A photographic query

[Upshot? The above photo memorializes completion, in 1926, of a stretch of PCH connecting Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. On hand were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. --RB, 4/3]

Earlier today, I posted a few spiffy old photos that I found in the Orange County Public Library archive, and I included the one above. I knew about it only that, supposedly, it was taken in Laguna Beach.

But when I looked at this photo again today, it occurred to me that the man at the anvil is none other than Douglas Fairbanks. I blew up his image at right:

Compare the image with this pic of "The King of Hollywood" with his wife, Mary Pickford, in 1920:


Bingo. Well, naturally, it occurred to me that the gal at the right would likely be Mary Pickford, aka "America's Sweetheart." Here's a blowup of the gal.

And here's Pickford in 1918 (at right):

Ditto Bingo.

Pickford and Fairbanks are known to have frequented Laguna Beach during their time together (c. 1920-1933), so I figure it's likely that I've correctly identified these two. And I'm guessing that the picture was taken in the early 20s.

But what is the occasion memorialized in this photo? It appears to be some kind of opening. But of what?

Note that several persons in the photo are wearing costumes. Laguna Beach was known for its "Indian" (i.e., Native American) pageants, but not all costumes in the photo fit that theme.

What do you think? And can you help me to identify others in the photo?

UPDATE: BeachCalifornia.com offers a brief history of Corona del Mar, including Pickford and Fairbanks' involvement in the opening of PCH—connecting Laguna to Newport Beach:

Plans for Corona del Mar at the turn of the 20th century were as a vacation resort destination. On June 29, 1904 George Hart signed an agreement with the Irvine Ranch for the purchase of a 706.08-acre corner of land on the Irvine Ranch for summer cottages. His concept quickly changed in 1904 when visitors came to play and wouldn’t leave so perfect a spot. Until the late 1920’s, Corona del Mar was a tiny village reached from the peninsula by small boat at high tide, or by a muddy dirt road that crossed the Irvine Ranch and continued along the bluffs around Newport Upper Bay. With the opening of Pacific Coast Highway in 1926 (Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks were there for the ribbon cutting), a period of slow growth began, not accelerating until after World War II.

Could our pic be of that “ribbon cutting”? It does include a little girl wearing a sash that says “Miss Newport Beach.” But they're definitely not cutting a ribbon, and they don't seem to be opening a road. And why wear costumes for such an occasion?

UPDATE (April 1): whole hawk

Our good friend Bohrstein (Bohr+Einstein) has located this factoid in the Orange County Almanac:

1926: …Pacific Coast Highway opens between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. Screen stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, costumed as the god Vulcan and "Spirit of Progress," attend the opening ceremony….

BS’s theory is/was that the pic includes actors involved in the 1922 movie “Robin Hood” and thus depicts an event during its filming, probably at some "Hollywood" location. In fact, it really does seem to me that several of the people in the crowd are among the actors for that movie. But BS’s new data suggest that the pic is of the “ribbon cutting” for the new stretch of PCH after all—cuz Fairbanks is surely doing a “Vulcan” kinda thing here. And Pickford might well be some kinda "Spirit" (what do spirits wear?).

As I told BS, I am now officially on the fence about this. PCH or RH? I be discombobulated!

And I will not remain on the fence. I am now on a quest! As my German mother would say right about now, “I am in dis ting whole hawk!”

UPDATE:

Craig Chalquist, in his book Deep California, briefly discusses Laguna Beach, describing its growth:

Another boom arrived with the Pacific Coast Highway. For its 1926 opening, Douglas Fairbanks dressed up as the god Vulcan welding links in a chain of friendship running north to Long Beach while his wife Mary Pickford stood by as the Spirit of Progress admiring the crippled blacksmith. In photographs taken at the event the two seem a trifle embarrassed.

Yeah, in the photo, Dougie Boy does seem to be making links in a chain. Is he embarrassed? Don't thinks so, but we've not seen all the pics. --RB

Some seriously cool old OC pics

Here’s a shot of Main Street in Tustin. Nowadays, the building with the neoclassic colonnade is occupied by my favorite restaurant, Rutabegorz (which caters to vegetarians). According to the Ruta people, the structure was

built in 1914 by the son of Columbus Tustin. It is one of the oldest buildings in town. The building first served the community as a general store owned by Charles Artz, and has since been home to many various businesses. During the Depression, the building for a short time even became a classroom for local school kids.

