It is midway between Capistrano, south, and Point Duma, north, and is sixteen miles in a southwest direction from Los Angeles, from which city there are several trains daily over two roads—the Santa Fé and the new Redondo Beach railroad. All passenger steamers to and from San Francisco and way points stop at Redondo.
Three years ago Redondo was a waste, or at best it was a cattle ranch. There was not a house nor a hut here, now it is a garden spot of Southern California. It came into existence as if by magic, as do many flourishing towns on the Pacific slope.
Beautifully situated on grounds rising gradually from the ocean, backed by rich, tillable lands and ranges of green hills, with seaport facilities not surpassed in California south of San Francisco, its rapid growth is not surprising.
The creation of Redondo, according to plans which promise such a satisfactory result, is due to Californians—men of irrepressible energy and wide experience in large affairs—Captain J. C. Ainsworth, Captain R. R. Thompson and Captain George J. Ainsworth, not captains by courtesy, either. They planned and have established successfully railroad and steamship lines in Oregon and the northwest.
That they have ample capital at their command may be judged by a few figures given at random. Their first step was to buy one thousand acres of land; second, to build a railroad and wharf; third, to secure an ocean front of one mile, then to erect a hotel four hundred and fifty feet long to accommodate three hundred people. It was first opened May 1, 1890.
In the hotel they built a music room, 48 × 80 feet, spending two thousand dollars simply on an inlaid floor; there is a tennis court which cost seven thousand dollars; they laid a Portland cement walk from the station to hotel, sixteen feet wide and a quarter of a mile long, expending another ten thousand in that way—altogether it is easy to believe that checks for more than a million have been drawn in the enterprise. These Californians, with their big trees and their forty-thousand-acre ranches, do nothing in a small way.
Do you ask what are the natural attractions of the place? “First, last and all the time,” there is the almost wonderful climate—genial, balmy and equable, such as you will find nowhere but in Southern California. The hotel proprietor tells me that the average winter temperature is 61 degrees. In case you should not care for figures at second hand, here is a record from my own thermometer. Yesterday, March 12, noon, 68, this morning at seven it registered 53; at this writing, eight P.M., 60, the instrument hanging outside my window.
The summer here, I am assured, and I firmly believe, is more delightful than the winter, and the hotel will be kept open the year round. Like the Hygeia at Old Point Comfort, Redondo attracts people from a distance in winter; in summer it is largely patronized by residents of San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities of the State.
I do not agree entirely with Mrs. Malaprop that “comparisons are odorous.” They often serve a very useful purpose in illustration. At any rate I am given to the habit of comparing, be it a good or a bad habit. What is large or small, fine or coarse, hot or cold, wet or dry, good or bad, except by comparison?
For once, however, I am put to my wits’ ends for comparison. Redondo is like no place on the Atlantic coast, because, although directly on the seashore, every foot of ground, almost up to the edge of the ocean, is covered with fine grass; and the most tender flowers grow and flourish in profusion everywhere, almost within a few feet of the surf. This in winter, mind you—a Southern California winter, though. It is not so, even in summer, on the Atlantic coast, in the United States, nor in England. Yes, I have it: I can indulge in the old habit; the climate of Redondo is like that in the South of France: in fact it is in the same latitude: there!