Current Pomona College students may feel a tinge of envy to learn that the College once had a lab set on the shore of one of Southern California’s most beloved beaches.
This summer marks a century since the 1913 founding of Pomona’s Marine Laboratory in Laguna Beach, Calif., with the seaside facility built in part as a gift to the college through donations made by citizens of Orange County. Each summer for three decades, groups of faculty and students made the trek to Laguna, where they camped out in tents and set up shop at the lab for a six-week summer school session focused on marine biology.
The sessions included general courses in such subjects as botany and oceanography, but students also got a chance to do hands-on field work where they could tackle their own projects. Highlights of the summer included the infamous early-morning collecting runs. A few times a week, bleary-eyed students could be seen climbing out of their tents at the ripe hour of 4 a.m. to catch the low tide, heading out to find plants and animals hidden among the rocks and tide pools. The action wasn’t limited to the shoreline either – groups often hiked up into the surrounding hills and canyons to observe wildlife in nearby creeks and streams.
Not surprisingly, the college wasn’t the only one drawn to the pleasant Orange County coast. As the town of Laguna Beach grew up and attracted more residents, the natural setting that had once made the site so appealing gradually gave way to seaside development. Facing problems with outdated equipment at the lab and the increased traffic on the beaches, President E. Wilson Lyon closed the building for good, with the last session taking place there in 1943. Just a few years later in 1948 the college set up a deal to rent space at Caltech’s Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory in nearby Corona del Mar, where summer classes continued to be held until 1967.
