Editing Seal Beach, California (section)

=== Real estate development ===
The new town would be situated along the still not-announced [[Balboa Line]] of the Pacific Electric, which would run from Long Beach to Newport Beach.  As there was already a town called Bayside in Northern California (by Eureka), Stanton's group instead called their new town Bay City. Due to many factors—including competition from other beach resort areas (Long Beach, Redondo Beach and Venice/Ocean Park/Santa Monica), some national financial crises, and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which sent most investment dollars to the more lucrative rebuilding of San Francisco—Bay City failed miserably as a real estate investment.<ref name="roots" />

In 1913, Stanton optioned the land to real estate promoter Guy M. Rush, who invested in building a renovated pier with pavilions on either side. Rush also re-branded the town as Seal Beach and marketed it via postcards and advertisements around the country.  This too failed and by early 1915, Rush had let his options lapse.  In 1915 Stanton tried again, arranging to obtain some amusements from the closing San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition and rebuild them as part of new amusement area which would be called The Joy Zone.<ref name="roots" />

As part of this plan, the Bayside Land Company led a campaign to incorporate the town (October 27, 1915) and then had the new city council approve legal drinking in the town.  This made it different from [[the Pike]] at Long Beach, which was a "dry city."  The Joy Zone, a beach-side amusement park built in 1916, was the first in Orange County.<ref name="roots">{{cite news|title=From sin city roots to quiet enclave, Seal Beach considers its future at 100 years|date=October 17, 2015|first=Greg|last=Mellen|work=[[Orange County Register]]|url= http://www.ocregister.com/articles/beach-688015-seal-city.html}}</ref>  It achieved some brief popularity, but the US entry into [[World War I]] and the resulting restrictions on rubber and metal dramatically impacted the amusement area.

After the war, [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] impacted the town's value as an amusement resort. After 1920, the town's location on two bays, with many inlets to offload bootleg liquor, its small police department, and its location on the county line, allowed it to become a popular place for rumrunners, then gamblers. From 1928 to 1939, the town had as many as six gambling establishments on Main Street.  In addition, most of Southern California's famous gambling ships (''Johanna Smith, Rose Isle, Johanna Smith II, SS Caliente, SS Tango, Showboat, Mt. Baker'') operated off the Seal Beach, just over the line from Long Beach.<ref name=":1" />

With gambling being a misdemeanor, the trials were held in the town's municipal court and a Seal Beach jury never returned a guilty verdict, to the dismay of Orange County and Long Beach officials. But ''circa'' 1941, with significant pressure being put on the gamblers by State Attorney General [[Earl Warren]], most of the Seal Beach gambling and ships ended. Their absence was soon filled by a former Los Angeles police detective named William L. Robertson.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Seal Beach: A Brief History|last=Strawther|first=Larry|publisher=History Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-62619-489-2|location=Charleston, SC|pages=95–99, 106–112}}</ref>