1907

NO WOMEN ALLOWED

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The Santa Rosa that emerged after the 1906 earthquake was certainly a more modern-looking place, but in those new downtown buildings were businesses with old Victorian-era attitudes; if you were a woman, there were fully three dozen places that you could not enter.

Saloons and cigar shops were off-limits to women, who could be arrested for entering a bar for any reason. The barkeep could also lose his license for admitting a woman, or even on hearsay that he had done such a terrible thing, as happened in the “Call No. 2 Saloon,” on West Third Street, mentioned in the Saloon Town article. In one of the incidents described below, a roadhouse on the road to Sonoma was closed after a complaint that a party of 4-5 men and women were allowed to drink together and cuss.

VIOLATED A CITY ORDINANCE

Wednesday night about half-past 10 o’clock Police Officer Lindley arrested a woman whom he noticed leaving McKee & Morrison’s saloon on Fifth street. Under the ordinance no woman or minors are allowed to frequent a saloon. The woman was taken to the police station and put up twenty dollars bail for her appearance before Police Judge Bagley. She claims to have been in the saloon for the purpose of getting some washing.

– Press Democrat, June 20, 1907
MEN CARRY WOMEN INTO SALOON ON SONOMA ROAD
Lively Time Following Auto Trip to Resort at Melitta

On the evening of May 18 last, there must have been a taste of “high life” out at M. F. Wilson’s saloon on the Sonoma road to Melitta according to the complaint made to the Board of Supervisors and filed in the office of the County Clerk on Monday morning.

Among other things on that memorable night an automobile drove up to the saloon and it contained two or three women and two men. The language used was not parlor talk or credible to persons having any regard for personal decency, according to the allegations made in the complaint. More than this the women were lifted onto the shoulders of their male companions and were carried into the saloon. Inside the saloon it is alleged the obscenity was kept up.

Other lewd conduct is set forth in the complaint…accompanying the complaint is a largely signed petition asking the Supervisors to revoke the liquor license held by Wilson.

– Press Democrat, July 2, 1907
REVOKE LICENSE OF ROADHOUSE
Supervisors Hear Much Evidence on Both Sides of Case and After Argument Take Unanimous Action

The Supervisors spent all of Wednesday in hearing evidence on the question of the revocation of the liquor license of M. F. Wilson, who operates a roadhouse near Melitta station. After the evidence was all in and arguments had been made the board by unanimous vote revoked the license.

[..]

…The allegations of the petitioners charged the roadhouse with being noisy, boisterous, disorderly and disreputable place was strenuously denied by all the witnesses for the defendant. The allegation made against the place charged that women were carried into the place on July 4 by men and that decent people in the neighborhood were subjected to insulting scenes and language by the patrons of the house.

– Press Democrat, July 11, 1907

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A SMOKER’S CHANCE

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Santa Rosa was quite the saloon town in the early 20th century, with 30 bars (or so) downtown, mostly on Fourth St. between Railroad Square and Courthouse Square. It was also a smoker’s paradise, with about a half dozen tobacco stores along the same route. And in each bar, each smoke shop, were slot machines where a guy could plunk in a nickel and gamble for cigars.

Discussed here earlier was a loopy 1906 court ruling that declared a slot machine was a “banking device” as long as the payout was in cigars, beer, gum, or anything but cash. The item transcribed below provides details of the “house rules” that prevailed in Santa Rosa, showing clearly that the barkeep or smoke shop owner had an active hands-on role similar to a casino dealer, allowing a gambler to ask the proprietor for double-down bets. That’s a big difference from passively having a machine on the side of the counter.

Card gambling in the cigar shops was also common, judging from a long debate in 1907 about whether tables should be banned in Healdsburg, but nothing specific about poker games appeared in the papers about Santa Rosa. But after the quake rebuilding settled down, it was likely still somewhat a “wide-open town,” as earlier revealed by a 1905 exposé in the Santa Rosa Republican.

REDUCE ODDS ON SLOT MACHINES
After Today Local Cigar Dealers Will No Longer Pay on Queens, or Allow Drawing to Straights or Flushes–The Reason Why

In anticipation of the proposed license on slot machines, a new schedule goes into effect at the cigar stores tomorrow. No more will two Queens be good for a rope [cigar], and after today drawing to straights and flushes will be a thing of the past. It is the same old story–the “consumer pays the tax.” The city has decided to license the slot machines, and the odds are to be changed so that the dear public will pay the license fee.

