Richard Robertson Loynes (1901-1956), a lifelong Long Beacher, was both a pillar of the local business community and a celebrated speedboat racer. Dick, as he was known, was the sole surviving child of Richard and Bessie Loynes, who came to SoCal from New York and settled in Long Beach around 1899. Pops made a fortune running a brickyard and was soon purchasing chunks of town along Chestnut Avenue (where the family resided) and north of 14th Street. Dick was only sixteen when his father died, but not long after graduating from LB Poly High (as class president), he took some of his inheritance to build the four-story Loynes Garage, which he opened in 1923 to great success. Repairing cars led to repairing boats: our subject quickly caught the racing bug and by 1931 had racked up three national championships and sixteen world records. Loynes’s first wife Evelyn divorced him in 1936, after barely more than a year of marriage, complaining that he loved his boats more than her. Second wife Susan, a Stanford-educated dietician whom Loynes marched down the aisle in 1945, was more tolerant of his hobby. Dick Loynes served as Chamber of Commerce director, commodore of the LB Yacht Club, and had just been appointed president of the Alamitos Bay Marina Advisory Committee when he died (cause unreported) while vacationing in British Columbia. The construction of Loynes Drive was approved by City Council in 1961 but took years to complete.
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