Here’s a curious shot of what is supposed to be Laguna Beach (in the 20s?). The little sailor’s sash (at left) says “Miss Newport Beach.”

Here’s a picture of Laguna Beach in 1910.


This is “Bird’s Café” in Laguna Beach, 1935. Is this the same building as “The White House,” on PCH, near Main Beach?


Maybe, but then how explain this? That's the White House, at left, in 1920. I've been trying to identify buildings in old pics lately, and it's makin' my head spin.

I found all of these photographs in the Orange County Public Library archives (OC photos). I've only gone through about a fourth of what they have there.

Mathur a dead ringer for Gallaxhar?

One of our readers tells us that he (she?) has seen "Monsters vs. Aliens" and that, in his/her estimation, there is a "freaky resemblance between the evil alien leader and the leader of our district [Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur]."

He/she asks, "Am I crazy?"

Well, judge for yourself. The alien leader—Gallaxhar—makes his entrance at about 40 seconds into this trailer.

Personally, I think this claim, whether true or not, is an insult to aliens everywhere.

Laguna Beach, years ago

Today, I perused the OC Public Library archives, and I came across this old photograph of "Fairy Wood" dated c. 1927. I had never heard of Fairy Wood, but it looked familiar. So I Googled the name and found that it was the site used by Laguna Beach's Isaac Jenkinson Frazee* (1858-1942) to present his Indian Pageant. This property later became the location of the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts.

Obviously, this is a photograph of Laguna Beach, at or near Main Beach, in the late 60s. Presumably, the signs ("Refuse to serve in the Armed Forces") concern the Vietnam War. Check out the price of Super Shell: 34 cents a gallon.
You can see the White House Café in the background at right. Here's a picture of the White House in the 40s:

This, too, is Laguna Beach: May of 1967, I believe. "Eiler" likely refers to Eiler Larsen, the city's "greeter" in those days (and until his death in 1975). I'm not sure what kind of help the fellow needed in 1967, though it was about then that he became ill. (Larsen, a WWI vet, was born in 1890.)

*Born in Winchester, Indiana, Isaac Frazee (1858-1942) was a painter who specialized in Indian subjects and also wrote books, short stories, and poems. At his private amphitheater on his San Diego ranch, he produced "Indian Love Pageant,” predecessor of Laguna’s first Indian Festival in 1921 that evolved (with the help of Lolita Perrine) into the Pageant of the Masters. Frazee’s sketches of Laguna Beach in 1875 are the earliest known depictions of the area. He made his home in Laguna in 1926, just before it incorporated and lived here until his death. (From Orange Coast Living.)

Helena Modjeska documentary

Below: a trailer for an upcoming documentary about actress and OC icon Helena Modjeska. From director Basia Myszynski.

What if they gave a democracy and nobody came? Board meeting notes, part 2

Re Tuesday’s board meeting:

[Continued...] Eventually, the board arrived at items 6.1-3, which concerned our district’s benighted ATEP campus out there in Tustin where the Marines (et al.) used to dump carcinogens onto the ground every five minutes for forty years. As things stand, ATEP is an acre of cool looking Art Tin-canno buildings right along Redhill, where kids/adults learn how to work various kinds of technical whizbangery.

Yeah, but what about the other 67 acres?

ATEP 2.0 was once supposed to be a center for “Homeland Security” training. Then, I think, it was supposed to be a center for the study of gizmology (well no) and Young Republican Hoofers 'n' Crooners (yes, sorta). Anyway, in recent years, efforts have been made to work with Money Men (and Money Women I guess, though I never seem to spot any of those) to create a film and TV pre- and post-production complex and underwater basket-weaving appreciation module.

For a while, the “Camelot” people seemed likely to put this thing together, but they turned out to be Money Men sans Money. Nowadays, there are two bigtime developers in the running (they seem to be avec money), and they’re still talking about that Film and TV studio, which, I'm told, is desperately needed in OC. One wonders why these Money People need us, cuz leasing property has got to be cheap in OC by now—I mean, what with the country hitting the skids and all.

In the meantime, the City of Tustin is essentially a crew of hayseeds who keep falling off of a turnip wagon (see Albert Camus' “Myth of Turnipus”)—and those people are pissed because, way back in the 60s or 70s, they were slated to get their very own community college right there where the Tustin Marketplace now stands, but then that wily old Irvine Company arranged one of its slick deals to avoid paying taxes by giving away that orange grove upon which IVC now sits.

