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Oaks history — never dull

This article was contributed by longtime Ojai Valley resident Susan Roland. Roland recently discovered this article in the belongings she inherited from her mother. The “Ojai Valley Museum” has added the photos to the article.

Hollywood glamour

Oaks history — never dull

[Much of the following history of the Oaks hotel was taken from a series of articles for the Ojai Valley News by the late Helen Davenport, in 1962 society editor of the OVN.]

Colorized postcard of The Original EL ROBLAR–hotel, now the Oaks, as it looked back in the 1920’s. The photo is from the post office tower.


Staring as a quiet little country inn, the hotel opened around 1920 after many false starts and much talk. The ground was originally owned by P.K. Miller and he built a house on the site where he raised his family, according to Jennie Miller Griffin, his daughter.

The house burned down in the big fire of 1917.

A number of Ojai residents took an option on the property and became stockholders. These stockholders sold out at 50 cents on the dollar to Frank Barrington of Santa Barbara.

THE STORY GOES that the Barrington’s worked for a wealthy woman in Montecito, he as a butler and she as an upstairs maid. It is thought by others that she was a trained nurse. Both, it is true, were Irish and friendly. The wealthy woman ultimately died and left the couple $25,000 to run a hotel. Ojai was their destination.

Soon the hotel opened for business under the name of El Roblar.

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Mr. Barrington in front of the El Roblar on March 4, 1929.

Following the death of Mr. Barrington, his wife continued to operate the hotel for many years. She brought many of her relatives over from the old country to visit and work in the establishment. Local residents held parties there, because the Ojai Valley Inn at this time was a private club.

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Mrs. Barrington in front of the El Roblar in March 1929.

Mrs. Barrington was neat and orderly and well-liked. She saw to it that flowers were in the rooms and on the tables. As was the custom of the time in many homes, she had doilies and tidies strewn around for the homey touch. She took flowers to the Presbyterian church for many years.

Frank Barrington is remembered as a man of graceful charm. The New Years’ Eve parties are well remembered when he served his famous eggnogs to carollers returning to the hotel at midnight — a touch of alcohol in them for adults, unspiked for the youngsters.

Chauffeur-driven cars drove around the orange trees to the front door, letting out passengers who returned many times to the year-round hotel.

FROM A QUIET little country inn — the Oaks hotel became an internationally known hostelry. Changes in ownership followed in rapid succession, some tragic, some happy.

Mrs. Barrington sold the hotel to Canfield Enterprises of Santa Barbara. Mr. and Mrs. Canfield took over with many plans for changes and expansion. But these were put to a tragic end with the unhappy suicide of Mr. Canfield.

This was followed by the ownership of the Oaks going to the Cromwells of San Francisco and once more the doors were open with eager anticipation of a great future. Plans had been completed for the Matilija dam and hopes were high for an expanded hotel to take care of the expected influx of engineers, visitors and fishermen. Once again these dreams were shattered by the suicide of Mr. Cromwell.

Mrs. Barrington again took over the hotel. She soon leased it to Richard Paige (presently living on McAndrew road). This time some of the dreams became a reality. Paige and Morgan Baker, his associate, built the first bar in the hotel. A small intimate room it soon became a sought-after meeting place for cocktails and after-party and theater gatherings. It was noted for its “rump rail” an innovation which allowed the weary drinker to slouch in an orderly fashion with elbows and derriere well supported.

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Mary Harmon and Morgan Baker in the El Roblar in 1954.

During the management of Paige and Baker, the present swimming pool was added to the Oaks attractions. Swim parties were frequent and the hotel became better-known than ever. The unhappiness of the previous years was completely forgotten behind the happy shouts from the bar and pool.

MANY STILL SPEAK of Martinez the bartender, who is said to have mixed a martini so memorable that people spoke of them in hushed and awed voices. They were, it is said, refused to those who were not regarded as worthy of such a mixture by the noble Martinez.

The management of Paige and Baker, as all things must, came to an end as these gentlemen became occupied elsewhere, and the Oaks — still owned by the Barrington estate — again sought ownership and management.

In 1952 the hotel was bought by Frank Keenan and the hotel entered into an era of splendor and activity it had not known before. Keenan was a former county assessor for Cook County, Ill., which is largely taken up by the city of Chicago, and he had glamorous plans for the hotel which he promptly began to carry out.

The present cottages around the pool were built and were soon filled with some of the most glamorous names of Hollywood and New York and less desirable places. Gangster Bugsy Siegal was a visitor. The dining room was remodeled and the bar enlarged. Keenan brought his genial brother Jim to act as host.

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Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel

THE DINING ROOM was named the Chicago room and was greatly sought-after as a meeting place for important groups and glittering with social affairs. The opening with Bud Abbott as M.C. was rumored to cost $10,000. Guests arrived from all over the country and local residents who were lucky enough to be included talked endlessly about the gala affair.

It was during the Keenan ownership that the Oaks took on its present shape and form (that was 1962). The Keenan brothers wide acquaintance brought distinguished guests — and some who had glamour. Nevertheless, it was noted for its quiet dignity, fine cuisine and genuine hospitality.

It was said that Keenan wanted to make the Oaks into a casino a la Las Vegas. City officials who requested their names be withheld remember being approached with propositions and requests for “protection”. These officials let it be known that no gambling would be allowed in Ojai and this particular project was dropped.

The future of the Oaks was suddenly thrown into doubt when after four years of gaiety the Keenan brothers were indicted for income tax evasion back in Illinois. They were convicted and sent to prison.

The genial Jim Keenan died in prison; Frank Keenan completed his term and many hoped he would again resume ownership of the Oaks.

ONCE AGAIN the hotel closed and the halls were hushed. They remained quiet for over a year.

Through Keenan’s attorney, the hotel came into the hands of Heiress Lolita Armour (of Chicago packing house fame) and her new young husband Charles Madrin. It was thought that the hotel was being used as a tax write-off. A deal was made to trade the Armour estate in Lake Forest, Ill. for the Oaks hotel and once again the closed sign was removed.

On Jan. 1, 1958, a new regime started — one of toil and trouble — and a series of managers followed. There were seven in a two-year period before closing early in 1962.

Civic organizations held meetings at the hotel, lunches and dinners set by local residents, dinner dances were held, and the Wednesday style show around the pool were attractions. One manager installed electric heat lamps to be used on the terrace when the sun failed. A key-holders club was formed to make residents use the pool and bar and Richard Blalock’s orchestra played in the large dining room. Honeymooners loved the quiet of the mid-week and Hollywood celebrities dropped in for a rest in the country. Conventions were booked, but accommodations were such that only small crowds could be handled. The hotel was also the hub of the town. Genial Gino Giamari held sway as head bartender.

On the debit side, the various managers made many mistakes. One called an employees meeting once each month, however it was soon seen that those who got up to talk were soon fired. Another imbibed too much, another hated music and called the bartender when the lounge was filled with local people listening to a $ 150-a-week pianist. The bartender was sent home and the patrons left.

The thing the employees hated most was the Las Vegas mirror installed above the bar. Some thought this was not only to check on the bartender but on the low-cut gowns of the ladies. Along with the mirror a complete intercom system was put in, one that could be reversed so that employees’ every whispered word could be checked.