Although the printed schedule on the face of the machines only calls for payment when a pair of Kings or better appears, it has been the local custom to pay on the appearance of Queens. At one time, before the shake, the local dealers even paid on Jacks. It has also been the vogue here to allow customers who had made a play and secured all but one of a straight or flush to “draw” to the same upon payment of an extra nickel. Thus, if a customer who had four clubs and wanted a fifth should elect to pay for the privilege he was allowed to try again, the appearance of a club in the designated spot on the second turn being held to complete the flush and being regarded as equivalent to having drawn all five clubs on the first play. But the dealers say they are “too much loser” to keep this up, now that each machine is to be taxed $5 per quarter by the municipality. The regular printed schedule is to apply from now on.

– Press Democrat, March 10, 1907

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queengeraldine

THE CHILDREN’S ROSE FEST

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There was doubt that Santa Rosa would have a 1907 Rose Carnival, given that the town was barely recovered from the Great Earthquake; but it was decided that it would be a special juvenile parade and celebration that year, led by 6 year-old Geraldine Grace. A nice symbol of renewal, both.

Besides being cute as a bug in her royal getup,”Queen Geraldine” was probably selected because she was the daughter of beer baron Joseph T. Grace, who owned the Grace Brothers Park where the festivities were held. Geraldine Grace Benoist died in 2005 at the age of 103.

Alas, no pictures of the actual parade survive, but it must have been a delightful affair. There was a boy’s marching band from San Francisco, a handful of floats, and three automobiles festooned in roses. But the main attractions were the kids pushing doll buggies, kids riding in pony carts adorned with roses or poinsettias or poppies or pink hawthorn. Some highlights from the May 19 Press Democrat:


Little Miss Helen Kearns, daughter of Senator and Mrs. Kearns, drove her Shetland pony in a gaily decorated cart. Besides her on the seat was her favorite white Spitz dog, bearing up under the name of “Snowball.” Snowball seemed to enjoy the drive equally as much as his fair owner… Little Jack Hood led the children’s features. He trundled a wheelbarrow loaded with freshly cut green grass, making an ideal “Hayseed” …Marian Belden drove her favorite Cocker Spaniel hitched up to a little cart. Lorraine Johnson had a pink floral tricycle beautifully adorned…

Queen Geraldine was crowned that afternoon “with all the pomp and ceremony of juvenile royalty” to the cheers of “thousands of loyal subjects assembled” as the 155 member children’s chorus sang her Coronation Ode. Other entertainment included a tambourine dance by Miss Charmion Butts, eight girls dancing a minuet, more numbers by the chorus and a couple of girls warbling through “Jockey Hat and Feather,” a mid-19th century parlor song.

It was a modest affair but grand, thanks to the Woman’s Improvement Club, who pulled it off by creating no fewer than eleven committees. All praise to the Committee on Popcorn and Peanuts, the Committee on Lunch for Band, and the Committee on Decorated Baby Buggies, Velocipedes, Go-Carts, Express Wagons, Coasters and Doll Buggies.

LEFT: Queen Geraldine official portrait. RIGHT: Lining up for the parade, probably on modern-day Brookwood Avenue, then North street. Both photos courtesy the Sonoma County Library


1907rosegirlsAlice Cullen, Claire Coltrin, Margaret Forsyth and Zelma Carithers with a fabric rose for the 1907 Rose Festival. Photo courtesy the Sonoma County Library
 

 

[Editor’s note: This article originally was posted May 15, 2010, and has been edited to remove details specific to the 2010 Rose Festival. The original version can be seen here.]

 

There seems to be an impression that people have to be invited in order to take part in the coming Juvenile Rose Carnival floral parade. This is not the case as everybody is invited and expected to furnish some feature for the parade. If you cannot put in a float, put in your baby buggy, put your small boy in on his coaster. The bigger that floral parade is the better it will suit the Improvement Club, and the better it will advertise our city and wipe out unpleasant recollections relative to last year’s dissipation on the part of Terra Firma. The Woman’s Improvement Club invites you one and all to help them in making the carnival a success.

– “Society Gossip by Dorothy Anne,” Press Democrat, May 5, 1907

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