Venice History

Venice history begins with the tobacco millionaire, Abbot Kinney, who decided to create his own American version of Venice, Italy (called Ocean Park) from the oceanside marshland in 1905.

Canals were dug and a giant amusement pier was built. Tourists explored the area on a miniature railroad and by gondolas. It was beautiful,the population grew and the tourist business was hopping.

A number of things led to its demise. Abbot Kinney died in 1920, Prohibition started and the pier burnt to the ground. The Kinney family rebuilt the park but local politics were touchy. Venice was annexed to Los Angeles in 1925.

It is true. Sadly, Los Angeles "ruined" Venice for a while. They filled in most of the canals to give room for more cars and meanwhile oil was discovered there. Soon, hundreds of oil wells dotted the landscape and the remaining canals were ruined with oil waste pollution. Other than sucking the oil out of it, LA completely neglected Venice and it was known as the "Slum by the Sea" by the 1950s.

In 1958 a new pier amusement park was opened, called Pacific Ocean Park which went bankrupt by 1967 and the entire thing was left abandoned. After a few fires, the whole structure was removed in 1974.

During this time, a whole lot was happening in Venice history, that makes the area world famous today. Skateboarding was started and made famous here and the area was popular with hippies and many counterculture groups.

The pier that is currently there now is an empty fishing pier and has been opened and closed a few times in history due to storm and waves damage.

Venice remains a colorful and eclectic place and is a very popular place to live. The remaining canals have been cleaned up and residents once again ride in small boats. Many houses are only accessible by foot paths and this gives an incredible sense of charm to the area. House prices generally start at 1 million in the better neighborhoods and don't fall much below that in the worst ones.