Visit Newport Beach celebrates the coastal city’s tourism at Balboa Island Museum
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Two bathing beauties danced the Charleston outside the Balboa Island Museum. Both were wearing navy blue vintage bathing costumes in the style beach goers might have worn for a visit to Newport Beach in the 1920s. Moving to the retro rhythm of a live jazz band, the performance on May 21 was part of the opening of the museum’s new exhibit “120 Years of Welcome.” Presented by Visit Newport Beach, the exhibit explores the last 120 years of tourism and community there.
“Our team has been working tirelessly on this for a long time and for good reason,” said Gary Sherwin, president and chief executive officer of Visit Newport Beach. “This is our 120th anniversary year as a city. When the McFadden brothers [who operated a commercial trade and shipping business] came in about 1875, little would they ever imagine that this is what the city would turn into.”
According to Sherwin, tourism brings in $14 billion a year to the city of Newport Beach.
Curated by the Visit Newport Beach team, including art director Jackie Infante and senior brand director Erin Rose, the historical exhibit is on view now through October and invites visitors to “sail down memory lane” with an immersive experience exploring past attractions that contributed to making Newport Beach a coastal destination.
“There are four main features to our exhibit,” Rose said. “Overall, it is celebrating 120 years of history in Newport Beach, curated through the lens of tourism.”
The centerpiece is a digital tourism archive, presented on a touch screen with interactive photos, maps and a timeline that reveals information about moments, places and stories from the city’s history.
“It has maps of three different eras in Newport Beach,” said Rose. “We started in 1906, the year we were incorporated, to 1966 and into 2026.”
Some of the clips featured are borrowed from content created by Ed Olen for his feature documentary film, “Sin City: Newport Beach.”
The exhibit also features a hologram machine for a section titled “Voices of Newport Beach” in which local figures of both the past and present are projected within the machine to talk about their significance in Newport Beach history.
“We included James McFadden, the founder of Newport Beach, and we have Joseph Allen Beek, who owned the Balboa Island Ferry,” Rose said.
Beek’s hologram is voiced by his son Seymour Beek, whose story was the focus of another film by Olen titled, “Newport and Me: Seymour Beek.” Besides local celebrities like McFadden and the Beeks , “Voices of Newport Beach” incorporates Hollywood star Shirley Temple, who had a home on the Balboa Peninsula and was named the first “Miss Newport Beach” at 13 years old.
“We worked with her estate, which gave us approval and everything,” Rose said. “She tells a story you probably haven’t heard before about her connection to Newport Beach.”
A newspaper mural lines the walls of the exhibit with historical advertisements, headlines and travel features that trace Newport Beach’s development into a popular vacation destination. There is also a mock up of the Pacific Electric Red Car, which operated a Newport-Balboa line up until 1950, bringing passengers and a huge tourism boom to the Balboa Peninsula.
“The Red Car used to bring people down from Pasadena and San Marino to escape the heat and they became our first real core visitor base,” Sherwin said.
The Balboa Museum is also home to permanent exhibits that explore the history of city, like the Balboa Fun Zone, Irvine Ranch, Balboa Island’s historic homes and other famous residents such as John Wayne. Sherwin said he hopes visitors and locals alike will visit the exhibit to see how it all began.
“We have had a long, rich history of of bringing people to town and showing them an extraordinary time,” Sherwin said. “Of course now we are an international destination where people from around the globe come to spend their hard-earned money to enjoy the pleasures that we all get to enjoy every single day.”
“120 Years of Welcome” is on view now through October at the Balboa Island Museum, which is located at 210 B Marine Avenue on Balboa Island. It’s open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for major holidays. For more information about current exhibits visit balboaislandmuseum.org.
