The Alpine Village history

On November 28, 1931, Pirchner moved downtown, opening Alpine Village in Playhouse Square.

The festivities began with a 12-gun salute and ceremonial tapping of the first beer keg in 1950, practices still followed today.

Bischof came to the United States in 1952 and dreamed of bringing with him a piece of his homeland to share.

His love of soccer—he even played with the Los Angeles Kickers, winning the 1958 National Challenge Cup—led him to purchase the former Gardena Valley No.

Bischof and Rotter formed a partnership by 1966 and their vision for Alpine Village took the form of a shopping court with Chalet-style facades designed to recall a village in the Bavarian Alps.

In April 1967, a group of investors with German roots announced a plan to bring a bit of Bavaria to the South Bay.

On June 15, 1969, Alpine Village Park, as it billed itself, held a Bavarian song and dance festival featuring traditional German music and “imported Bavarian beer” priced at 10 cents with your paid $1.00 admission fee.

The festival expanded to two weekends in 1970, and 24-year-old Noel Steever of Beverly Hills was named Oktoberfest queen following the inagural beauty contest that same year.

1, 1971, it opened the “Alpine Farm Fairytale Land” for children, and a new beer garden for adults.

A festival-opening German-style parade was added to the festivities in 1973.

In 1981, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors denied a plan to add helicopter rides to Alpine Village’s entertainment menu, reversing an early planning commission decision to allow a heliport to be built at the village.

Posters from 1982 shows at Alpine Village in Torrance.

25, 1985, when a security guard asked four neo-Nazis, Stanley Witek, Gene Loven, Joe Fields and Hal Follin, to remove their Nazi regalia while the quartet dined in the main Alpine Village restaurant.

In July 1988, Alpine Village began brewing its own beer.

The building on Euclid Avenue was razed in 1996 for a parking lot.

Even more controversial was the demolition of the beloved Carson Batting Cages, which were bulldozed after its operators lost their lease in May 2008.

In 2009, new manager Gerald King ended Alpine Village’s contract with longtime supplier Angel City Brewing Co., which chose to move its operations from the location to downtown Los Angeles.

After nearly 66,000 attended the 2010 Oktoberfest, Alpine Village began to make a concerted effort to deal with noise and people problems caused by the celebration’s popularity.