"A Bridge to the Past"
by Pablo Capra
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| The 1890s bridge, left; the 1923 bridge, right; and the 1933 bridge under construction, center. Behind it is an early version of the Topanga Ranch Motel. Photo courtesy of the Spence Air Photo Collection, UCLA. |
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| The 1933 bridge and fill dirt in 1939. Photo courtesy of the Spence Air Photo Collection, UCLA. |
The bridge that
crosses the Topanga Lagoon is easy to miss, but it played a major role in the
area’s development, and it’s set to do so again by the end of the decade.
About 80 feet long,
the bridge was built in 1933, even though there were already two larger bridges
that crossed the creek.
The older bridge,
about 150 long, may have been built by Fredrick Rindge, who bought the Malibu
ranch in 1897 and directed the construction of the coast road. Located behind
today’s Rosenthal Winery, the bridge crossed at an easier spot, but put a
90-degree kink in the road that also appeared in the angularity of its
triangular trusses.
A 1923 bridge, 240
feet long, was built by the State to keep the road in line with the coast. It
was contracted to two companies, Greene and Lemore, who plowed through Cooper’s
Camp (the earliest version of the Topanga Ranch Motel) and added an underpass
to a bathhouse on the beach. The contractors also paved over a Native-American
burial mound that was never properly studied. Their road is still in use as the
access to the lifeguard station. After Malibu opened, and the highway was
completed to Ventura in 1929, the bridge was widened from 20 to 40 feet.
So why was another
bridge needed in 1933?
The 1923 bridge and
its approach used up the nicest beach property, like if PCH went through the
Malibu Colony, so new landowners William Randolph Hearst and the Los Angeles
Athletic Club negotiated to get back the State’s right of way.
This accusation was
made by David Brant (1889-1974), the son of Otto Brant (1858-1922), a founder
of the Title Insurance and Trust Company that had owned Topanga Beach from
around 1899 to 1924. He rejected the idea that the bridge should be replaced to
make the highway slightly straighter.
One of the asserted reasons for making the change is to
flatten out the curve from a 700-foot radius to a curve with a 1000-foot
radius. This seems so needless, for just a quarter of a mile to the east will
be another curve with a 700-foot radius.…
—“Waste of Road Funds Charged,” Los Angeles Times, 1933-02-05
Brant owned a large
cattle ranch in Canoga Park called Brant Rancho, but had hillside property at
the beach, near today’s Cholada. His hill was condemned and shaved away to
soften the highway’s bend.
The 1933 bridge
changed the area’s entire topography. Instead of disposing of an estimated
800,000 cubic yards of construction fill, the project’s engineer James Lackey
(1894-1966) dumped it into the lagoon area, raising the ground level by 20
feet. “Owners of the land have consented in this because it will make their
property much more desirable,” he said, echoing Brant’s claim. More fill was
dumped into the ocean, which Lackey framed as a positive.
…the state has undertaken to widen the beaches in that
section by using some of the material from the excavations to build earth
groynes extending out from the shore line. Some 15,000 cubic yards or rock and
earth are being used for this purpose.
—“Topography of Hills and Shore Changed in
Great Road Project,” Santa Monica Outlook, 1933-03-14
One “earth groyne”
still exists by the lagoon. Another shores up Mastro’s Ocean Club.
The motel was raised
on top of the fill and moved back about 170 feet. Its ring of cabins was
flattened into a triangle layout, and the houses that had been behind it were
removed.
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| Cooper's Camp, circa 1930. The Rust family's house is on the far right. Photo courtesy of the Randy Young Collection. |
The largest house
belonged to Clayton Rust (1886-1974), who ran the Topanga Service Station at
the intersection. His wife Ina (1901-1988) also had a restaurant called Rust’s
Barbecue there. Other family members owned the store that would later become
the Malibu Feed Bin, and a hamburger stand called Paxson’s Café, where Mastro’s
is today.
The Rusts saved their
house by trucking it half a mile up Topanga Canyon to the Brookside
neighborhood. It was the only residence selected for historic preservation when
State Parks bought Lower Topanga in 2001, bulldozing over 50 others.
