Betsy J. Green

Gasp! Women Bare Their Ankles!

Several years ago, women began wearing shorter skirts that revealed their ankles. Now in September 1919, some women started going out in public without stockings. According to the Santa Barbara paper, "In the northern cities, young women with petite ankles are thrilling the crowds and, at the same time, stopping traffic. This is a bold age and the blasé have ceased to follow exemplars of the stockingless fashion as they wend their ways through the crowds.

"Some of the males have become so callow, they only turn their heads to gaze after the shimmering white calves of the maidens for three or four blocks until … the young men run into a lamp post or something.

"When girls minus stockings first appeared in San Francisco, streetcars were temporarily stalled, reports say. Many masculine necks performed contortions and the next day gave their owners twinges. Santa Barbara is yet to be initiated."

Tsk! Tsk! What WILL they think of next, you ask!

(Image: San Pedro Daily News, February 11, 1920)

"MESA MEMORIES" MONDAY - The Blowout on the Mesa - part 2

(This is the second part of a story about an oil well gusher in 1934 that I posted about last Monday. If you missed it, you can find it further down on this page.)

The oil crews struggled in the windy autumn night to bring the raging well under control. More than 100 additional men shoveled frantically throughout the long night to construct earthen dams downhill from the well. No one wanted the growing lake of oil to pour over the cliff and into the Pacific. The "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "Three great pools of oil formed during the flow at the lower end of the S.A. Perkins Ranch." (This is now the west end of Shoreline Park.)

While the oil flowed in an easterly direction, the prevailing wind from the east carried the spray of oil westerly for nearly a mile, "saturating acres of garden green peas … while a stucco residence was completely blackened by the oil rain," noted the paper, adding, "damage has been heavy, but no estimate has yet been made."

Once the oil was contained by the shovel crews' dams, the well's owner, the Rio Grande Company, brought in a 500-gallon pump to begin the process of transferring the oil into tanks. But it hardly made a difference in what was now a vast viscous lake of 10,000 to 12,000 barrels of crude oil. (There are 42 gallons to a barrel, which means there were 420,000 to 504,000 gallons of oil puddled on the ground.)

Finally, about 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, more than 12 hours after it had started, the flow of oil slowed enough so that the exhausted oil-covered men could finally cap the well. The workers who had toiled all night took a well-earned break, and the pump started to siphon the oil into tank trucks.

While dismayed Mesa residents looked at a hellish oil-blackened landscape that Saturday, petroleum companies eyed the Mesa oil field with renewed interest. "The performance of the well, which in quantity of production, exceeds the Ellwood wells at their peak, has electrified the oil industry locally and brought many prominent operators here to study the Mesa area in general," noted the "Times." (The great Mesa gusher of 1934 probably looked like this one. Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Back in 1919, Life magazine had plenty of jokes, and many of them are still funny today. I include a century-old cartoon in each chapter of my Way Back When books. Here's the cartoon for August 1919.

The caption reads: How it seemed to Little Willie the first time he went to the beach. (Image: Life, August 7, 1919)

The Blowout on the Mesa - part 1
     No one seems to have recorded whether it started with a sudden "boom," or whether it began with a hissing sound. Maybe because it started at 8:30 at night, there weren't many oil workers around. But one thing's for sure, it caught everyone's attention — here on the Mesa, and in downtown Santa Barbara. "It" was a "gusher" 150 feet high! The oil derrick above the well stood 122 feet tall, and the "black gold" and sand solution shot up at least 25 feet over that. The date was November 2, 1934.
     The oil well was new and had only recently been drilled. The workers had just put steel piping into the well. But the oil and sand shot out of the well with such pressure that the bottom of the piping was worn away. Several groups of oil crews charged to the well to try to tame the geyser of dark fluid rocketing up from 2,000 feet below the surface. The well was named Fair Acres Oil Company #1. (Fair Acres is the subdivision surrounding Santa Cruz Boulevard.)
     Would the jet of oil turn into an inferno? It would only take a spark or a cigarette to do it. Every oil worker knew that — and feared that. The Los Angeles Times reported, "police and firemen were called to the scene as a precautionary measure against fire and injury." (Image of a similar blowout: Wikimedia)
(This story continues in the next "Mesa Memories Monday" posting.)
 

     Boy, did this Santa Barbara fisherman have something to brag about in August 1919! Imagine landing a 1,500-pound fish! The man "harpooned a fish as big as the side of an automobile in the waters of the Channel near Hope Ranch." He must have been looking for big fish because he had a harpoon with him, and used it to spear the fish. "An exciting ride of some distance, with the maddened sunfish acting as the motive power, followed … the big fellow [the fish, that is] was on exhibition at the wharf … he [the fish, again] is valueless for human consumption." 

