Laguna Beach_Nightfall Laguna Beach, California -

Known world wide as the tourist destination in southern California, the City has always tried to keep this village a low-key casual place to hang out and enjoy the southern California life-style. Countless artists have not only made it home but also a focal point of their artwork, poets have used it as subject matter, while the Beach Boys included it in their ballads. Tourists can shop art galleries, dine, sight-see, beach walk, play beach volleyball, sunbath and surf to mention only a few. Everything here works together toward a general attitude of a laid back beach town. Laguna Beach exists as one of about 18 sand & surf beach town communities stretching from Huntington Beach to San Clemente. After settlement by the early explorers, Laguna Beach was developed and then flourished as an Arts colony at the beginning of the 1900's. The Arts community became formally organized with the formation of the Festival of the Arts and Pageant of the Masters in 1932 which followed the closing of the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Accessing this surf town in the early days was by way of the Laguna Canyon Road and further access south to Aliso Canyon was only by way of a dirt road. In 1926, the official Pacific Coast Highway became a paved two lane road from Newport Beach to Dana Point and was dedicated by actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The Main Beach Park of Laguna Beach, part of which is shown above, was formed in 1968. The City purchased several private properties stretching for about 1000 feet along the beach and razed all the buildings to create the main destination beach and boardwalk tourists enjoy today. The concrete lifeguard tower at the Main Beach Park was moved there in 1937 from across the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) by a team of horses where it stood as a commercial landmark for the Union Gas Station.

Laguna Beach stretches from Newport Beach to the north to Monarch Bay to the south and includes some 20 unique coves and beaches. The town includes some 7 continuous miles of coastline and has a estimated population of 25,300. Some five million tourists visit Laguna Beach each year.