Photos of West Coast Youth by Loomis Dean for LIFE, 1951.

In 1951 a feature article ran in LIFE Magazine that highlighted the west coast's youth as a new crop of Americans that were "brawny and buoyant" and an asset for the country's future.

"From the sun-drenched valleys of Southern California to the rain-drenched inlets of Puget Sound this new race of children, of whom some three million are now in school, have one big thing in common. It is a lust for the outdoors, and the richly scenic coast offers kids a maximum of temptation and a minimum of inconvenience in fulfilling it. The bumper crop of youth also shares a buoyant optimism of spirit, a supreme confidence in its ability to get on in the world. This current of self-reliance is without intellectual basis; it may spring in part form youth's closeness to nature, from intimately living with wind, sand, and sun."