So there you are: Irvine got the community college, and Tustin got IKEA. Ever since, Tustinistas have resented IVC and Irvine and their high-handed ways. The hayseeds who run that town (they’ve got names like “Lou Bone”) have been pounding their little fists and stamping their little feet to turn ATEP into “Tustin Community College.” But that just ain’t gonna happen.

I’m told, though, that the Tustin people have decided at long last to make nice. Don’t know what that’s about.

So, on Tuesday, the legal eagles of the bigtime legal firm that is advising us re ATEP (think of the money they're making!) showed up to explain a series of “resolutions” having to do with environmental impact reports and "conveying" the property and defanging the toxins. Something like that.

PUBLIC HEARING:

The way this went down was interesting. Board Prez Don Wagner recessed the regular board meeting to go into a “public hearing” regarding this complicated ATEP stuff. (A meeting within a meeting! How cool is that?) Then he asked if any members of the public wanted to speak to these “resolution”/ATEP issues.

Anyone?

At that moment, the spiffy and spacious Ronald McDonald Room was as quiet as the Gipper's tomb. Not only did no one want to speak, nofreakinbody showed up!

I enjoyed it immensely.

So Don looked out at the sea of nothingness and went forward with the damned resolutions.

He made a big deal of asking for public comments twice. I could tell that he was awfully proud of himself for this supererogatory CYA.

If any Tustinistas were there, I sure don't know about it.

Later, the board got to item 7.1, “ATEP Developer Selection.” The “principles” of Hudson Capital, LLC and Cyburt Hall Partners were there to “discuss their credentials” to complete ATEP 2.0.

That’s when Tom Fuentes manifested his fear of ATEP turning into a production facility for porno most foul (PMF). It was kinda like that scene in Dr. Strangelove when Herr Doktor Peter von Sellers explained the need for a rigorous repopulation program, post apocalypse.

Creepy, man.

What about “violence and vulgarity?” asked the violent and vulgar Mr. Fuentes. We don’t want a “fox in the chicken coop,” he said.

But the foxes explained that their vision of ATEP involves pre- and post-production, not big fancy soundstages and partings of the Red Sea. As things stand, businesses in the OC have no place to go for commercials and reality shows and Tony Robbins' chin and whatnot, and this facility would be just the thing.

Fuentes yammered for a while about our securing the 68 acres of the old helicopter station as a fine “peace dividend garnered for us by this man over here.” Fuentes turned around and gestured at the name “Ronald McDonald” on the wall. (Well, no. “Ronald Reagan.”)

I’m not making this shit up.

“Every six months,” continued Tom, there’s s strike in Hollywood, and, hey, in the SOCCCD we’ve got union teachers (he grimaced and snarled à la Tasmanian Devil). He wondered if the latter dastardly crew would “cross the union line.”

Well, the Money Men essentially explained that Fuentes doesn’t know what the f*ck he’s talking about. Market-related work doesn’t stop just because of strikes, they said. “The entertainment/marketing business goes on,” they said, no matter freakin’ what.

OK, whatever. No decision was made.

That was about it, I guess.

He hoied my polloi: notes on Tuesday's board meeting, part 1

hoi polloi: the masses; the common people. Hoi polloi is sometimes used incorrectly to mean ‘upper class’—that is, the exact opposite of its normal meaning.

I showed up to the March 24 board meeting about ten minutes late. Before I even sat down someone whispered to me that something was up with the board and its devotion to religious invocations, for, just then, Board President Don Wagner had shared a “Hopi prayer” instead of the usual “Dear Heavenly Father” stuff. I’m told that the room grew particularly solemn and quiet during Don’s brief detour through the multicultural spiritual universe.

Were they waiting for a bolt of lightning?

During her report, trustee Marcia Milchiker expressed her enthusiasm for some campus event that included a “Flamingo dance.” This no doubt pissed off the Andalusians in the audience. (It's flamenco, not flamingo!)

For his part, Chancellor Raghu Mathur blathered about a letter from former bigwig Dianne Woodruff. Evidently, she had gone out of her way to praise the work of IVC’s Bill Hewitt as a “valuable member of the consultation council,” whatever that is. (Something in Sacramento, I think.) He also noted the new signs at Saddleback College, which are “easy to read.”