IN FEBRUARY OF 1962 the American Association of Retired Persons (Grey Gables) took a 90-day option on the Oaks, planning to sell units to its members. The price was around $500,000. However, the deal never closed because of the high expense of fireproofing and bringing the aging structure up to the building codes.

The Oaks remained closed for a while in 1962-63 until it was taken over by a well-remembered Ojai valley figure — Santa Barbaran Vernon Johnson. A big, bluff, bearded extrovert, who worked as a telephone company lineman-foreman and still does. Johnson had come into an inheritance and “had always wanted to run a hotel”. Several years prior to this, he had gained a measure of fame when he toured ’round the world (including through Siberia) in a converted Greyhound bus with his wife and 9 children. He bought the mortgage from Lolita Armour for $295,000 — making a $50,000 cash payment.

JOHNSON PLAYED a genial host at these parties, circulating from table to table with stories and goodwill. “He” became, in essence, the Oaks hotel and his face appeared on the menus, on the paper napkins, matchbook covers and even the tiny bar soap wrappers.

Localites were impressed with Johnson who went to Los Angeles one day and bought a $3,000 rare Macaw bird and installed it in the lounge.

Johnson lasted a year before filing for bankruptcy. Henry Coulson, a federal bankruptcy referee living in Ventura, then had the unhappy task of keeping the Oaks open and alive, which he did without the benefit of hotel experience until the Oaks was bought by a local group, headed by Rodney Walker and Jerald Peterson, at an auction in Nov. of 1966 for $230,000.

COMMUNITY PROJECT—Keith Lloyd, left, manager of the Oaks Hotel, confers with Gerald Peterson, center, vice president, and Rodney Walker, president, in front of the 50-year-old Spanish-style inn. The trio heads El Roblar Corp., a community enterprise with 300 shareholders which bought the financially-plagued hotel at auction in 1965 for $230,000 and revived it. (Times photo by John Malmin)




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Let’s keep the Sespe wild

The following article first appeared in the August 23, 1989 edition of the “Ojai Valley News” on the Editorial page. The article is reprinted here with the permission of the “Ojai Valley News.” The author is unknown.

Editorial

Let’s keep the Sespe wild

Rep. Robert Lagomarsino is on the right track in his efforts to protect Sespe Creek under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, but the California Republican’s plan doesn’t go far enough.

The Sespe is a treasure and its entire 55-mile length should be protected from development.

There is some question whether the full length of the Sespe is eligible for federal protection — some sources say the first eight miles is not — but every avenue that might lead to total preservation should be explored.

The Keep the Sespe Wild Committee is doing just this, and the group is to be commended.

Opponents of full protection and backers of Largomarsino’s bill — H.R. 1473 — contend that Sespe water will eventually be needed to support a growing Ventura County population. This, of course, would eventually require the construction of dams. Some even suggest that dams be in place by the end of the next decade.

We disagree with the water-for-growth issue and support the growing number of people and businesses that back the Keep the Sespe Wild proposal.

The cost of water provided by dams — as much as $1,000 an acre-foot — would be prohibitive and damming the Sespe would be detrimental to area Pacific Ocean beaches since the Sespe is an important environmental link in replenishing the sand.

Some argue that Sespe dams would help ease the problem of declining groundwater and the intrusion of seawater into aquifers, but there are better solutions to these problems.

And, if serious water problems develop years down the road, Congress could change the Sespe designation to allow it to be used as a water source in an emergency.

Again, we believe Keep the Sespe Wild has the best idea.

There are three classifications under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act — wild, which would allow no roads and no development; scenic, which provides for some roads and some privately-owned land; and recreational, with a lot of private lands, campgrounds or development.

The environmental group proposes that the 5.5 miles from the headwaters to Highway 33 at Adobe Creek to Trout Creek be designated scenic, that the 28.5 miles from Trout Creek to Devil’s Gate be wild and the four miles from Devil’s Gate to the Sespe’s confluence with the Santa Clara River be recreational.

This covers the entire length of the Sespe and is a far better plan than the one in the Congress that would protect only 27.5 miles of this Southern California treasure.

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THE PLANE TRUTH ABOUT OJAI’S AVIATION HISTORY

The following article first appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of “The Ojai Valley Visitors Guide” which was published by the “Ojai Valley News.” It is reprinted here with their permission.

THE PLANE TRUTH ABOUT OJAI’S AVIATION HISTORY

Story by
Perry Van Houten

Along the airfield’s perimeter was a low barbed-wire fence, and a grove of English walnut trees grew on the south and west sides. A few locals remember a restaurant across Highway 33 from the airstrip, The Airport Cafe, in the present location of Ojai Termite & Pest Control. A bar directly across Baldwin Road from the airstrip was known as The Refuge.

“AIRPLANE RIDES $8.00”
The sign was posted on the window of the two-seat Aeronca Champion parked at Henderson Field in Mira Monte. Twelve-year-old Drew Mashburn lived nearby on South Rice Road and might have been on his skateboard in 1964 when he noticed it. He had never flown in an airplane, and he knew this was his chance.

A few days later, Drew and his best buddy, Mark Madsen, 11, spotted the plane’s pilot standing there. They scraped together eight bucks between them, hoping the pilot would let them both cram into the passenger compartment of the plane. But the pilot insisted the price was $8 apiece.

The boys returned the next day, and the day after that, and begged. “I can remember the pilot actually threw his arms up above his head and he says, ‘Alright, I’ll go ahead and I’ll take the $8, and I mean not a penny less,’ ” Mashburn says. Wild blue yonder, here we come, he thought. His whole family gathered at Henderson Field for the occasion.

Henderson Field
Don Henderson built Henderson Field in the 1940’s, on family property near the intersection of Highway 33 and Baldwin Road. He ran a small flying school there, commissioned by the Army Air Corps during World War II. For nearly 30 years, the 2,100-foot runway accommodated up to 20 aircraft per week.

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, a popular pastime was flying from local airport to local airport; for instance, from Santa Paula Airport to the Ventura Airpark at Pierpont Beach to Henderson Field in Mira Monte. Well-to-do folks from Los Angeles would fly into Henderson on weekends, including Hollywood stars like Robert Young, Claudette Colbert and Norma Shearer.

“It was the only real, genuine airport I knew of in the Ojai Valley,” says Santa Paula pilot Bruce Dickenson, who had just learned to fly and landed his Piper PA-12 at Henderson Field a few times in the late 1960s. “It was a non-event,” Dickenson recalls, although he remembers there was a big set of power lines pilots had to avoid.

In July 1945, Don Hendeson died in the crash of his small plane near the airfield. He was 37. His son, Don Henderson Jr., was 3-and-a-half when it happened. He says his father had taken off in the fog early one morning for Bakersfield when, for some reason, he decided to return to the airstrip. “He overshot the runway and ended up in the walnut grove, on fire,” says Henderson, now 74. “I often think about how my life would have been different if he hadn’t died that day.”

Henderson Field, which had gone public just six months before the crash, stayed in operation and even opened hangars and a waiting area — with restrooms — in 1949. Pilots landing at night remember being guided down by their wives, who would park at the end of the runway and shine the car lights. The airstrip closed around 1970 and was replaced by the Ojai Villa Mobile Estate, which is still in existence today.

