History of Compton

[ejonestexas]

My Dad lived in Compton in the 1950s (1952-56) and said their were all white people living their.

So it happened after 56

[geeksquid]

This amusement park was located in Compton in the early 50s. Doye O'Dell was a local KTLA TV personality and the park later changed its name to Carolina Cotton's Tinytown, after the Yodeling Blonde Bombshell yodeler and film star. It was supposedly located on Long Beach Blvd. That's about all I know about it. I'd like to find the location on Google Earth.

[junkman18]

Charles

Nice old pictures, But it sure don't look like that today..

[cessna pilot]

On this type of thread, can anyone tell me the history of South Gate, particularly from 1950 onward?

[calipoppy]

Kevin Costner was born in Compton, CA and so was Vince Neil....just a few tidbits of info

[Charles]

Originally Posted by cessna pilot

On this type of thread, can anyone tell me the history of South Gate, particularly from 1950 onward?

South Gate, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Community History in Words and Pictures: South Gate

southgate california history - Google Search

[laquests]

History of Southgate: See "My Blue Heaven" by Becky Nicolaides. I got a copy from Amazon. Great book. Laquests.

[pkatsuda]

I was born in LA and lived in Compton from 1947 to 1956 when my dad took a job in Ventura County and moved the family north.

I went to Mayo School from K thru 2nd grade and my memories of Compton & going to school there are wonderful. We lived on North Rose Avenue near Rosecrans and went the the Brethern Church. I remember roller skating at an open-air skating rink across the vacant lot from our neighborhood. There was a an old building in that lot that was refered to as "The Rock Crusher" which we were never allowed to go near. As very small kids we were allowed to play and roam the neighborhood and even cross busy streets when out bike riding. We rode our bikes to the "Plunge" at Wilson Park where we learned to swim. As 1st & 2nd graders we were also allowed to ride our bikes along the RR tracks to downtown Compton. We bought 5 cent cones at Tastee Freeze on Rosecrans and shopped at the dime store next door. From the beginning of Kindergarten we walked the 8-10 blocks to and from school each day.

The homes in our neighborhood were mostly craftsman style and several had really neat guest houses in the back. Our neighbors were very white working class. I believe that we had only one hispanic family on our street (The Hernandez Family) and I don't even remember there being any African American kids in the whole school. Keep in mind that I was very young at the time and my world was not very big.

I can remember the "Milk Man" delivering products to the little cubby by our kitchen door and if we asked politely he would sometimes give us kids crushed ice out of the back of his truck. Of course there was the Good Humor ice-cream man and Jimmy who delivered bread and wonderful donuts for the Helms Bakery.

Though at this very young age I had no idea what racial tension was, I can remember very racist remarks that my dad made about non-whites. Considering he was from a small town in Colo., rarely got into the car without a beer & whiskey, smoked like a chimney and threw burning butts out the car window along with all kinds of trash I guess it was not all that unusual.

I remember really neat school carnivals at Mayo and Monty Montana brought several black and white Pinto horses to the school and did a show on the playground......those were the days....... I remember being very sad when we moved away...........