Laguna Beach

A bit of history

A post office opened under the name "Lagona" in 1887, later corrected to Laguna Beach in 1904, and the city incorporated on June 29, 1927 as residents sought to protect its small-town character from absorption by neighboring cities. Plein-air painters including William Wendt, Frank Cuprien, and Edgar Payne began settling along the isolated coastline in the early 1900s, drawn by its scenery and light, and local artists organized the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918. The community's art-colony identity became a lasting local institution: precursors to the Festival of Arts began in 1921, and the event took its present form, alongside the Pageant of the Masters, by 1936.