Hardly anything remains of the old airfield, except a portion of the runway sticking through the dirt on the north side along Baldwin Road, and some cream-colored rocks. “Almost directly across the highway from AJ’s Express Chinese Food you will see several boulders. The boulders used to line the entrance to Henerson Field and the hangars,” say Drew Mashburn.

Other Ojai Airstrips
The Ojai Valley’s fondness for flying machines dates back to the earliest days of aviation. A 1929 aerial photograph shows a 1,500-foot airstrip near the “Y” intersection, where Vons is today. “It was removed around the time the Krotona Institute was built because the planes were taking off and landing right over people’s heads,” says Ojai historian David Mason. The Theosophical Society had purchased land south of the runway in 1924 in their move from Hollywood to Ojai.

Mason says a private airstrip on Rancho Cola near Lake Casitas may have been used in the filming of the 1950s TV series, “Sky King.” It was also used as a base for parachute jumpers. A landing strip in Rose Valley at Bodee’s Rancho Grande is shown on the 1991 USGS Lion Canyon quadrangle topographic map.

The Ojai area is also home to a number of heliports, including one that’s still in use at Help of Ojai’s West Campus on Baldwin Road — often referred to as “the old Honor Farm” by locals — plus several scattered throughout the backcountry that are utilized by fire, law enforcement and search and rescue crews. The late actor Larry Hagman had his private Majlar Heliport built on his estate atop Sulphur Mountain.

Crashes and Mishaps
When Ojai’s greatest benefactor, Edward Drummond Libbey, opened a new golf course and clubhouse in 1924, everyone wanted to check it out, including a Navy lieutenant who flew a military plane from San Diego to Ojai to see it for himself. “He circled the clubhouse a few times and then decided he would land on the fairway. But he nosedived into a sand trap and broke the propeller,” Mason says.

The damage to the aircraft took a couple of days to repair, and soon the pilot was airborne and on his way back to base, when again he had trouble. “He managed to take off from the green, and in doing so he hit the high wire running along Ojai Avenue, and it pulled the plane back down and he crashed again on the street, and broke the landing gear.”

Perhaps the most famous aviation mishap in the Ojai Valley was a product of Hollywood. Frank Capra’s 1937 movie, “Lost Horizon,” is based on the novel by James Hilton, who visited the valley in 1934 and exclaimed, “This is Shangri-La!” The plot follows a British diplomat and some civilians who crash land in the Himalayas. Some of the movie was filmed in the valley — although the Ojai footage reportedly ended up on the cutting room floor. However, the valley is still often referred to as Shangri-La.

In 1945, a USAAF pilot crashed his P-51D Mustang fighter plane into Nordhoff Peak, just below the fire lookout tower, while attempting an emergency landing in bad weather. Since the crash, debris from the wreck has been found scattered all over the mountain. In 1980, a U.S. Forest Service controlled burn in the area accidentally ignited unexploded ordnance from one of the aircraft’s high caliber machine guns, leaving the work crew wanting for flak jackets.

An aviation mishap in the Ojai backcountry in December 1949 had a much happier ending. Twenty-six-year-old Glendale pilot Robert Bryant disappeared on a flight from Glendale to San Francisco. He was found a week later, several miles from the wreckage of his small private plane on Topa Topa Peak, in upper Sespe Canyon. A ground party struggled through waist-deep snow to get to Bryant, who survived but suffered from serious injuries and exposure.

First Flight
Back at Henderson Field, Drew Mashburn’s family looked on as he boarded the plane for his first flight. “We started to get in the airplane and the pilot turned around, looked at us and said, ‘Hey, how much do you guys weigh?” Mashburn knew what the pilot was getting at — there had to be a weight limit. “There goes our ride, I thought,” he recalls.

In despair, the boys gave the man their weights. It was too much, but the pilot gave in. “He said, well, that’s a little over, but we’ll make it work.” They climbed in and off they went down the runway. “It’s good we didn’t spring the door in mid-air and fall out,” Mashburn chuckles.

At first, Mashburn thought the little airplane wasn’t going fast enough to get airborne. “It didn’t seem like we were moving very quick. I thought we were going to move a lot quicker. The wheels of this thing were going down into the chuckholes, and that’s probably the reason we couldn’t pick up any speed,” he says.

Bouncing down the narrow strip of oiled dirt, the aircraft passed the Mira Monte Market (now Rite-Aid). In those days, Mirror Lake was down at the far end of the runway, where Woodland Avenue is now. “And that thing kept getting closer and I kept thinking, man, we’re just gonna land in the lake. And at the very last second, up we went, and it was just stupendous. It was like no feeling I’d ever had in my life.”

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Creek takes ranger’s home

The following article first appeared on the front page of the Sunday, February 12, 1978 edition of the “Ventura County Star Free Press.”

Creek takes ranger’s home

‘We just got out of there in time’

By Gregg Zoroya

“I know I’m not afraid of the river now. I was before. Before, it looked like it was something out of the Grand Canyon. It looked like the Colorado River,” said Drew Mashburn, 26, county ranger for the Matilija campground area.


“Before” was the early moments of Friday morning when Mashburn and his 24-year-old wife Gene-Marie were driven from their home alongside the swollen banks of the creek.

As they turned from the home, wet and cold, with belongings that consisted of little more than the clothes they were wearing and escaped to a neighbor’s house, the raging torrent of Matilija Creek broke out and engulfed most of their house at 2088 Matilija Canyon Road.

In the process of destroying the house, the waters swept away the Mashburn car, pickup and cab-over camper.

A weakened roadside on which their remaining vehicle was parked — a county car containing camera equipment and other family valuables — collapsed and dropped the car into the creek later that morning.

“We lost the front porch, we lost the front screened porch, we lost the kitchen, the dining room. We also lost the living room and the beautiful stone fireplace,” said Mashburn.

The house, remains of which sit precariously on the edge of the creek, is county property and was valued at $40,000 said Paul Lamp, county parks superintendent.

Besides the vehicles, the Mashburns lost much of their furniture — including everything from dining and bedroom sets to refrigerator, stove, television and stereo, and an antique victrola.

Mashburn declined to put a dollar estimate on the property that is gone, until his insurance company can estimate the damage. But he anticipates a loss of several thousand dollars.

Much of the furniture is still under payment, said Mashburn.

“It’s like paying for a dead horse.”

With the stream 100 feet from their house and behind a thick five-foot-high earthen dike, the Mashburns tried to get some sleep late Thursday night.

Mashburn planned to keep checking the creek bank through the night.

“It was my opinion, that it would eat away a little at a time, and if I saw it get ready to go through the dike I’d move my car up on the road,” he said.

“We had trouble sleeping because of the sound of the roaring river. It turned out that the reason it was so loud was because it was right against our door.”

The creek had broken the dike several hundred feet upstream, across from the Paul G. Robinson home at 3080 Matilija Canyon Road. This was at 11:30.

Mashburn later guessed that when the creek broke the dike it shifted its course further up the bank with the Mashburn home right in its path.

At about 12:30 a.m. the couple was aroused by the sound of water smashing up against the door facing the river bank.

“I opened the door and a foot of water came right into the house,” he said.

He slammed the door immediately, “and it just flashed through my mind: This can’t be happening to me.”

In the instant the door had been opened he had seen a mass of water up along the side of the house and two of his three vehicles beginning to lean down into the water over a widening river bank. Other pieces of equipment that he knew had been there were already gone.

