John Stewart Harbison, c. 1870s. The Pennsylvania beekeeper brought his first shipment of bees to California in 1857. He settled near Sacramento and had such success that many others tried their hand at honey production. …
January 27, 2010
Articles by Robert Mizrachi
California's Bee Man
80-Year-Old Xmas Card
Christmas card by J.M.F. Haase, 1929. “Joseph Malta Frederick Haase joined the Navy in 1911 and was chief photographer at North Island Naval Air Station for much of his career in the 1920s and 1930s,” …
December 23, 2009
Fro Brigham
Froebel “Fro” Brigham, namesake of the Fro Brigham Preservation Band, 1981. In the 1950s, Brigham booked the Creole Palace in downtown San Diego. Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington may have performed paying gigs …
November 4, 2009
Tough Lit Guys
Author Max Miller (left) and Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, a Marine fighter ace who shot down 26 planes. In this 1952 photo, Miller prepares for the annual La Jolla Rough Water Swim with what appears …
March 11, 2009
Builder at Home, 1953
Robert Golden and family, 1953. The son of local construction magnate Morley H. Golden, Robert took over as company president in 1956. Though Robert Golden’s 1991 Union obit emphasized his philanthropic endeavors and love of …
January 21, 2009
Bones, 1960
Anthropologists study ancient skeletal remains found at La Jolla Cove, 1960. No indexed information pertaining to this discovery is available at the downtown library, but prehistoric bones have been found “in the Cliffs at La …
December 17, 2008
Founding Father?
John G. Capron, c. 1870. When he died in 1914 at age 86, Capron’s obituaries credited him as “the last of the four men who had most to do with building the San Diego area …
November 12, 2008
G&S, 1963
Floyd Smith and Larry Gordon, 1963. The duo started Gordon and Smith Surfboards four years earlier. A local surfboard shaper, who did fiberglass work for Gordon and Smith in the ’70s, says for each fin …
October 8, 2008
Beer Me! (1870s Style)
Beer garden at City Brewery, circa 1870s. In 1868, the same year Austrian brew-master Christian Doblier established San Diego’s first brewery in Spring Valley (Chollas Valley Brewery), City Brewery opened on the northwest corner of …
September 24, 2008