View shows an amusement park, complete with wooden roller coaster, on the Santa Monica pier circa 1924. The Santa Monica Municipal Pier opened in 1909 and was the first pier on the west coast to use reinforced concrete pilings. It was thirty-six feet wide and stretched 1200 feet into the Pacific Ocean. In 1916, Charles I.D. Looff constructed a Moorish-Byzantine hippodrome, which housed a merry-go-round with 44 hand-crafted horses, a billiards and bowling hall, a two-track Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster along with The Whip and the Aeroscope thrill rides, a "What Is It?" maze, and several smaller rides. Looff's opening day, July 4, 1917, drew over 100,000 people; the biggest crowd in the city's history. In 1987, the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome was added to the National Registry of Historic Places, Building #87000766. Photo dated: 1924.
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