Muscle Beach Photo Gallery

Internet Photo Gallery

With gymnasts, wrestlers and circus performers being among the first athletes to make Santa Monica's Beach Park No. 4
(as it was known prior to being titled "Muscle Beach") popular starting in about 1934, the center of activity for the first decade
was largely what started as carpets laid down on the sand to allow performers a bit of insulation from the hot sand. Here in
this photo taken in the late 1930s shows the next step forward from the early carpets to what the Muscle Beach regulars had
constructed in a slightly elevated platform with a thinly padded surface. By the early 1950s, the platform was destined to
gain in elevation to several feet high and after several variations and slightly different locations of the eventual raised wooden
platforms, it ultimately became one of the most famous gymnastics, hand-balancing and adagio stages on the planet.