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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...
Moved to the History of Scuba Diving: Tales from the Abyss Forum per request.
A unpublished article about Hussongs bar in Ensenada I wrote many moons ago....
The way it wuzzz in the beginning of diving....
Sam 111
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HUSSONG- UW SPORTS SHOP-DIVING-COLUMBIA- TREASURE-HISTORY
Johan Hussong immigrated from Germany and arrived in Ensenada via New York. He had four sons, John, Richard, Percy and Walter, and a daughter who's name has been lost by marriage. The sons had sons and named them after each other. Always get confusing trying to remember who belongs to whom.
However it was Johan Hussong the original immigrant who established the popular bar in Ensenada that bears his and his family's name.
It no secret to most "vintage" divers that Hussong's was once a divers hang out. In the 1950s & the early 1960s it was a place that was "Muy Tranquillo." The music was Strauss Viennese walzes played by a group of locals in the corner. The Maggies were huge, served with a glass and the container they were mixed in (at least to the divers) -a few sips and the Cantina was transformed into another time and another place.
Walter Hussong who (I think) was Percy's son was a very knowledgeable experienced pioneer diver and a darn good one. It was only natural that divers of the 1950s and early 1960s would check in on the way south to check on conditions or on the way back to the states to report on the diving.
Walter Hussong and Bill Hogan who owned the Underwater Sports shop in Long Beach, California, were close friends who teamed up in 1956 to salvage what silver remained in the Columbia which was in 200 plus feet of water in or near the La Paz, Baja Mexico harbor. (To place this in perspective self contained (aka SCUBA) diving was only about five (5) years old in the US, equipment was rudimentary crude and dangerous use and unheard of in most all of Mexico)
Using twin US Government surplus 90's which they banded into double tanks they dove the Columbia every day for a month returning with nothing but the ships bell which Bill had located in the sand 50 feet from the wreck. BUT They "did not find the silver" = and "were poverty stricken."
Bill constructed a special raised platform to display the bell in a very prominent location in the very center of his shop for all customers and passers by to admire. One day he went to the back of the shop for a very few moments and when he returned the bell had disappeared. That was about 60 years ago and to this day the bell has never been recovered
HOWEVER, There is an epilog to this tale..
With in a year of returning Bill managed to lease two large lots from the co owner of Skin Diver Magazine, the late Chuck Blakeslee at the base of the Belmont pier in Long Beach. He moved his small operation from second street and established a huge dive operation including one of the first SCUBA training pools in California and the US.
He then divorced his wife, Jeannie concurrently losing the dive operation in the process to her. She remarried the late Clarke Ward, LA Co Underwater Instructor and also a member of the Long Beach Neptunes. They operated the Underwater Sports shop for several years, until they established a book store on Balboa island, where they lived out their lives
Bill next established a "Divers Bar" called "Hogans" which he gave away more than he sold, About 1960-1 (?) he packed up and moved to Costa Rica where he constructed a spacious lovely home near the Arenal volcano, remarried, raised a daughter and lived the life of a gentleman farmer for most of the remainder of his years.
He sold his Costa Rica holdings and returned to the US settling in Temecula, California to "dibble in real estate" until he departed for the big reef in the sky about ten years ago years ago--But--- He always maintained he "never found the treasure of the Columbia."
Walter on the other hand was living the good life in Ensenada. He was always at the bar always available to drop every thing if he recognized you to "talk diving."
However, the good life caused Walter's demise- He opened another Hussongs bar on the mainland of Mexico and was shot and killed by a very irate husband.
--but Walter also maintained -- "never found the treasure of the Columbia."
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It was a time when divers were divers not card & certification collectors...a different time and a different place.
Hogan was an ex WW11 US Navy salvage diver and also an LA Co Underwater Instructor. Bill was interested in and possibly had a degree in "Shakespeare literature" from the University of San Francisco. I spent many enjoyable lazy afternoons with Bill discussing and exchanging Shakespeare quotes.
Walter's training or experience was unknown--but he was an accomplished diver. Perhaps he acquired his expertise from Ruben Pena Gonzales who was the diver for the Ensenada harbor, had a successful dive shop and later produced SCUBA equipment for many US manufactures under the maquiladora program. (And became VERY wealthy)
Copyright 2017 Dr. Samuel Miller, 111 & Dr. Samuel Miller, IV may not be reproduced with out the expressed written permission of the authors.
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