“As wild as it was,” said Mrs. Mashburn, “we just got out of there in time.”

They gathered what valuables they could, a traveling bag full of clothes, their two cats and their two dogs and waded up to Matilija Canyon Road, about 25 feet above and behind their house. Mashburn managed to drive one car out.

“I fell in the water and he was dragging me through it to get out,” said Mrs. Mashburn. “It was just awful.”

“I figured the first thing we should do is get up on the road. I figured it would be safe there,” Mashburn said.

It was, for the time being. They drove up the road to the home of John Steen, 2346 Matilija Canyon Road, where they spent a nervous, sleepless night.

But the water wasn’t through with them. The next morning, Mashburn drove back toward his home and parked the car on the shoulder in order to walk past two washed-out areas of Matilija Canyon Road. While he was probing the ruins of his home, a friend came running to tell him that the shoulder of road holding his car had given way and that Mashburn had lost the county car as well.

His wife was evacuated out by sheriff’s helicopter Friday afternoon along with other canyon residents.

Mrs. Mashburn recalled returning to the house Saturday morning.

“I didn’t cry until I saw the house that morning.”

“It is very doubtful that we would restore it (the house),” said Parks Superintendent Lamp.

“And if we did it would be another five years before we attempt it.”

Mashburn must find another home.


Daniel Jensen, left, and Jeff Jones, both of Ojai, and Ranger Drew Mashburn, gesturing, stand where Mashburn’s kitchen was before Matilija Creek swept through his home; his wife, Gene-Marie, is in the background
A car belonging to parks ranger Drew Mashburn lies stranded after storm waters that washed it downstream in Matilija Creek.

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Recharge Of Ojai Basin By Purchase Of Matilija Water Proposed To District

The following article first appeared on the front page of the Friday, January 19, 1951 edition of “THE OJAI.” That newspaper is now the “Ojai Valley News.” The article is reprinted here with their permission. The author is unknown. The headline was RECHARGE BASIN SAYS WATER CO.

Recharge Of Ojai Basin by Purchase of Matilija Water Proposed to District

Appearing before a meeting of the San Antonio Water Conservation District, L. J. Alexander, chief engineer of the Southern California Water company brought forth a plan whereby the hopes of the underground water basin of the Ojai Valley may be recharged.

Basically, Alexander proposed that all water users of the Valley cooperate 100 percent in an effort to purchase water from Matilija dam to be put in spreading grounds at the terminus of the second unit of the conduit from the dam, now nearing completion.

He gave a brief history of water in the Valley, stating that in a survey by the division of water resources in 1933-36, it was estimated that the mean annual recharge of the basin in the Ojai area would be 5000 acre feet. At that time approximately 1500 acres were being irrigated in all classes and categories in the Valley.

“Recent studies show,” Alexander continued, “that there are now 1500 acres in citrus alone, with 2700 acres susceptible to cultivation. There are some 3000 acres under irrigation at present. With this great increase, there is not enough water here now for all the developments going on.”

When asked what were the boundaries of the 1500 acres in citrus, Alexander said they lie east of a geologic formation one-half mile west of the junction of highways 150 and 399.

The Water company official estimated that the Valley needs 5000 acre feet of water per year. “There will be between 3000 and 3500 acre feet available this summer,” he said, “and someone is sure going to go dry. Last year on the fringe areas of the district some growers lost oranges, some lost groves. The revenue based on the citrus crop in the early part of 1950 definitely surveyed less than in other years. The situation brought about a definite economic loss.”

“Rain is what we need,” he remarked. “I don’t know how to make rain. We are here with a common problem.”

As a solution to this problem, Alexander said, “The pipeline (Matilija conduit no. 2) is here, and the problem is to get water into it. If there were 1500 acre feet available in Matilija that could be used in the Valley, that would make up the deficit.”

At an arbitrary cost of $20 per acre foot, Alexander pointed out that the water would cost $30,000.

“Let’s assume the water is there and we can get it,” he told the gathering. “That would mean $30,000 per year for water in this area. Only a few could get benefits from the pipeline by tieing into it directly, but by putting the water into the ground through spreading grounds and letting everyone pump, it would be there for all.”

He likened the Ojai water basin to a big bathtub filled with gravel. “As long as we keep the water here, everyone who has a “straw” in the tub can get it out,” he said. “This is the easiest way to get water to everyone. It doesn’t matter where you put it in the basin, it will recharge all the levels. Wells within a half-mile area (of the dumping area) would feel immediate benefit. The outlying fringe would feel the recharge in time.”

He cited similar plans which have been instituted in Orange county, Claremont and the Central Basin area in south Los Angeles, and which are under successful operation. He continued to stress emphatically the idea that the entire district should give complete cooperation to the problem, and should enter into a contractual agreement to obtain Matilija water.

“I can’t see any reason for Ojai if we don’t have citrus and agriculture,” the engineer said. “The merchants don’t bring money into the area. The basic income is agriculture, and if we destroy it, there is nothing left.”

He told the group that the Water Company is obligated under state law to supply its customers to the “last ditch.” “We’ll do it as long as we can,” Alexander said, “and when the supply runs dry, there’s nothing else we can do. If we have to haul water in here in trucks, you ranchers will all be gone, and there will be few people left in Ojai. The situation has been dog eat dog for the past two years. Not too long ago our wells were flowing. We are looking forward to pumping at 320 feet this year. The water level is lower than it has been since 1927. The reason for this is the tremendous development which has resulted in the 1500 acres in citrus, plus 1500 acres more in other use, with the additional domestic use.”

Returning to the figure of $20 per acre foot for Matilija water, Alexander stated that it would cost the users $8 per acre foot if the cost were shared equally by all users on a percentage basis. He explained that since the Valley requires 5000 acre feet per year, and the cost of importing 1500 acre feet to make up the shortage were $30,000, paying on a basis of benefits received would put the cost in the neighborhood of $8 per acre foot.

The suggestion of meters for pumps was advanced as an advisable solution to the equitable division of cost.

“The situation must be approached completely, honestly and with full cooperation,” Alexander emphasized.

“There might be 3500 acre feet of water available to the Valley this year with some rains, something should be done to develop cooperative means to take action along the lines I have suggested,” he said. “No matter what you do, the Southern California Water company will play ball all along the line.”

Explanation was made that the District could not take such action as was suggested under present law, since the rate is established on an ad valorem basis, but Alexander stated that the state legislature is being asked for an amendment in Orange county, which might be applied to other areas as an enabling law, so that each area could set up on a use basis.

Supervisor R. E. (Sam) Barrett told the gathering that with Matilija dam as a sole basis, he took dim view of any irrigation water being available. He repeatedly stressed the importance of the construction of a second dam, which would greatly increase the safe yield of Matilija.

Mr. Hoit Vicini, vice president of the Southern California Water company explained briefly that his company had only brought forward ideas which they had found in other areas which they felt might be helpful. “We came to go along with what you decided,” he said. “If there is no copious rain, a serious situation will develop. We hope to preserve the fertility of the Valley, and to work out the problem on an economic basis, so no one will get hurt.”

Alexander added that the company would be ready to assume its share of the cost of the proposed project on a percentage basis. He also stressed the point that the company has nothing to sell in the matter, but wishes to bring information to the District that might be of help to all in the solution of the water supply of the Valley.




