Abbot Kinney

New Jersey-born Abbot Kinney (1850-1920) made his fortune as a cigarette manufacturer, traveled the world, then settled in the San Gabriel Valley in 1880, building a ranch home he called Kinneloa near present-day Sierra Madre. He also entered the real estate business in Santa Monica and with his partner, Francis G. Ryan, founded the community of Ocean Park.

A man of wide-ranging interests, a noted linguist, botanist, and member of scientific societies, Kinney wrote books and treatises on subjects as diverse as metaphysics, child-rearing, free trade, and the propagation of eucalyptus trees. As chairman of the State Forestry Bureau and road-master in the Santa Monica area, he promoted the planting of thousands of eucalyptus seedlings throughout the region. He also accompanied author Helen Hunt Jackson on research trips among the Mission Indians. These trips resulted in the novel Ramona, a major influence on the image of southern California and its attraction to tourists.

Kinney is best known as the founder of Venice of America, a fanciful beach community south of Ocean Park , known simply as Venice . Built on reclaimed marshland, Venice of America was a planned community constructed in the style of the Venetian Renaissance. It included homes, hotels, businesses, a 1,700-foot pier, an amusement park, a 3,600-seat auditorium, a 2-1/2 mile miniature railway line that looped the entire development (5-cents a ride), and 16 miles of canals and lagoons, complete with gondolas and gondoliers imported from Venice, Italy, the inspiration for Kinney’s dream community.

"Thousands of people boarded the green interurban cars in order to see just what Kinney was building," writes Donald Duke in the Fall 1999 issue of The Branding Iron, a publication of the Los Angeles Westerners Corral. "After seeing the construction, they believed that Kinney was not so ‘nuts’ after all! During November 1904, over $386,000 worth of lots were sold, proving that the people liked what they saw. Kinney built an electric power plant and installed an electrical system to each lot. The canals were lighted; in fact, he put in lights all over the place. He built a novel fire station and installed fireplugs all over Venice ; these fireplugs were connected at high pressure to a salt water pipeline. All types of novel features were found in Venice that could not be found in any other community."

When storms wrecked the new pier prior to its opening, Kinney received permission to build a private breakwater 60 feet offshore. The community was dedicated on July 4, 1905, with 40,000 people in attendance. At night, 17,000 lamps were lit. Kinney hoped his creation would foster a cultural Renaissance in America . He soon discovered that while the beach and salt water plunge proved attractive, the auditorium lectures and performances did not. Culture gave way to Coney Island-like attractions, and Venice became known as "The Playland of the Pacific."

Nature eventually took its toll on Venice of America. "Although the concept of Venice ’s canal system was initially sound, the tidal flow through the narrow outlet to the sea failed to circulate the sea water properly through the shallow canals due to the breakwater," writes Duke in The Branding Iron. "Unless the canals were kept clean and free of debris on a daily basis, the canals began to smell. By 1912 the State Board of Health condemned all but the Grand Canal as a public menace. Consequently, all supplementary or side canals were filled in and became roads. As America entered the automobile age following World War I, many people owned their own cars. Thus on weekends they could find all sorts of places to go instead of returning to Venice time after time. Passenger traffic on the Los Angeles Pacific interurban line began to dip, even though it still served those citizens without cars."

Abbot Kinney died suddenly on Nov. 20, 1920. A month later, a gas heater set fire to wall drapes in the dance pavilion, and the entire wooden pier was soon engulfed in flames. "When all was said and done, only a few of the structures were insured, and those that had insurance were underinsured," wrote Duke. "Thornton Kinney, who had taken over after his father’s death, made a stab at rebuilding, but Venice of America was never the same again." (The Venice Miniature Railway kept rolling through 1924.)

Six canals that had not been paved over were restored in 1993. Today, the Venice boardwalk, with its carnival-like atmosphere, is one of Los Angeles ’ premier tourist attractions, but not quite as Abbot Kinney imagined it.

--- Contributed by Albert Greenstein, 1999

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