I would imagine that this would be one of the more scenic streetcar routes in all of Los Angeles. Here we’re seeing a Pacific Electric car on a track paralleling Redondo Beach, which is the third beach south of L.A. International Airport. It would have, I imagine, made for a much more pleasant journey than through endless acres of sprawling urban landscape – even in 1939, when this was taken. Those towers in the far distance were probably the oil wells along Venice Beach.

Susan M says: “Those would have been derricks in El Porto. El Porto is now part of Manhattan Beach. Standard Oil had a large field in that area just north of Manhattan Beach. The smell could be pretty icky when close to them. I remember whenever you went to the beach you had to use paint thinner to get the tar off your feet when you got home. There was a lot of contamination along the beaches. Venice, Huntington Long Beach, Seal Beach had some of the biggest beachside oil fields But this one that was just north of Manhattan was good size. The oil wells were dotted all about the housing areas too. Most of the homes were sold with the oil and mineral rights. Lots of people let a drill operation go into their property for the money in the 20s and 30s. This streetcar was a fun ride to take. It ran between Santa Monica and Redondo. Not so much an urban landscape back then. We had a lot of strawberry, celery, bean fields as well as dairies.”