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PARKING METERS FOR OJAI . . . ?

The following article first appeared on the front page of the Friday, January 12, 1951 edition of “THE OJAI.” That newspaper is now the “Ojai Valley News.” The article appears here with their permission. The author is unknown.

PARKING METERS FOR OJAI . . . ?

Some of our city fathers let drop a broad hint after their meeting Monday night that they would like to make a present of some parking meters to the city. This is rather a contrast to the propaganda put forward by council members some months ago to the effect that the issue of parking meters was not a serious one, but was introduced more or less to take people’s attention away from the proposal of a city sales tax, since passed.

They have not come out flatly in favor of the meters, but they have repeatedly brought the idea forward as a solution to what they term “Ojai’s parking problem.”

What parking problem? How can a town which has the greater percentage of its merchants concentrated in one block on one side of the street possibly have a parking problem? If the definition is such that the problem consists in not being able to park exactly in front of the establishment in which the driver wishes to shop, then, there is a parking problem. However, there is a large parking lot east of the city hall, and with the exception of a few unusual occasions, there has always been ample room to accommodate a large amount of cars, and without any overtime parking penalties. If shoppers still insist on parking on Ojai avenue, they are always able to find spaces within at least two blocks of the Arcade, which should not constitute a great burden, since many of these same shoppers are willing to beat their way down to Ventura or Santa Barbara and walk many blocks to do their shopping.

Nuts to the parking problem! If the city dads feel that our present rate of growth will demand more parking space in the future, let them make provisions for off-street parking while there is vacant land in the downtown area.

There is the parking lot adjacent to the city hall, already mentioned. There is land behind the Arcade, between Ojai avenue and Matilija street. There are various locations in the downtown section still unoccupied that will serve for parking if the council members fee that space is needed.

As to the financial picture, the meter company estimates that in Ojai, meters will bring in $4 per meter per month. With 110 meters installed, this would amount to approximately $5280 yearly revenue. Of this, the meter company takes half until the meters are paid for, which would take roughly two and one-half years. In the meantime the city would in all probability have to take on an extra employee to service the meters and make collections, since it has been the understanding, under the present city set-up that our city officials and employees are being worked up to and beyond their capacity. The additional employee would reduce the revenue from the meters, since it is a strange practice of people nowadays not to work for nothing.

It looks as though we are getting a little too large for our Levis. A city sales tax—yes. Off-street parking—perhaps, but KEEP PARKING METERS OUT OF OJAI.

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My Favorite Town — OJAI, CALIFORNIA

This article was originally printed on pages 42 – 46 in the December 1951 issue of “FORD TIMES” magazine which the “Ojai Valley Museum” has in their collection. The magazine was gifted to the museum by the Ojai Branch of the Ventura County Library System.

My Favorite Town —

OJAI, CALIFORNIA

by Lael Tucker

paintings by Brice Mack

We were looking for a temporary home town. We gave it that designation because, in the middle of a long trip, we had to find a town where we could spend six consecutive weeks writing. It had to be a very special kind of town—one to belong in—in a hurry.

We were rediscovering our own country after four years in Europe. Our own house was leased, our children in transition between languages and schools, our belongings scattered. So we started out to see our country again. Seventeen states and six thousand miles later, we were in Ojai, California.

Nobody told us about Ojai. We were still looking for that temporary home town. This day, we were merely on our way to relax in some hot sulphur springs up a small valley fifty miles north of Los Angeles. The narrow road from the Pacific Coast curled upward like lazy smoke. The gentle mountains on either side reminded us of the Pyrenees.

We came to a road sign that pointed to Ojai. We abandoned the hot springs idea simply because we like the name Ojai (O-hi), and because we felt happy. Six weeks later we still did. We hated to leave.

Ojai’s Main Streeet shops are sheltered in a long, homogeneous block under a continuous, graceful arcade. The post office has a Spanish bell tower, the park has picnic tables under the oaks and the best free tennis courts we ever saw.

The side streets are oak-shaded, and the Valley Outpost Motor Hotel is built on the edge of town under the mountains. Each housekeeping cabin is tree-shaded and private, and flowers bloom in each yard. The sun shines in a painter’s blue sky. Nights are cool in the brown, hot summer, and the winters are green and mild.

Ojai’s citizens come from everywhere, believe all kinds of things, dress as they like, and like what they please, from classical music to bowling at the local all-night short order joint. All kinds of school children go to all kinds of schools. The whole population—old settlers, winter residents, and visitors—have two things in common. They came to Ojai because they wanted to, and are there because they love it.

After so long in Europe, where everyone does everything for you, I had to learn to keep house all over again. In Ojai, everybody helped me do things for myself. Bewildered by the impersonal superabundance of food in the big markets, I went down the street to Mr. Cox’s family grocery. He helped me plan my menus and select the ingredients, while his chic, pretty wife told me how to cook what I bought. He also took me home in the store truck when I was walking, coaxed my daughter into drinking milk, and brought us orange crates for my son to convert to furniture. The Cox’s came from Oklahoma.

Since public laundering was rather an expensive business, Mrs. McNett, the manager of the motor hotel, loaned me her washing machine, taught me how to use it, and managed to do a big batch for me while showing me how. The McNetts are from Arkansas.

A lady from Maine initiated me into the art of making starch, and a neighbor from Louisiana said it was a pity not to darn good wool socks, and fixed up my husband’s while she demonstrated.

My husband wanted to write his book unmolested, do some walking in the country, hear some music and get a sunburn. Ojai obliged on all counts. Unlike the rest of California, Ojai expects you park your car now and then and take a walk for fun. It also understands a writer’s preoccupied, antisocial behavior. And there were six weeks of bright, browning sun—and a music festival!

El Rancho Ojai was a grant of land, full of streams, bears, wildcats and coyotes, all of which have since diminished. It was the press that really discovered Ojai’s dependable and lavish virtues. Charles Nordhoff, roving correspondent for the New York Herald, dropped up in 1872 and wrote so glowingly of climate and beauty that a lot of people named Dennison, Gray, Sinclair, Van Curen, Pirie, Montgomery, Munger, Waite, Todd, Pinkerton and Jones came out to visit and stayed to winter, founding a sunny, Spanish-style New England village in the western valley. In gratitude, they called it Nordhoff as well as Ojai for twenty-five years.

Its history is a fine mixture of New England and Wild West. A classical Latin scholar from Vermont named Buckman taught school in Ojai. One Colonel Wiggins opened the first hotel with a grand ball for three hundred and closed it again when his guests objected to being treated like company privates at New York prices. Four highly equipped professors, one specialist in Oriental languages, opened a Seminary for Young Ladies, but no young ladies dared the valley. The Thacher School for Boys, established in 1889, flourished, and later graduated author Thornton Wilder and Charles Nordhoff’s grandson, Charles, the writer.

Ojai town was incorporated in 1921 and has grown since from a population of 750 to 2,600. The constant sun, which is its blessing and its reason-to-be, has nearly destroyed it three times by making tinder of its surrounding forests.

But nothing has touched its spirit, its community spirit. Before you have been there a week, you find yourself partisan and citizen of Ojai. You speak of yourself in Ojai as “we.” It’s hard to define what makes it like that.

It’s a town of schools, day schools, boarding schools, progressive schools and prep schools, public schools and two where children take care of their own horses.

