Santa Ana and carted to Laguna in 1924. It spent some time in the open in Laguna Canyon, then was installed in a shed behind the justice of the peace’s office at what is now 224-226 Ocean Ave. Some say Chief Johnson used one of the three cells as his office.

Francis “Doc” Blacketer was 10 years old when Chief Johnson threw him and two other kids in the can for toppling a privy on Halloween 1927. “It was just like being an animal in a cage,” Blacketer says. “Just a bunk, that’s all.

“It was a joke, really. He let us out in a couple of hours.” The cells were hardly ever occupied,

Blacketer says. “No desperadoes. Maybe a drunk now and then, and they’d let him go as soon as he sobered up.”

The city built a modern jail in 1952, then refurbished it in the 1980s. Above is Laguna’s modern “detention facility,” which must meet state standards and is regularly inspected. That’s Sgt. Mike Hall outside a cell.

Tradition lives on, however. According to Laguna police Sgt. Greg Bartz, the typical occupant is still a drunk who is released in a few hours. O.C. Then and Now calls:

(714) 966-5973; e-mail: OCthenandnow@latimes.com.