A gambling ship anchored off the Newport Pier. A Navy airstrip where Eastbluff Elementary stands. A drive-thru oyster bar for boaters at Newport Dunes.
These are among 10 largely forgotten moments in Newport Beach history compiled by William Lobdell, the city's inaugural historian laureate, in a list published Tuesday, July 7, by Newport Beach Living Magazine. The photos came from the Newport Beach Historical Society archives.
The list comes as Newport Beach approaches its 120th anniversary. The city was incorporated Sept. 1, 1906, according to city records.
"It played into my journalistic skills. I love uncovering things. I love being an investigative reporter," Lobdell said when the City Council appointed him historian laureate in August 2025. "I was able to go back and dig up a lot of old stories that haven't been told."
Lobdell, a Corona del Mar resident since 2015 and former Daily Pilot editor in the 1990s, founded "Newport Beach in the Rearview Mirror" in 2021. His 90-second history videos have drawn millions of views on Instagram.
Highlights from the list
Among the most striking entries: the Sea Byrd, a Tomorrowland-inspired restaurant at Newport Dunes that operated from roughly 1960 to 1964. It featured a drive-thru oyster bar where boaters could pull up by water. The restaurant was originally planned as a Fred Harvey Company venture in 1958, according to newspaper archives.
The Navy built the Palisades Naval Landing Field in 1941 on the site of what is now Eastbluff Elementary School. The airstrip operated through 1951. Even earlier, in the 1910s, Newport Beach's first airstrip sat on what is now Bayside Drive, adjacent to the Balboa Island bridge.
In late 1937, the Star of Hollywood, a former British Royal Navy minesweeper, dropped anchor at least three miles off Newport Beach and opened as a floating casino. Gamblers reached it via water taxis from the Newport Pier. The ship carried slot machines, roulette wheels, and poker tables. It operated less than four months before sailing north to Los Angeles County waters, according to a 2018 Daily Pilot account.
Other entries include a 1919 federal proposal to build a submarine base and seaplane base in Upper Newport Bay, water skiing in the bay before it became a state ecological preserve in 1975, a horse stable on Balboa Island in the 1920s, and a massive coastal freeway planned in the early 1970s with five-level interchanges at Newport Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway. Residents rallied to kill it.
Newport Heights, Lobdell noted, was marketed in 1909 not as a residential neighborhood but as farmland with "abundant water and fertile soil."
120th anniversary events
The Newport Beach Historical Society's "120 Years of Welcome" exhibit runs through Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Balboa Island Museum, 210 B Marine Avenue. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit features vintage photography, historical newspaper articles, and an immersive touchscreen tourism archive.
The Historical Society will host a 120th Dinner & Dance on Thursday, Aug. 27, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Harborside Restaurant and Grand Ballroom, 400 Main St., Newport Beach.