It’s a town of religions. Besides the usual denominations of an American community, there are Mormons, Missionary Baptists, and Four Squares. Mrs. Annie Besant tried producing the “new human type” in Ojai. Jiddu Krishnamurti made Ojai his retreat and many gentle people live there in order to listen to him.

It’s a town of the arts. It’s not its artists and writers, its Beatrice Wood, the ceramist, Guy Ignon, the painter, its Chekhov players or its music festival, that make it so. It’s everybody.

The millionaire’s wife will stand next to the talented plumber at the art exhibition. The wintering lady form Maine partners the Mexican ranch worker at the dance. The man who grows acres of oranges for fun or the one who drives in from Ojai to tend a business in Los Angeles may keep score for the school kids at the bowling alley. Whatever squabbles there are, are personal. You’re welcome. Not as a Howdy Stranger, but as Hello Citizen. They only want to keep Ojai the way it is: a place where you’d rather cut off your finger than cut down an oak tree and where you can belong at once, and for as long as you like.



The post office reflects the Spanish influence in Ojai.
TOP PAINTING: The shaded golf course at the Ojai Inn and Country Club BOTTOM PAINTING: Native oaks were here long before the first settlers came.
TOP PAINTING: Even a young town like Ojai has its past BOTTOM PAINTING: Autumn colors come early to the Valley
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ENGINEERS’ REPORT IS EXPECTED TO BE FOLLOWED BY CALL FOR BOND ISSUE

The following article first appeared on the front page of the Friday, July 9, 1949 edition of “THE OJAI”. That newspaper is now called the “OJAI VALLEY NEWS”. The article is reprinted here with their permission, The author is unknown. The front-page headline was “OAKS PLANS NEW WATER SYSTEM“.

ENGINEERS’ REPORT IS EXPECTED TO BE FOLLOWED BY CALL FOR BOND ISSUE

A definite and important step in securing a new water system for Meiners Oaks was taken Tuesday night when the Board of Directors of the Meiners Oaks Water District formally adopted the preliminary engineering report of John A. Dron, Ojai civil engineer. The report as presented by Mr. Dron recommended:
(1) The construction of a storage reservoir with a capacity of 870,000 cubic feet or over 6,000,000 gallons of water;

(2) The separation of the domestic or household supply from the irrigation use;

(3) The installation of a complete new piping system, ranging from 16-inches down to a minimum of 4 inches, with 52 6-inch hydrants and 39 four-inch hydrants for fire protection, and

(4) The establishment of a complete metering system.

Meeting July 26

Upon the adoption of Mr. Dron’s report, the Board discussed the proceedings that were necessary to call for a bond issue, and decided to hold a public meeting on the evening of July 26 at the Church of Christ building in Meiners Oaks when the engineering plan and the methods of financing it would be outlined, and further proceedings be determined. After considerable discussion the Board resolved to go into the matter of a bond issue to cover the cost of the new system and to purchase the assets of the present Company, the Rancho Ojai Mutual Water Co., which would then go out of existence.

Bond Election

After the general meeting as scheduled, the Board proposes to call an election for the bond issue, as soon as the necessary legal steps have been taken. William Selby, attorney for the District stated that he believed that the issue contemplated was reasonably within the bonding capacity of the District, and that there should be no difficulty in selling the bonds, which the Board tentatively decided would run for 25 years.

Irrigation vs. Domestic Use

In presenting his report, Mr. Dron emphasized that the difficulty the community has experienced in their water system has arisen largely from the fact that there is no present storage, and the dual use between domestic and irrigation demand has been in conflict. He therefore had designed the new system to completely divorce the irrigation use from the domestic use.

The water stored in the reservoir would be sufficient, under normal circumstances, to supply all householders for nearly a month, and would reach them under a gravity head with enough pressure to give ample volume at all times and for all purposes. The irrigation use would continue to be supplied through existing lines under low pressure and all together independent of the reservoir.

Metering System

He also pointed out that the sole revenue of the district for operating expenses and for retiring the cost of a new system, was the sale of water, and that therefore meterage to all consumers was imperative. His plan provided accordingly, and a complete metering system was included in the new project.

As soon as the matter has been publicly considered at the general meeting on July 26, the Board proposes to proceed with the necessary legal steps calling for an election on the bonds. If this is carried, then funds should be available about the first of the year for construction contracts.

The Board also directed William Selby to represent the District at an announced meeting of riparian owners of the Ventura river and representatives of the Zone One Water District, when the matter of releasing sufficient water from the Matilija Dam to maintain a constant flow in the river will be taken up.

That was the end of the front page article, but another article concerning the matter was on PAGE THIRTEEN:

HERE ARE PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS FROM THE DRON MEINERS OAKS WATER REPORT

GENERAL.
1. Acreage: The area considered in the report, which has been incorporated as the Meiners Oaks County Water District under the County Water District Act of 1913, as amended, comprises about 960 acres of residential and agricultural land, a part of the Rancho Ojai, lying in and along the east bank of the Ventura river as it debauches from the Santa Ynez range into the westerly extension of the Ojai Valley.

The approximate acreages in each classification are as follows: Residential, 210 acres with about 509 dwellings; Agricultural, 245 acres in citrus and other crops; River bottom, 180 acres of poor land, non-arable, with some housing; Upland or hilly, 325 acres of pasture or brush.

2. Population: Accurate population figures are not available, but estimates based upon the number of water consumers and upon a school census indicate a present population of 2,500. Recently the population, as in general throughout adjoining areas, has rapidly increased, and there is every indication that the increase will continue so long as land and water is available for further development. It must be emphasized that the future growth is dependent upon an adequate water supply, which even now is wholly insufficient during the summer months.

3. Water Sources: The present water supply is derived from a primarily riparian water right to the natural flow of the Ventura river amounting to 231 miners inches (one miners inch equals nine gallons per minute) plus water derived from three wells in the river bottom, two of which were drilled in 1948. The supply from these wells is insufficient to augment the natural flow, which during the present dry cycle of rainfall is greatly below normal

In the future, water may become available from the recently completed Matilija dam on the west fork of the Ventura river, and it may be necessary for the District to contract for a stipulated amount of unappropriated surplus water from the Zone One Water District.

4. History of Water System: In 1928 the Rancho Ojai Mutual Water Company was incorporated and took over the elements of a water supply, as it then existed, from the Ojai Ranch and Development Company, the active subdividers of Meiners Oaks. From about 1931 the system has been operated and gradually extended and improved by the Mutual Company.

Conditions of supply became so serious in the summer of 1948 that improvement became imperative. There being no storage except the water in the intake lines, the dual demand from domestic and irrigation users came into conflict, and it was necessary to schedule the latter use to certain days of the week.

Frequently householders were able to draw water for the most essential domestic use. This condition was aggravated by the impaired condition of the domestic distribution lines which, not alone being undersized to begin with, had become so corroded that their capacity was decreased by 30 per cent. Furthermore, these lines had been placed down alleyways between blocks, which had been abandoned for public entrys and inevitably became so obstructed by fences and outbuildings that the pipelines were inaccessible.

THE ENGINEERING PLAN

1. Water Supply: For the time being nothing can be done about this beyond drilling additional wells . . . but it is suggested that an effort be made to contract with Zone One for additional water from Matilija Dam storage, to supplement the riparian diversion from the river. The District would then be in an advantageously prior position in getting water when necessary, and undoubtedly if the water was not required could sell it to other users until such time as it was needed.

