July 4: Our "grandiose" celebration

ABOVE: Ladies liberty, A star-spangled 1908 July 4th float in Huntington Beach.  (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   A tradition since 1904, the Huntington Beach July 4th parade is billed as the largest west of the Mississippi.  Adopting this day as our own prior to the City's incorporation in 1909, July 4th has featured some pretty spectacular stunts and events.

   Fireworks were a part of early celebrations, the 1905 and 1910 shows known to have been provided by the Japanese community in nearby Wintersburg Village.  The 1905 fireworks show was held on a baseball field in the downtown, most likely the site of Main Street's Triangle Park (which had a field and held night baseball games).  

The Huntington Beach baseball team, circa 1910, part of the Orange County baseball league and a featured attraction on July 4.  Huntington Beach's first mayor, Ed Manning, was the team's manager.  (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   Five years after the first fireworks show, the growing village of Huntington Beach added to local attractions with the saltwater plunge and bathhouse near the pier. 

Notes found in the Orange County Archives.

   For the 1909 celebration, the first year of Huntington Beach's incorporation, the Los Angeles Herald reported the day's events:

• 10 a.m. - Swimming contest, foot of Main Street; prize, bathing suit.

• 10:30 a.m. - Balloon ascension on Main Street in front of the Huntington Beach News.

• 11 a.m. - Exercises at pavilion; orations by Ben F. Bledsoe of San Bernardino, H.S. Hadsall, secretary of Southern California Sugar Company. Music by Fullerton concert band.

• 1 p.m. - Exhibition drill by I.O.O.F. (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) canton no. 18 of Santa Ana, Ocean and Main Street.

• 1:30 p.m. - Foot races, Ocean Avenue; free-for-all 100 yard race, prize bathing suit; girls' race, prize pair of shoes; boys' race, prize suit of clothes; three-legged race, prize value of $2.50.

• 2:30 p.m. - Automobile races on the beach.

• 3 p.m. - Tug-of-war on the beach, Westminster vs. Huntington Beach; prize box of cigars.

• 3:20 p.m. - Saddle horse race on the beach; prize lap robe.

• 3:25 p.m. - Slow mule race on the beach; prize whip.

• 3:30 p.m. - Chariot race, on Orange Avenue, Ballory vs. Bailey.

• 4 p.m. - Launch race, Jigger vs. Peanut.

• 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. - Concert by Columbia band of Santa Ana, at the pavilion.

• 8 p.m. - Dance at pavilion.  Music by Bannse orchestra.

• 8:30 p.m. - Magnificent display of fireworks on the pier.  Music by Huntington Beach band.

ABOVE: The bandstand near the pier, as it looked circa 1917. (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   By the 1930s, the City continued the fireworks show over the Pacific Ocean to provide a safer viewing experience.  However, there was a little hitch now and then, as Harry "Cap" Sheue recalled (the Huntington Beach High School stadium off Main Street is named after this favorite coach).

"Magnificent bedlam": Harry "Cap" Sheue recalls a memorable July 4 fireworks show. (Public Ceremony in Private Culture, Debra Gold Hansen and Mary P. Ryan, from Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since World War II, University of California Press, 1991)

   The City's July 4 committee recalls another exciting feature of Huntington Beach's  celebrations from that same time period, "In the late 1930s, the city’s first lifeguard and fire chief, Delbert “Bud” Higgins had a trick that no one has since imitated."

   "He would don a firesuit, cover his face with petroleum jelly, soak himself with alcohol, light a match and dive in a fiery ball from a 50-foot platform high above the pier into the water below."  

(Editor's note: Do not attempt, this will get you locked up in the hoosegow today.)

Left: Delbert "Bud" Higgins--the City's first lifeguard and fire chief--enjoying his later years as a local celebrity with bathing beauties near the Huntington Beach pier, circa 1940. (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)
   
   By the 1960s, authors Debra Gold Hansen and Mary P. Ryan report the Huntington Beach July 4 parade was described in local news reports as "easily the most pretentious and grandiose celebration unleashed anywhere in Orange County."  Thank you, we own it.  

   Happy July 4th!   


All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Huntington Beach blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.   

Smoked fish and the Surfer stomp

Local Memories

   Surf City local Karen Jackle remembers coming from her home in Santa Ana to Huntington Beach as a little girl in the early 1950s.

Main Street Huntington Beach in the 1950s. (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   "I remember coming down Main Street toward the beach.  There were smoked fish stands and my Dad liked smoked fish, so we would stop to buy some," recalls Karen.

   "My stepfather was a music teacher and he had an accordion band.  On July 4th, the band was in the parade," Karen continues, in the "mid-1950s, I got to sit on the back of the float in a pretty dress with several other girls who had a family member in the accordion band.  We wore white gloves and a hat (Sunday church dresses) and felt quite important waving to the bystanders in the parade."

   (Editor's note: being in the July 4 parade is still a pretty big deal here.  If you want some real Americana, a feel-good hometown parade, live music, street food and fireworks show, come to Huntington Beach on July 4.)

Huntington's South Sea Surf Club at the cliffs, 1964.  (Bruce Gabrielson, far right, The History of Huntington Beach Surf Clubs, www.longboardcrew.org)

   After Karen's family moved to Long Beach in 1955, "I still came to Huntington Beach.  In my early teens, I would take the bus with friends to the end of the line in Sunset Beach, then we would walk from there to the cliffs where we would watch the boys surfing."

The Pavalon and fun zone at the pier (#3 on the Historic Downtown walking guide), circa mid 1940s, was still the place to dance in the 1950s.  This later became the location of Maxwell's Restaurant and now, Duke's, where you can dine and watch beach volleyball next to the pier (#2 on the Historic Downtown walking guide). (Photo, City of Huntington Beach archives)

   Karen kept coming back to Huntington Beach.  After all, this was the place to meet the cool surfer boys and do a little dancing.  "I had a girlfriend with an old van and we would drive to Huntington Beach and visit the Pavalon...and dance the surfer stomp.  The Golden Bear was across the street and I remember (seeing) people lining up out front when I left the pier area, after I was all surfer stomped out."  (Editor's note: The former site of the Golden Bear is #27 on the Historic Downtown walking guide.)

Surfers Stomp on the beach with Dick Dale, Huntington Beach, 1963.  (Photo, surfguitar101.com)

   Karen was still coming to Huntington Beach when she went to college.  "I would go to the Swedish smorgasbord---later, when my uncle moved here in 1980, he liked to go there because he like herring."  Karen's dad and uncle had a thing for fish.

   Read more about the former Villa Sweden at local historian and Orange County archivist Chris Jepsen's blog at http://ochistorical.blogspot.com/2006/09/remembering-villa-sweden.html

The kitschy Villa Sweden Smorgasbord at 520 Main Street later became the Shorehouse Cafe, and is now local favorite Cucina Alessa.  You can still get fish at Cucina Alessa, but not herring.  How about salmon with diver scallops and prawns? (Photo, ochistorical.blogspot.com)

   It's Huntington Beach.  Dean Torrance, of Jan and Dean, still sings here.  Pioneer surfer Corky Carroll still runs a surfing school here.  And, that sharply-dressed businesswoman walking down Main Street?  She still knows how to do the Surfer Stomp.

   We leave you today with Surfer Stomp instructions.  Turn up the The Mar-Kets!

Editor's note: Special thanks to long-time local Karen Jackle for sharing her memories.  

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Huntington Beach blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.