     I talked to Dr. Milton Love, Research Biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, author of Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast to get his take on this gigantic fish tale. He speculated that it was a Mola mola. "They can get very, very large," he told me. This was similar to the rare Mola tecta that washed up on the beach near Coal Oil Point in February, 2019. (Image: A Guide to the Study of Fishes, by David Starr Jordan, 1905)

Cliff Drive's Other Names – Ever wonder why "Cliff Drive" has that name even though it is nowhere near the cliffs? The name originated on the section of the road that runs west of Arroyo Burro Beach (Hendry's Beach, Henry's Beach) where it does run along the cliff. The portion of Cliff Drive on the Mesa was originally called "The Mesa Road" and began on the west side of Santa Barbara and ended about where Monroe Elementary School is located today.
     The Pacific Improvement Company, the owner of what is now called Hope Ranch, wanted an easier way for prospective property buyers to reach their property. The only way of reaching the property was the long route along State Street - quite a lengthy trip before the highway was built. The Mesa Road was pretty primitive, however. Here's a description of the road in 1902 – "There is not room for two vehicles to pass without getting into great ditches washed by the winter rain, or in deep chuch holes [potholes] which are left to be worn deeper and larger as the seasons come and go. That portion of the road is a disgrace to the city."
     The road through the Mesa was finally upgraded in 1903, and there were a number of names proposed for the new and improved route, but in the end, the powers-that-be stated that they "could not find a better name than Cliff Drive." (Image: Wikimedia)

Did you read about me in the New York Times this morning? Well, okay the paper didn't exactly mention me by name, but I just KNOW they were thinking of me. The Times gave recommendations for things to see and do in Santa Barbara and contained this SECRETLY CODED MESSAGE to buy my books.

"Then, head to Chaucer's Books, an independent bookstore so charming it warranted a love letter (in essay form) from the writer Pico Iyer. PICK UP A BEACH READ, A BOOK ON LOCAL HISTORY, or let the kids loose in the store's children's corner, which feels like a literary wonderland for little people." (Confession - I added the ALL CAPS.)

Here's the link to the article. Tell me what you think. Am I right?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-santa-barbara-county.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

"WAY BACK WHEN" WEDNESDAY - The Great Pacific Fleet Arrives!

It was definitely the biggest event of 1919 in Santa Barbara – 42 ships carrying 500 officers and 10,000 men anchored in the Channel this August and stayed here for five days. Each day, 1,500 sailors came ashore for some R&R.

Rarely had so many ships been seen in the Channel. The local paper wrote, "From early morning until late at night … the beachfront has been crowded with spectators fascinated with the picture of the men o' war and their speedy destroyer escorts stretching out in the Channel in an awesome line of steel. In addition, the passenger launches have carried many thousands of people to the various ships, where courteous officers and sailors have conducted them through the vessels."

It was definitely a great time for picture taking! Notice how Kodak was used as a verb a century ago. (Image: Los Angeles Herald, August 11, 1919)

"MESA MEMORIES" MONDAY - Escondido Neighborhood Park - Great example of neighborhood volunteerism

         This "pocket park" of fewer than six acres is a living monument to the active participation of the residents of the neighborhood in which it sits. In 1955, the Fellowship Heights Improvement Association asked the city to allow a portion of the Escondido Reservoir property to be used as a park with a play area for local youngsters. The word "escondido" means "hidden" in Spanish.

         Most of the money for the original playground equipment was funded by neighbors who held rummage sales and barbeques. About 15 years ago, an anonymous contribution to the Santa Barbara County Land Trust allowed the Park District to renovate the slope and put in native plants. (Photo: Betsy J. Green)

"WAY BACK WHEN" WEDNESDAY - Several prominent Hollywood personalities were seen in and around Santa Barbara in August 1919. One big-time film star who made an appearance here probably wished he had stayed back in Tinsel Town. John Barrymore, who had been visiting Santa Cruz Island, was pulled over for speeding. "John Barrymore, well-known American actor, and temporary visitor in Santa Barbara, was halted in his joyous flight out on East Haley Street yesterday afternoon. Traffic Officer Williams was stern in his decision that Mr. Barrymore was pushing a bit heavy on the throttle of his machine." Barrymore was fined $10.

This is probably how actor John Barrymore looked when one of Santa Barbara's finest nailed him for speeding. (Image: "Motion Picture News," April 19, 1919)

Note - All the "Way Back When" Wednesday items will be part of the 200+ items in the book  "Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1919" to be published in November 2019. This will be the sixth book in the "Way Back When" series.