2. Storage: Perhaps the most glaring deficiency in the present system is the lack of any storage capacity. As matters stand the sole water available for emergency or peak demand is that backed-up in the intake line, and when the intake of water is low the pipe had no more water in it than the amount flowing under gravity. There are times when, if a fire should occur there would not be enough water available to supply a hydrant. Once a fire gained headway in the Oaks, under hazardous weather conditions nothing could stop it and the whole community could be wiped out.

From this consideration alone, if no other, the location of a suitable storage site became of prime importance.

A primary survey of the ground discovered a prospective site that upon detailed investigation seemed to fulfill the need admirably. This is located on the NE corner of Lot 3, Section T-4-N, R-23″ S. B. B&M. Water from the intake line could be delivered to the dam at a surface level of Elev. 910 feet above sea level, with a 100-foot lift. A storage capacity of approximately 20 acre feet (871,000 cu. ft. or over 6 million gallons) can readily be obtained at an elevation which will give a house delivery from 50 to 60 lbs. per sq. in. pressure.

3. Distribution System: The present domestic distribution system is so rusted and so small in size that it cannot serve users properly. Furthermore, it is located in the inaccessible center of the occupied blocks. From these considerations it was decided that the whole system might well be abandoned and a completely new distribution system constructed.

The new distribution system would run from the reservoir down the Maricopa road to the intersection of Meiners, Tico and Fairview roads. It would bifurcate at this point, a 12″ main running down the east side of the populated district generally along Lomita Avenue, and an 8″ main running down the west side of the area along Tico Road, with an intermediate grid system on the main streets of 6″ and 4″ across-connected lines.

The size of the outside mains have been determined on the basis of full development of housing in the potential subdivision areas lying east of Lomita avenue and west of Tico Road. The interior system is predicated upon a doubled occupation as there are many vacant lots yet remaining within the community area itself and also to provide adequate fire flow.

4. Conflicting Demands: As has here been stated, a considerable trouble has arised under the present system because of the dual demand for water. The plan advanced here is to divorce the irrigation water supply from the domestic; the irrigation demand to be supplied by the present lines under gravity head.

A great economy can be affected by this, as the irrigation requirements can be met from the free flow in the intake line, independently of the domestic supply, and only the domestic supply need be pumped to the reservoir and stored. It is true that there are certain complications due to the fact that some domestic users in outlying districts will still get their water from irrigation mains which will require chlorination, but it is believed that this will be only a temporary difficulty which can be met as it arises.

5. Water Measurement: Under the Mutual Company, users were entitled to a pro-rata share of available water, for which they were charged on a fixed amount either by acre or by service tap. Undoubtedly this has caused considerable waste, since there was no means of measuring an excessive use of water, or leakages that inevitably occur.

THIS AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE Meiners Oaks County Water District shows the boundaries and the site of the proposed reservoir. The site is at the narrow part of a small canyon or basin with a watershed area of 26 acres. Recorded owners of the site and protective land to be acquired are George Hantgin, M. M. Erro and William J. Fry. —- Fairchild Aerial Photo

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War Wagon!

The following article first appeared in the “Ojai Valley Guide” (VOLUME 37 NUMBER 3 | FALL 2019) on pages 136 – 137. The “Ojai Valley Guide” was published by the “Ojai Valley News”. The article is reprinted here with their permission. The photo of the broken egg was added by the Ojai Valley Museum.

LOOK BACK IN OJAI
with Drew Mashburn
Contributed on behalf of the
Ojai Valley Museum

War Wagon!

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?!!!??” DAD QUESTIONED ME IN A VERY STERN VOICE.

“But, Dad! I’m just gonna drive it down to the corner to show Doug and Rick!” I whined.

“What did I tell you before you bought it?” Dad asked.

“But, but … only to the corner, Dad!”

“I’m not going to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for all these years because you want to risk driving without insurance. You’re a juvenile, so I’m the one who gets sued for all he’s worth!”

Dad was adamant.


My first automobile collected dust while I worked my tail off for about three months accumulating enough dough for insurance. I mowed lawns, filled in ditches, rototilled weeds, baby-sat and whatever to speed me onto the highways and byways!

While I was earning the bucks for the insurance payment, I drove my 1949 Chevrolet pickup forward and backward about 6 feet in the area Dad designated as my parking spot. That old six-cylinder sounded like music to my ears! I painted the rear bumper aluminum and the rims black. I tire-blacked the sides of the old, weather-beaten, cracked tires. She was lookin’ mighty pretty to me, even though she had lots of dents, but had a great coat of dark-red primer. I gave my buddy (“Oakie” as my buds and I called him) $150 for the beauty. Oakie had covered the inside door panels with simulated-wood shelving-liner. He’d put new carpet on the floor and, best yet … installed “Barefoot” pedals on the gas pedal and a floor-mounted headlights-dimmer switch. I tell ya, that girl was chompin’ at the bit to hit the road and so was I!

One of the first places I drove my new wheels was to Nordhoff High School where I was a junior. When my buddies saw the pickup, a few of them posed: “Why did you buy a truck?!!?? You can’t take girls for a date in that ol’ thing!” AHmmmmmmm … they had a point, but I just told them that I’d borrow my folks’ F85 Oldsmobile on date nights. Settled that problem.

Mainly, I bought a pickup because my dad always had pickups. I learned to drive a manual transmission in Dad’s 1961 Chevy.

Pickups were in my blood! Pickups are very commonplace with young people today, but back in the ’60s, not a lot of youngsters cared for them as their primary ride. Yet, when out of school, all my buddies wanted to take my pickup frequently because it was fun. Riding in pickup beds back in those days was allowed, and everybody dug doing it. We took the pickup on camping trips, to the beach, to swimming holes up the Maricopa Highway, to local sporting events, and we cruised Ojai Avenue in it.

I could tell you tons of stories that happened with my ol’ 1949, but I have limited space. Here’s a good one: I’m NOT condoning this type of behavior, but it happened.

In October of 1968, my buddies decided for me that we were going to use my pickup as a “War Wagon” on Halloween to terrorize other pranksters and trick-or-treaters. We bought flats upon flats of eggs. We had serveral hundred egg-grenades. We filled balloons with gallons of water. The projectiles were loaded into my pickup’s bed. Larry Sisk rode shotgun while I piloted the War Wagon. Our buddies were not only in the pickup’s bed, but standing on the side running boards and rear bumper. Off we rolled to downtown Ojai.

None of our lurking enemies were expecting us. As we tanked on down Ojai Avenue, my buds launched eggs and water balloons in all directions. It was like a war zone!

We got the best of the soldiers who were taking cover behind the walls of the Pergola and Arcade. After we made a couple of passes, most of our enemies just hid as they saw us approaching. At some point, we wound up on Grand Avenue where one of our idiot buddies threw an egg at Mr. Hardy’s taxi cab. If I recall correctly, it was Casey Mansfield who did so. Anyway, Mr. Hardy chased us all over the place as I foolheartedly attempted to elude him.

Well, we deservedly got pulled over by the city’s finest on North Montgomery Street next to Ojai Elementary School. One of the two policemen in the black-and-white asked for my driver’s license. He asked me what we were up to. Uhhhh! What was I supposed to say?!!??? I pretty much told him that we were just acting our ages and being Halloween hoodlums. Sisky sat there and smartly remained calm. He was a useless shotgunner!

