Today, Newport Beach is widely regarded as the crown jewel of the Orange County coast—a glittering hub of West Coast glamour. But the pre-World War II Newport Beach revealed in these pages was a very different world.

Before the modern era, Newport was a raucous, high-energy beach town where rum-runners openly unloaded illicit booze during Prohibition, and where gambling, drinking, and nightlife kept the city running. It operated as a summer-fueled boomtown—running “hell on wheels” from Memorial Day to Labor Day, dropping into winter hibernation, and briefly roaring back to life for Easter spring break.

Aquatic sports took center stage every weekend, though not in the way we imagine today. Long before modern surfing gained widespread popularity, “aquaboarding”—standing on a wooden board while holding a rope towed by a motorboat—served as the everyday beachgoer’s ocean thrill and an early ancestor of water skiing.

As the landscape of Newport Bay evolved, so did its legendary surf.

In the 1920s, an 800-foot cement jetty was constructed off the rocks at Corona del Mar, creating a haven for bodysurfers. Swimmers could catch a wave at the tip of the jetty on the channel side, enjoy an exhilarating 800-foot ride along the structure, climb back up a chain ladder, and race out to repeat the loop all day.

However, the powerful swells and shifting sandbars made navigating the channel hazardous for local boaters. In 1936, a replacement jetty was completed—a change that permanently altered the coastline and brought an end to Corona del Mar’s perpetual wave break.

Despite these changes, surfing continued to evolve alongside breakthroughs in surfboard design. As heavy wooden planks gave way to newer, lighter board constructions, a growing wave of enthusiasts poured into Newport Beach and neighboring Corona del Mar to experience the classic surf culture of the 1920s and ’30s.

It was in Newport Beach that modern Southern California surf culture truly found its identity. That deep-rooted heritage is precisely why global industry giants like Quiksilver, Volcom, and Hurley chose to establish their headquarters here—staying connected to the birthplace of their craft.

In this book, historians Claudine Burnett and her surfer husband, Paul, unearth never-before-revealed facts about the coast’s rich past, tracing the shared evolution of surfing, Newport Beach, and Corona del Mar.

What You’ll Discover Inside

• The Great Rescue of 1926: The harrowing real-life heroic account involving Duke Kahanamoku and fellow watermen off the Newport coast.

• Prohibition on the Point: The high-stakes history of Balboa’s rum-runners and coastal bootleggers.

• Shaping the Shoreline: How Newport Bay evolved from a quiet inlet into a world-famous nautical hub.

• Legends of the Break: The stories and innovations of pioneering surfers—including George Freeth, Tom Blake, the Vultee brothers, and Pete Peterson—who forever defined the sport and the city.

• The Roaring Beach Resort: Prohibition-era bootlegging, lively casinos, and seasonal transformation along the Orange County coast.
• Duke Kahanamoku in Newport: How Hawaiian surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku rode the waves of Newport Bay in a canoe and borrowed surfboards from Felix Modjeski, grandson of famed Polish actress Helena Modjeska.
• Birth of Mainland Surf Culture: How heavy, solid-wood surfboards stored at the local Sparr Bathhouse led to the founding of the Corona del Mar Surf Club—one of the earliest surf clubs in the United States.
• The First Mainland Surf Championship: The story behind the 1928 Pacific Coast Surfboard Championship, an iconic inaugural contest where canoe races were still featured as a headline event.