1925

HERE COME THE TOURISTS (Summer of 1925)

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.

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  The 4th of July fell on a Saturday in 1925, and tens of thousands of San Franciscans emerged from their foggy summer climes to drive around sunny Sonoma county. (It actually rained here that morning, but hey, it was still a relief from the city’s usual June Gloom.) One slight problem: There was no Golden Gate Bridge yet, so 15,000 cars had to get here by ferry. And that’s not counting a large number that crossed a day or so earlier, parked in Sausalito as their drivers took the ferry back to the city as pedestrians to finish up the workweek.

The ferries ran all Friday night to keep up with the demand and in Marin 40 deputy marshals were sworn in just to manage traffic. As an example of how many visitors crowded into the North Bay, about a thousand attended the Independence Day celebrations in little Dillon Beach. “Every house, cabin, tent, garage and woodshed was brought into use to accommodate the large gathering,” reported the Press Democrat.

It would be another dozen years before the Bridge was finished, but the PD – an indefatigable booster that promised tolls would pay for the project after a few years – pointed to the size of the horde as another reason why it must be built without delay. During that month there was pressure on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to join the Bridge District which would fund construction (spoiler alert: They didn’t). For more on the Golden Gate Bridge saga, read “IF YOU BRIDGE IT THEY WILL COME.”

Aside from the holiday daytrippers, there was a steady influx of visitors driving here for summer vacation. Encouraged by the State Automobile Association in the early 1920s, Santa Rosa and every other city in Sonoma created “auto camps” – the word “motel” did not even exist yet. The auto camp here was in Veterans’ Park at the intersection of Spencer and McDonald avenues, presently the presbyterian church compound. It was free, but what amenities it offered other than running water were unmentioned (let’s hope there was a privy) and no improvements were ever described.

This auto camp was managed by the Chamber of Commerce. The PD printed a weekly list of where tourists hailed from and how many currently were there; the peak was 500 during the week of July 4th. Enthusiastic local business owners told the paper that campers were heavy shoppers and the Chamber’s manager often claimed some of them were planning to move here because Santa Rosa treated them so swell.

Not so enamored was the toney McDonald Ave. neighborhood, which viewed the camp as a blight. The PD wrote, “…property owners and residents of McDonald avenue are annoyed by the noise and dust of machines going to and from the camp, the personal appeaiance of campers in soiled outing garments, vandalism on the part of some of those using the park, such as trampling on lawns and picking flowers, and occasional thefts.”

The Santa Rosa auto camp closed in September, 1925 and visitors were directed to a for-profit camp north of town. From the mid-1920s on, commercially run campgrounds outside of city limits became common, some offering bungalows with electricity and even private bathrooms.

NEXT: MORE PLANS FOR “BURBANK PARK”

1928ferry

15,000 CARS VISIT HERE, IS ESTIMATE – Bound for the pleasure grounds of northern California, more than 15,000 automobiles crowded the ferry lines crossing the bay Friday night and today, to take advantage of the holiday. So heavy was the travel that several ferry companies were forced to operate all Friday night…So heavy was the traffic jam at the Golden Gate and Northwestern Ferry terminals in Sausalito, that forty deputy marshals were sworn in to aid in regulating the traffic. This afternoon, the ferry companies reported that the crowds were still lining the ferry approaches for blocks… (July 5)

DILLON BEACH ENTERTAINS BIG HOLIDAY CROWD – The little village of Dillons Beach celebrated the Fourth of July in oldtime patriotic style by having athletic contests, “big eats” and a grand ball in the evening. Fully a thousand people came in from southern Sonoma, northern Marin, Woodland and Vallejo. Only 800 of this crowd could be housed Friday and Saturday evenings and some 200 people motored back to Petaluma to spend the night, but returned next day to enjoy the festivities of the day. Every house, cabin, tent, garage and woodshed was brought into use to accommodate the large gathering…Marin county will hold a special election sometime in August or September to bond the county for $1,250,000 for road purposes. This will insure paved highways for all sections of the county and will place Marin in the forefront of progressive counties. With the building of the Golden Gate bridge there will be experienced a great boom among the resorts of the county and a great increase in the assessed valuation of the county and a consequent reduction of the rate of taxation. The tax-payers led by Martinelli and Hunter, are making a drive for the bond issue in this section. (July 7)

WHAT THE BRIDGE WILL MEAN – Automobile traffic from San Francisco north is said to have been much heavier over the Fourth this year than ever before, breaking all records. This is but natural. The automobile is coming into more general use each day, while the scenic attractions of this favored section are constantly becoming better known. Each season for several years past has seen an increase over the year before in the number of summer visitors up this way.

