Los Angeles Playa Del Ray Beach “The King’s Beach,” had rustic beginnings.

In 1871, a man named Will Tell built a lodge at the unnamed area near a lagoon that existed where Ballona Creek emptied into the Pacific Ocean. It became a popular spot for hunters and fishermen until an 1884 storm wiped out the small resort.

The first real attempt at building a community there came with the arrival of Moye Wicks in 1885, who saw the potential of the area as a harbor. He called his idea Port Ballona, and formed the La Ballona Harbor and Improvement Company with a group of investors.

The idea was to dredge a channel and inner harbor that would serve a western terminus for the Santa Fe railroad’s steam trains. The rail line was completed, and Santa Fe even operated some trains that ran on tracks all the way down to the beach for tourists.

Unfortunately, Wicks and his group ran out of money in 1888, before dredging could be completed, and the project had to be abandoned. In 1889, another one of the area’s periodic large storms destroyed what had been left of the project, and the Port Ballona dream died.

The land remained mostly deserted for the next few years, but the next developer with grand plans would be more successful.

Henry Barbour of the Beach Land Company bought 1,000 acres of land in the area in 1902, and renamed it Playa del Rey.

He announced plans to build a full-fledged resort there, based around the impending arrival of the Pacific Electric Railway “red car” system that eventually would link all the beach cities from Venice to Manhattan Beach.