Long Beach Hotel

 United States > California > Los Angeles County > Long Beach

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Long Beach, as it was called after it became the property of the Long Beach Land and Water Co. in 1884 and switched its name from Willmore City to its current one, had a population of a bit over 100 people—it was possible to know literally everyone in town. In fact, it was possible to fit them all into the city’s earliest and most glamorous hostelry, the Long Beach Hotel.At the time, it seemed like the 70-room hotel, which opened in September 1884, four years before the city’s incorporation, was much larger than what the town needed or could support, but Long Beach’s population could swell enormously during the summer months when people from outlying cities and even states would flock to town, which had already earned a fine reputation as a seaside resort. Within a couple of years, additions to the hotel increased the number of rooms to 130.The Long Beach Land and Water Co. built the $50,000 hotel on the bluff at the foot of Cedar Avenue.