But gratifying as the showing this year may have been, it was nothing compared to what it might have been with better facilities for crossing San Francisco bay. The ferry companies did their best, but were taxed beyond their capacity. Many automobilists waited for hours to get across. Others, benefiting from past experience, sent their cars over to Sausalito the day before, crossing later as foot passengers and beginning their drive from this side of the bay. In numerous instances people gave up the trip altogether on arriving at the ferry and learning that they faced a long delay.

If the Golden Gate bridge had been in operation, no such delays or inconveniences would have been noted. Where hundreds visited Sonoma county over the Fourth, thousands would in all probability have made the trip. The mere fact that there was such a bridge would have increased the traffic to enormous proportions, and automatically.

The splendid section north of San Francisco bay can never come into its own until the great bridge has been made an actuality. Income from tolls will pay for the bridge within a few years. Its construction, now regarded as a certainty, will mean more to Sonoma county and the north bay section than anything else that could possibly happen here. (July 7)

275 TOURISTS AT AUTO CAMP – One hundred and nineteen automobiles, carrying 275 tourists from seven states, used the Santa Rosa automobile park during the past week, it was reported at the chamber of commerce offices yesterday. The registration at the park at the foot of McDonald avenue shows that there were 103 California cars, seven from Oregon, 3 from Colorado, two each from Utah and Wisconsin, and one each from Idaho and Washington. Many of the tourists expressed themselves as pleased with the facilities provided at the park, and all were high in praises of Santa Rosa, Sonoma county and the Redwood Highway. (July 1)

500 MOTOR TOURISTS STOP AT PARK HERE – More than 500 motor tourists, travelling in 162 cars from six states and one foreign country, availed themselves of the facilities offered by the Santa Rosa automobile camping grounds at the foot ot McDonald avenue during the past week… (July 8)

MODERN AUTO CAMP PLANNED NORTH OF CITY – A new automobile tourists camp, which may later replace the camp maintained by the Chamber of Commerce at the foot of McDonald avenue, is now being erected at the intersection of Steele Lane with the Redwood Highway, a mile north of Santa Rosa. J. C. McFarland, former engineer with the local shoe factory, is the owner.

McFarland plans the construction of several campers’ cottages, modeled after the auto camp grounds. Light and water are available at the grounds, and an extension of city mains is planned to make gas available for cooking purposes. A large community cook cottage, equipped with gas plates, is to be erected… (July 29)

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MORE PLANS FOR “BURBANK PARK” (Summer of 1925)

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.

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  Despite its ambitions to become the grand metropolis of the North Bay, Santa Rosa didn’t have a public park until the Juilliards donated their nine acres in 1931. But ten years before that, the city and Chamber of Commerce had bought land just north of our current high school with the intent to create the “Luther Burbank Creation Garden.” Efforts to raise money and bootstrap those plans dragged on through the 1920s. Newspaper articles about the latest (non) developments were so common it was referred to as just “the Burbank Park” without further explanation.

The Burbank Park had little or nothing to do with Luther Burbank – aside from a promise he would contribute some plants – so the Chamber had consulted in 1923 with Dr. Carol Aronovici, a renowned authority in city planning and urban beautification to design a basic layout. Much (or all) of those plans were tossed in July 1925 when the landscaper who created the new high school grounds presented more detailed plans to the Chamber.

July also saw a drive for citizens to sign a petition asking the city to immediately annex the property. It’s not clear why there was a sudden urgency for this action but it appears related to the Chamber’s headaches over the auto camp on McDonald Avenue, which was the subject of a variety of complaints. In May there were calls (by people unnamed) to move the tourist stopover there, which was both outside of city limits and not close to a neighborhood. As the Chamber was an enthusiastic booster of the camp, this would have likely made it semi-permanent at that location. Former State Senator Walter F. Price voiced his outrage for the proposal on behalf of the Burbank Park committee: “To even consider such a proposition is a desecration…we love and honor Luther Burbank too much to have such a thing suggested.”

NEXT: THE MIDDLE OF PROHIBITION

PLAN TO INCLUDE BURBANK PARK IN CITY; VOTE SOON – …Petitions seeking extension of the city limits to include Luther Burbank park are now nearly completed, and will be presented to the city council as soon as 460 names have been signed. The petitions in charge of Charles Jacobs, are now within 100 names of complete, and will be presented to the city council with the request for calling an annexation election.

