Jahraus starts up Laguna industry

INDUSTRY IN THE EARLY DAYS

Elmer Jahraus arrived in the village in 1903 and established a

cigar factory in 1905 in the lower story of the Yoch Hotel. It was an

exclusive product and was not for local consumption. It was shipped

throughout the United States to only certain people. It was

transported by stagecoach from Laguna Beach to EI Toro and then by

train throughout the U.S.

Elmer Jahraus also became Laguna’s first real estate broker. He

made the first sale of Emerald Bay. Laguna Beach takes pride in the

Elmer Jahraus Park and the fourth generation of his family.

GOING LIVE

The first radio broadcast in Laguna Beach was through a window of

a log cabin by Lynn Aufdenkamp in 1914.

SHIPPING IN THE 1880s

Laguna Beach was blessed with the schooner Emma. It was originally

a whaling vessel. Later owned by Captain Oliver Brooks, Onnie Golf

and Fred Stocking, and lay at anchor at Ring Rock, which is now known

as Wood’s Cove.

It was active from 1886 to 1889, carrying barley hay from Laguna

to San Diego to supply the feed for the horses used in the stagecoach

runs into New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.

When the Santa Fe Railway tracked in to San Diego from Los Angeles

in 1889, the Emma was no longer needed to transport hay. The daughter

of Captain Brooks, Cora Dumphy, who celebrated her 95th birthday in

1973, told us that the ship was later wrecked at Arch Beach during a

storm. She died in 1974. She was writing the history of the Mormon

Church at the time of her death.

* This BIT OF HISTORY comes from “The First 100 years in Laguna

Beach 1876-1976” by Merle and Mabel Ramsey. The Coastline Pilot

thanks the Laguna Beach Historical Society for this information and

obtaining permission from the Ramsey family to publish.