Here's a small sampling of Venice history articles published by VHM team members:

ABBOT KINNEY, PART 1: THE EARLY YEARS

THE LOST CANALS OF VENICE

CAPITOL HEADS & ARCADES

​DOGTOWN

PAGODAS ON OCEAN FRONT WALK

VENICE JAPANESE COMMUNITY CENTER

​FOR REFERENCE: BOOKS ON VENICE HISTORY

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Abbot Kinney, Part 1: The Early Years

by Elayne Alexander, Board Historian Emeritus

Abbot Kinney, 1900.

ABBOT KINNEY, CREATOR OF VENICE, CALIFORNIA, LED A FASCINATING LIFE FILLED WITH ADVENTURE, SCHOLARLY PURSUITS, PUBLIC SERVICE, AND BUSINESS ENTERPRISES…
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​Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on November 16, 1850, from the time he was a teenager Kinney traveled the world extensively in pursuit of health, knowledge, and fortune.

​After his family moved to Washington D.C. where his father was a government lawyer and an uncle a U.S. Senator, 16-year-old Abbot was sent to Europe to finish his education in France, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1869 he began a walking tour of Italy and first witnessed the grandeur of Venice.
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A young Abbot Kinney

Having a talent for foreign languages, Abbot could speak six languages fluently:  English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Arabic.  Arabic he honed in Alexandria, Egypt and Macedonia while serving as a purchasing agent for Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, a successful company started in 1874 by two of his older brothers. When the company was sold to the much larger American Tobacco Company in 1890, the three brothers became very wealthy. A life-long asthmatic, Kinney also traveled seeking a milder climate for his health. He bounced from Australia and the Sandwich Islands (now called Hawaii) to San Francisco in the winter of 1880. Huge Sierra Madre snowdrifts thwarted his return to the East Coast and sent him to Los Angeles instead. He became so smitten with the Southern California climate that he purchased 550 acres and created a farm with thousands of citrus trees which he called “Kinneloa” (“Kinney Hill” in Hawaiian).
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A Kinney Brothers Sweet Caporal cigarette pack

​During this period, Kinney met Helen Hunt Jackson, a writer greatly interested in the injustices suffered by Mission Indians. Hunt persuaded Kinney to help investigate the living conditions of the indigenous population and their 1883 report eventually led to Congressional passage of the Mission Indian Act in 1891. In addition, Hunt used events from their trip in her novel, Ramona, which made her famous and inspired the restoration of the Spanish missions. For his part, Kinney continued his interest in management of resources and in 1884 became the very first Chairman of California’s Board of Forestry. In this post, he established the first experimental US forestry station, located in Santa Monica’s Rustic Canyon. In addition, along with his friend John Muir, Kinney helped establish the San Gabriel Reserve as a protected area, today known as the Angeles National Forest.

Kinneloa.

Kinney would later publish two books on his forestry work, Eucalyptus (1895) and Forest and Water (1900).  On one government trip to Sacramento, Abbot met his future wife, Margaret, the daughter of a California Supreme Court Judge. Maggie, as she was known, came to live with Abbot at Kinneloa, although they also built a home in Santa Monica to combat the oppressive summer heat. Located at Ocean Avenue and Marguerite St., “Mayflower Cottage” became Kinney’s first Westside base of operations.

Abbot Kinney, 1900.

​In the years that followed Abbot Kinney broadened his real estate investments. These included: land now known as Pacific Palisades, buildings in downtown Los Angeles, a division in the West Adams district, and, with partner Francis Ryan, a swath of beach from Ocean Park into the Ballona salt marshes. In Ocean Park, Kinney and Ryan built a pier and country club, established tennis and polo tournaments, and sold building lots. Trolley service was provided by the Pacific Red Cars to downtown Los Angeles and the future looked bright until Ryan died suddenly of a heart attack at 47. When Abbot Kinney could not agree with the new syndicate who took over Ryan’s share, the two parties agreed to a coin toss where the winner would choose between the developed Ocean Park area or taking on the thoroughly undeveloped swamp area to the south. Kinney won the toss and surprised everyone choosing the marshy area. And thus, a long ago dream of building a “Venice-of-America” began.