W. C. Hoff, landscape gardener, who laid out the high school grounds here, expects to submit to the forum meeting of the chamber next Tuesday night plans for a new scheme of landscaping at Burbank Park, the directors were informed. His plan calls for following the natural contour of the land and trees, substituting wide spreading trees and shrubs for the tall, narrow growths provided in the Aronovici plan. (July 15)

DEER PADDOCK FOR BURBANK PARK PLANNED (July 17)

500 URGE CITY ANNEX LUTHER BURBANK PARK – With approximately 500 signatures, the petition asking annexation of Luther Burbank park to the City of Santa Rosa is ready for presentation to the city council, it was announced yesterday at the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce office. The paper will be laid before the council at its next meeting.

The land sought to be annexed to the city is uninhabited, including only Burbank park and part of the high school grounds, lying outside the northern limits of the city. Since no one resides in the tract, it is understood no election is necessary, adoption of an ordinance of annexation sufficing. (July 29)

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THE MIDDLE OF PROHIBITION (Summer of 1925)

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.

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  The summer of 1925 was approaching the midpoint of the Prohibition era and by then Sonoma County pretty much knew what to expect. Every week or two the Press Democrat would report some poor guy arrested by deputies for hiding or transporting a few jugs of “jackass” brandy or other hooch. The fines for these small-time bootleggers was $400-500, which was the equivalent to about six weeks of an average income at the time. That pace would pick up considerably the following year when “Jock” Pemberton became County Detective (see “THE ELIOT NESS OF SONOMA COUNTY“).

It was still legal to make wine for sacramental (and medicinal!) purposes as long as the winery had a special license, but a new state law required the District Attorney to approve permits for its use. Church elders now had to submit names and addresses of everyone in the congregation and swear the wine would only be used for religious ceremonies.

That July there were two very high profile warehouse busts by federal agents. In Santa Rosa the feds dumped 21,160 gallons of wine at Giacomo Gondola’s winery on Guerneville Road near the Monroe School. A lawsuit immediately followed, as it belonged to a wine broker and he had not given the agents permission. The feds in turn said the broker was not up-to-date on taxes. And while this is not a West County history journal, there were 77,525 gallons in Sebastopol at risk of destruction, which were the 1921 and 1922 vintages of about thirty wine growers who hoped Prohibition was about to end Real Soon Now. The government alleged the warehouse owner was tapping the barrels in secret and selling wine from his nearby home.

NEXT: THOU SHALT NOT SHOP ELSEWHERE

TAXI MAN PAYS $400 RUM FINE – Pleading guilty to a charge of illegal possession of liquor, the result of a raid by county officers Friday night, Mert Laughlin, 45, Healdsburg taxi driver, was fined $400 yesterday by Justice Marvin T. Vaughan. A similar charge against C. H. Northern, arrested as an employee of Laughlin in the latter’s establishment two miles north of Healdsburg, was dismissed at the request of the district attorney office. The men were arrested yesterday by Deputy Sheriff Leo Honsa, who with Operative E. F. Westphall conducted the raid Friday night, breaking up an Independence Day celebration and seizing two quarts of “jackasse” brandy and more than a gallon of diluted jack which had been dumped into a pan of water. (July 8)

OFFICERS FIND BURIED LIQUOR – Four one-gallon jugs of “jackass” brandy were found buried in a chicken house on the premises when county officers raided the Jim Baber establishment in Roberts Avenue yesterday. Baber is in the east and the place was being operated by his son-in-law, the offices reported. Deputy Sheriff Ovid Holmes and Operative E. F. Westphall conducted the raid. (July 10)

GONDOLA WINE DESTROYED BY U.S. MEN HERE – MORE THAN 30,000 GALLONS DUMPED IN TWO DAYS BY FEDERAL ORDER (July 22)
DUMPING OF 21,000 GALS. OF WINE BY U.S. AGENTS BRINGS SUIT FOR $1,950 (July 25)

RANCHER DRAWS $500 FINE FOR HAVING RUM – Felice Accornero, rancher of the Mirabel section, was fined $500 by Justice Hugh McCormick of Sebastopol yesterday when he pleaded guilty to a charge of illegal possession of liquor. He was arrested yesterday by Deputy Sheriffs Leo Honsa and William Shulte as the result of a raid the previous day, in which four barrels of wine, a keg of “jackass” and several bottles of the liquor were seized. (July 31)

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