Venice California

Venice, California. You guess the year of this picture, and you guess when the Venice Lagoon turned to concrete. Today the Venice Lagoon is known as the, “Venice Circle,” or “The Drum Circle.” A far cry from gentle gondola and other small craft floating. Not far from this present day circle of counter culture, nude sunbathing was allowed until 1974.

The Venice Lagoon was filled with salt water and flowed into the Venice canals and Pacific Ocean. It surely existed by Fourth of July 1905. This unused postcard is from November 2, 1917 or later due to its two cent rate. U.S. Postcard rates increased to $.03 in 1952. George O. Restall published this postcard. He bought out an existing San Francisco novelty postcard outfit in 1910. At that time he hand colored the postcards. My guess is the image is from before 1921, and probably 1920 or earlier. By the 1930s oil derricks littered this area.

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