LOCAL HISTORY: Former mayor Jan Dennis recognized for 60 years of business
by Mark McDermott A lot happened in 1961. John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space, the civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders took buses into the South to challenge segregation, and East Germany began construction of the Berlin Wall. Something historic also happened in Manhattan Beach, although its significance wouldn’t be apparent until much later. Jan Dennis moved to town. She and her husband, Stan, moved down the coast from Santa Monica, bringing with them their kids and a fledgling little business called JanStan Studios. And it was through that business that Dennis, over the course of the next six decades, became the greatest historian Manhattan Beach has yet known. The City Council last week honored Dennis, who has written nine books chronicling local history, for operating the longest-running home-based business ever in Manhattan Beach. It began, Mayor Suzanne Hadley recalled, when Dennis wondered why nobody had written a comprehensive history of Manhattan Beach. “And Jan has a quote that she says has motivated her decades of service here to Manhattan Beach,”…
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