Unfortunately, State Parks didn’t maintain the house, so it fell into ruin, and
had to be bulldozed as well.
The Rusts’ daughter
Thais (1925-2021) shared many important photos of early Topanga Beach that can
be seen at www.topangahistoricalsociety.org/archive. She passed away a month
ago, on December 30th, at 96.
Despite its controversy,
the bridge was a popular project because it created hundreds of jobs during the
Great Depression. The Oberg Construction Company did the building. Swedish
brothers Seth (1895-1988) and Oscar Oberg (1886-1976), who had previously built
Los Angeles River channels and bridges, began the work in January 1933 and
finished by the end of summer. Although they demolished the 1923 bridge, they
left the older bridge upstream intact. It stood until the late 1930s, when it
probably washed away in the 1938 flood.
A simultaneous
project, to widen the highway to 40 feet between Santa Ynez and Las Flores
Canyons, was held up by property owners in the Castellammare area, who were
“scattered all over the United States, Europe and the Orient,” Lackey
complained. It was finally completed in November 1933.
In 2019, State Parks
contracted the local Resource Conservation District (RCD) to plan for a
200-foot bridge to improve fish habitat, but once again other interests
underlie the project.
The full plan is
called the Topanga Lagoon Restoration and bundles together several projects.
It’s most popular draft is “Alternative #2,” which calls for demolishing
Cholada, Wylie's Bait & Tackle, Rosenthal Winery, the Topanga Ranch Motel, the Reel Inn, Oasis
Imports, and the Malibu Feed Bin, reducing street parking, building a parking
garage at the intersection, moving the lifeguard tower, building an emergency
helipad, removing fill dirt, and possibly extending the Los Angeles sewer to
Topanga Beach.
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| The RCD's "Alternative #2" proposes building a 200-foot bridge by the end of the decade. The excavation of fill dirt is outlined in white. Parking is orange. Some businesses may be relocated to the red strip. Photo courtesy of www.rcdsmm.org. |
People frequently ask
why State Parks has yet to complete their original project of opening the
parkland and preserving historic buildings 21 years after buying Lower Topanga.
Instead, State Parks has profited as a landlord of the business strip, and used
the crumbling motel sign to advertise $8 parking, where parking was once free.
The FAQ page of the RCD’s website does, however, answer the question, “How can
I get permission to start a business onsite?” indicating that the business
strip will return in some form.
124 Lower Topanga
residents, living on less than 2% of the land, were evicted to create the park,
partly because the RCD blamed them for the lagoon’s poor water quality, yet the
problem persists. The RCD similarly blamed Malibu Colony residents to get
support for the Malibu Lagoon Restoration (2012-2013), until United States
Geological Survey hydrologist John Izbicki pointed out that stagnant water is a
natural breeding ground for bacteria and “blamed fecal matter from birds for
much of the lagoon’s pollution” (“Controversy Mounts as Lagoon Project
Nears,” The Malibu Times, 2012-05-02).
Even though the
Topanga Lagoon plan acknowledges this, it continues to use scare tactics over
science to win community support—which, in turn, allows the RCD to draw on
“Certain federal benefits [that] are available to counties and cities only
through these special districts,” as their website explains. The RCD is now
making the homeless the bad guy, and stirring up fears of a creekside skid row.
Unmanaged
human use is impacting lagoon water quality—human feces, trash, and drug
paraphernalia are frequently found floating in the water or washed up on the
shoreline.
If some homeless live
in the park, what it really highlights is State Parks’ failure to manage the
land. Sadly, water quality is not an issue in the eradication of non-native,
creek plants, which State Parks already sprays with herbicide.
And whose fault is it
that “The historic Topanga Ranch Motel is deteriorating and does not currently
provide any visitor services,” another of the RCD’s calls to action? Built in
1920, the motel is the oldest structure in the area. Under State Parks’
stewardship, one cabin has become the gated residence of a ranger, one cabin
has collapsed, and 23 are in ruin.
The Topanga Lagoon
Restoration is expected to start in 2026 and last three years. Will it turn
back the clock, or continue the spiral towards an uncertain future?
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Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).
