I’ve mentioned John Olguin’s name in multiple South Bay History blog posts over the years, so it’s about time to take an in-depth look at this San Pedro legend.
John Main Olguin was born in San Pedro on Feb. 18, 1921. His father, Roy, had moved from Mexico to work in the port area, where he met Olguin’s mother, Josie Main, a Long Beach woman who worked in the Terminal Island fishing industry. The family had very little money, so Olguin took odd jobs shining shoes and selling newspapers.
As a young man, Olguin went through the San Pedro public schools, attending Cabrillo Elementary, Dana Middle School and San Pedro High School. He was an accomplished swimmer and became an active member of the San Pedro Swim Club while in middle school. (He would later be nicknamed “the human fish” for his love of ocean swimming.)
He worked as a junior lifeguard at Cabrillo Beach during the summers. He heard about lifeguard Bob Foster’s collection of sea creatures kept in jars on the beach at Venice. Fascinated by sea life, Olguin persuaded Foster to move his jars into a space at the recently opened Cabrillo Beach Bathhouse as a permanent exhibit in 1935. Dr. William Lloyd became director of the new museum.
Olguin was elected student body president at San Pedro High in 1940. With the outbreak of World War II, he attempted to enlist in both the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard, but was rejected because he wore glasses. In April 1943, the U.S. Army drafted him.
He served in the Pacific theatre in the Philippines, New Guinea and Japan. While serving in the Philippines in 1944, he braved enemy fire to rescue three fellow GIs in battle. One of them died, but the other two survived. Olguin later was awarded the Silver Star for heroism. Afterward, he would keep the medal at home and rarely mention it.
After the war, he returned to San Pedro, where he was hired as a permanent lifeguard in April 1946. When Lloyd was forced to retire in 1950, he chose Olguin to succeed him as director of the Cabrillo Beach Marine Museum (renamed the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in 1993). Olguin would serve in that capacity for 37 years, and, as director emeritus, would continue working on behalf of the museum for years after his own retirement in 1987.
In 1948, Olguin married his former childhood friend, Muriel. In their early years, the couple lived on the Point Fermin Lighthouse grounds before moving to a nearby house. They were married for 52 years, and had two daughters and a son.
Muriel became a well-known local artist and would later help to establish the Angels Gate Cultural Center. She overcame tuberculosis in childhood and worked to become physically strong, and the couple’s annual rowing trips to Catalina Island and back became a part of local lore.
All this has the makings of a full life well lived so far, but we’re only just getting started.
It turns out Olguin and his lifeguard buddy Jack Cheaney had started an informal tradition in the late 1940s: taking a dip every New Year’s Day in the cold waters of Cabrillo Beach. Fascinated onlookers began joining them, so the pair formed the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears group in 1953, which continues to conduct the annual plunge to this day. (Except this year, because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.)
Around that same time, he also raised the funds to launch the inaugural San Pedro fireworks show at Cabrillo Beach during the 1950s. The John Olguin July 4th Spectacular remains an annual tradition.
Olguin’s love of sea creatures led to a passionate interest in whales, whose annual migrations passed through the Pacific waters off the San Pedro coast annually. He began persuading San Pedro fishing boat operators to give rides to whale watchers, which led to the formation of the Cabrillo Whalewatch Program.
Olguin had become a founding member of the American Cetacean Society in 1967, and worked with the group to help establish the Point Fermin Marine Life Refuge. The Los Angeles branch of the ACS is headquartered at Point Fermin Park.
When the Coast Guard threatened to demolish the Point Fermin Lighthouse in 1972, Olguin and fellow activist Bill Olesen battled to save it. They succeeded in getting it added to the National Register of Historic Places, and raised funds to have it remodeled in time for its 100th anniversary in 1974.
Olguin and Olesen also worked tirelessly to return the original Fresnel lens to the lighthouse. It had been removed during WWII. The pair eventually located the lens, and it was reinstalled in November 2006.
Olguin even deserves credit for popularizing the annual grunion runs on local beaches. He researched the phenomenon after a young girl brought him a grunion during his lifeguard days, asking him what it was. His many talks on the grunion helped to make the little wrigglers famous.
More than a thousand people attended a memorial service held at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium three weeks after Olguin died suddenly on Jan. 1, 2011, at 89. (Muriel Olguin died in February 2017 at 93.)
Two years earlier, the San Pedro Rotary Club had named him its “Citizen of the 20th Century,” and erected a monument to Olguin at the entrance to Point Fermin Park.
In February 2011, the Los Angeles school board voted unanimously to name the new San Pedro High annex, near Fort MacArthur, the John M. and Muriel Olguin Campus of San Pedro High School. It opened for the fall term of 2012. The auditorium at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium was also renamed the John Olguin Auditorium.
As writer Stefan Harzen, co-author of Olguin’s biography, said of him to the Daily Breeze after his death: “He’s living proof that you don’t have to be a millionaire living in a mansion on the top of a hill to have a real impact in the world.”
Sources: American Cetacean Society website; Cabrillo Marine Aquarium website; Daily Breeze files; Los Angeles Times files; San Pedro News Pilot files; John Olguin Documentary, YouTube. Further reading: “An Ocean of Inspiration: The John Olguin Story,” by Stefan Harzen, Barbara Brunnick and Mike Schaadt, Rocky Mountain Books, 2011.
