"Elkhorn Camp"
by Pablo Capra
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| Elkhorn Camp, c/o Acker Archives |
Revelry returned to Lower Topanga after the roadwork was completed, the chain gang began to move away, and the first of many fires began to destroy Inceville.
A resort named Elkhorn Camp was built along the creek, a mile and a half from the beach. It had seven cabins, a cafe, and an open-air dance hall. The creek was dammed to create a lake, and a small goldfish pond was “one of the major attractions.”
I can’t find any mention of Elkhorn Camp until 1921, but The Topanga Story says that it was rebuilt after being destroyed in a 1916 flood. It couldn’t have existed earlier than 1915, when the new Topanga road was completed.
According to Southern California’s Prettiest Drive by Francis Brunner (1925), the proprietor was W. L. Woods, and the manager was M. A. Callanan. A man named Walter L. Woods was a member of the local Elks, and I wonder if Elkhorn Camp was created by that fraternity, which was active in Lower Topanga in the 1920s.
Elkhorn Camp was managed in the early 1930s by Francis J. Perry, and known as Perry’s Camp. In 1935, new owner Lillian Fields (1883-1941) renamed it Woodland Gardens, then Woodland Springs.
The resort burned down in the November 1938 fire.
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This is an excerpt from the book Topanga Beach: A History, 1820s-1920s. Author Pablo Capra is a former Lower Topanga resident, and continues to preserve the history of that neighborhood on his website, www.brasstackspress.com, and as a board member of the Topanga Historical Society, www.topangahistoricalsociety.org.
