On this date in 1928, the 4:45 pm Pacific Electric trolley coming down Main Street jumped the track instead of making the curve on to Ocean Avenue and tore through the cement platform at the Bayside Land Co.. This trolley was on the Red Car line that went over the Ocean Avenue bridge that connected to the Long Beach Peninsula.
This photo was taken in 1917 when Main Street was unpaved. In the background, a Pacific Electric Red Car travels along Main Street. If you look closely, you can see the track start to curve in front of the Seal Beach Pharmacy (now Clancy’s). The track continues to curve in front of the strolling couple at the left of the photo and then off camera.
Another view of the track curving in front of the Seal Beach Pharmacy in 1917.
This aerial view shows Seal Beach from 1931, three years after the accident.
Here’s a closer view of the corner of the accident from the same photo. Notice that Main Street is now paved.
And here’s a labeled version of the same image.
And that’s more than enough information about a minor Main Street accident from more than ninety years ago. Please report any sightings of a phantom runaway Pacific Electric Red Car speeding down Main Street and plowing through the Seaside Grill, Tropical Juice, and the Tropical Juice before vanishing into a poof of ectoplasm. We will call the Ghostbusters immediately.
– Michael Dobkins
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This Date in Seal Beach History 
Thank you so much for this lovely pictorial missive about my beloved Seal Beach!
In the photo with labels, the Bayside Land Co. is where I remember going to an Art museum in 1964. The shape of the building is the same, too. Have 50 years warped my memory?
~Karla
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Nope, your memory remains unwarped, Karla. The Artist’s League of Seal Beach used the Bayside Land Co. building for exhibits throughout the sixties and into the early seventies.
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