Just then, someone grumbled to me that some of this new signage is misspelt. (For years, the A300 building at IVC sported the label “Humanites.”)

During Don Taylor, David Gatewood, and Randy Peebles’ presentation concerning “Career Technical Education Programs” at the three campuses, Taylor and Wagner exchanged delightful banter regarding St. Ronald Reagan (aka "he who must be invoked every 15 minutes"). I didn’t quite catch it, but I assure you that it was amusing beyond words, judging by the uproar.


Taylor provided a brief account of the history of community colleges, starting with the Smith-Hughes Act, I think. Yeah, schools were recognized as necessary to produce good workers for the factories, yadda yadda yadda. A turning point for cc's occurred just after WWII—because of the GI Bill—he said, and we seem to be at another crossroads today.

"You probably don't want to go into print journalism," he said.

Some students showed up with a PowerPoint presentation describing a proposed IVC Recycling Complex. It was one of those student things that is supposed to bowl over the adults in the room, but, in truth, the trustees were only mildly impressed, and Tom Fuentes seemed unpleasantly scoffular about this proposed intrusion by government into the private sphere (as they love to say in Right-Wing World).

Student trustee Hannah Lee once again enlivened the discussion with a daffy remark seemingly provided by writers for Fox television: “Thank you for an AWESOME presentation!” she said.

Apparently, the packet of info re the Recycling Complex made mention of international students, and, natch, this was detected by the ever-alert Mr. Fuentes and his sophisticated xenophobic radar. It turns out that international students are very restricted in the kinds of work they can do on campus, and this center would provide jobs that fit the bill perfectly.

That seemed to assuage the Fuentster.


Tom pulled an item from the consent calendar: renewal of a contract to print and email class schedules.

This, said Fuentes, is unnecessary. After all, didn’t his neighbors tell him that they get this schedule and immediately toss it in the trash? Well, QED!

Tom seemed to suggest that members of the community can simply go online, register, and find the classes they want without all of this mailing of schedules. Plus, he said, we just got through agreeing to a generous faculty contract (aka "an obscene waste of taxpayer money"), and so we ought to find ways to save money somewhere.

Harrumph!

As I reported on Tuesday, trustee John Williams judged this proposal to be a “great idea.” Maybe, he said, we could mail little postcards instead! But Nancy Padberg rolled her eyes as per usual and then demurred. I think she mentioned her neighbors, too. Anyway, sending these schedules increases enrollments and is great marketing, she said. Tom's idea sucks.

Dave Lang seemed to side with Fuentes and Williams, though he seemed unprepared to support an immediate decision. He favored further study. I mean, maybe we can determine the potential effects of this approach, he said.

Don Wagner naturally “echoed” what his pals had been saying. But Bill Jay suddenly (well, no) looked both discomfited and elderly. He mentioned his neighbors and family members and their love of mailed schedules. Plus “Emeritus” students are “forgetful,” said he, "as I am."

He declared Mr. Fuentes’ proposal to be “penny wise and pound foolish.”

Hannah Lee expressed a “student’s perspective”: “I just go online,” she announced perkily. Everyone stared at her absurdly young and perfect face.

Fuentes noted that some other districts had made the change. But he seemed to see the wisdom of “further study.”

Now, during much of this, Saddleback College’s Academic Senate President, Bob C, had his hand in the air—to no avail. At one point, sensing that the discussion was winding down, I raised my own hand and pointed at Bob, at which point Mr. Wagner spun around and roared that, yes, “I see you, Professor Bauer” and goddamit I don’t need the likes of you telling me what to do!

Well, that was the gist of it. Evidently, even before I dared to raise my hand, he had been whipped into a state of abject peevitude because several persons had signaled to him that, um, what about Bob?

He now bellowed that he would get to Bob later—maybe—after the board was finished discussing the matter!

Tsk, tsk. How very undemocratic. He had hoied my polloi.

Eventually, Chancellor Mathur, his nose a stinky deep brown, effused about Fuentes’ proposal and commenced talking about ways to “implement it.” But Bill Jay then reminded everybody that older folks “are not computer literate at all.”

A truer thing had never been said.

Eventually, Bob C was permitted to speak. He noted that there is a survey done every other year and it has indicated that 63% of our students are brought to us via the mailed class schedule.

In the end, the matter was tabled.

To be continued....