The policemen spotted all our ammo in the pickup’s bed. Sisky and I wisely remained in the cab. The coppers made the other guys stomp all the eggs and water balloons in the bed of the pickup. The bed was about 2 inches full of broken eggs and water. It was a gooky, slimed mixture that would have made great scrambled eggs, minus the shells. After scolding all of us, the policemen told all my buddies to get back into the pickup, then head home immediately. All the guys resumed their previous seats. WRONG!!! The coppers told all of them to sit in the bottom of the bed in the goop. Do you think a single one of my buds made a break for it!!! Nope! The jokesters all sat as directed and looked like a big ol’ omelet as they whined away. One of the policemen told me to get everybody home right away and to NEVER do what we had done again. Yes, sir!

I wound up selling the ’49 in 1969 during my senior year of high school. I bought a super-clean 1961 Austin Healy “Bug Eye” Sprite. Notice to all of my buddies: That car was a chick magnet. Eat your hearts out!!!




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1919 & 1920 Articles about Hotel El Roblar

The following articles were first run in “THE OJAI”. That newspaper is now “THE OJAI VALLEY NEWS”. The articles are reprinted here with their permission. The author(s) are unknown. Dates of editions in which each article was run are provided at the beginning of each article. The articles are about the “Hotel El Roblar” (formerly named “The Ojai Tavern”, “The Ojai Valley Inn”, “The Oaks at Ojai” and others). The 1919 drawing of the “The Ojai Tavern” (now, “Hotel El Roblar”) was added by the “Ojai Valley Museum”.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1919:

THE OJAI TAVERN

Architect Mead, upon whom rests the honors and responsibility of preparing the plans for The Ojai Tavern, soon to be erected, met Wednesday with the directors of the hotel company and tendered to them the complete plans and specifications for the proposed handsome structure.

The directors have asked a few contractors for estimates of cost of construction, and it is apparent that satisfactory information along that line was gained, as the treasurer was instructed to call for the payment of 40 per cent of the stock subscribed, or so much as the law requires of such corporations prior to proceeding to carry out the enterprise.

J. J. Burke, Boyd E. Gabbert and S. D. Thacher have been named as the building committee and work will proceed without unnecessary delay.

Hur-ray!

FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1919:

OJAI TAVERN NOW NEARING THE REALITY

On Saturday bids were opened for the construction of the new civic center hotel, soon to be erected, and to be known at the “Ojai Tavern”.

Three bids were submitted, but as yet the hotel company has not made public the figures, the matter of accepting the lowest bid having been taken under advisement.

Before another issue of “The Ojai” goes to press, we have every assurance that all details will be finally settled and the work of construction will begin early in April.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1920:

“El Roblar” is Name of New Hotel

After some six of eight months “reconnoitering, conflabbing and gestulating”, the directors of the Ojai Valley Hotel Company have finally and definitely decided on a permanent name for the civic center hotel. It is “EL ROBLAR.” the name is of Indian origin and signifies “a cluster of, or among the white oaks.”

The Ojai is pleased that this matter has finally been settled for we started out calling it “The Ojai Tavern,” then it was changed to “The Ojai Valley Inn,” but this last title did not last long, and was cast aside for the more euphonious title of “El Roblar.”

The last carload of furniture for the new hostelry arrived Wednesday and was hauled to the hotel Thursday and is now being placed in order and the official and formal opening of the hotel will take place within the next ten days or two weeks.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1920:

El Roblar Hotel Opens Its Doors

Hotel El Roblar, the valley’s new hostelry, opened its doors to the general public informally, Wednesday evening, and although not fully ready Manger Roach took care of the large number of guests that “knocked” for admission, in a very happy and pleasant manner.

The opening has been delayed far beyond calculations and plans, owing to the non-arrival of much of the furnishings, which are still “in transit”, and Mr. Roach has been forced to gather up substitutions here and there as best he could, in order to accommodate his patrons.

The supper menu for the opening evening was:

Soup, Cream of Green Peas, Olives, Celery, Roast Lamb, Fried Chicken Southern Style, Red Currant Jelly, Fruit Salad, Potatoes, Posse Duchesse, Garden Peas, Saute Bananas, Raspberry Jelly Mound, Peach Pie, Coffee, Tea, and Milk.

The date for the formal opening has not yet been set, but it will be in the near future, and will be one big evening in Ojai.

The stationery for the hotel, letterhead, envelopes, menus, etc., printed in four-colors, was executed at The Ojai printing office, and they are what critics say, “about the niftiest ever produced of their kind.”

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1920:

NEW MANAGER FOR THE EL ROBLAR

W. A. Roach, who leased the new Ojai hostelry, “El Roblar,” before its construction, has relinquished his interests, and Chas. A. Cooke succeeds him as lessee, and has assumed its management.

Mr. Cooke has long been identified with Southern California hotel enterprises, and as directing head has been highly successful, both financially and as a popular host.

For some time he was president of the Hotel Men’s Association, and more recently was manager of El Encanto at Santa Barbara.

He has opened El Roblar under most encouraging conditions, the patronage being excellent, with many reservations listed, among them one-half of the lower floor, the occupying party to arrive soon from Santa Barbara.
———————

Beginning February 5th the following rates will prevail at the Hotel El Roblar:
Breakfast, ……………………………………………………………….$1.00
Luncheon, ……………………………………………………………….$1.50
Dinner, …………………………………………………………………….. $1.50
Special Sunday Dinner, ………………………………………..$2.00
Special Sunday eve. Supper, …………………………….$1.50

Daily and weekly rated on application.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1920:

The Popular El Roblar Entertaining Many Guests

Among the week-end guests at the Valley’s new and popular hotel, El Roblar, were the following:

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carrington, Mrs. Steward, William Gammell, from the Ambassador, Santa Barbara; Mr. and Mrs. William Sweet, Boston; Mr. and Mrs. L. W. Ballon, Woonsocket, R. I.; Mr. and Mrs. Harold Chase and boys of Santa Barbara; Mr. and Mrs. Chas. P. Austin of Santa Barbara; Mrs. McCrabb and Miss Norton, Seattle, Wash.; Mr. and Mrs. Francis Farnsworth, W. J. Farnsworth, Santa Barbara; Mr. and Mrs. D. Bryant Turner, Colorado Springs; and Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Wetmore, Santa Barbara; J. J. Bayler and family of Chicago.

The hotel has had a large run of patronage all this week, many of whom have engaged quarters for an indefinite time.

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1920:

Ojai Hotel Company Hold Annual Meeting

The first annual meeting of the stockholders of the Ojai Hotel Company, owners of the El Robalr, was held at the office of the secretary of the Company in the Ojai Realty Company’s office, Wednesday forenoon. The report of the past year’s activities and accomplishments was presented and read, and proved quite pleasing.

The men who did most of the real work in organizing the company and in the preliminary work of getting the hotel constructed, were congratulated.

The following officers and directors were elected for the ensuing year:

S. D. Thacher, president; D. A. Smith, vice president; B. E. Gabbert, secretary; E. W. Wiest, treasurer; E. L. Libby, Geo. Holsten, J. J. Burke.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 1920:

El Roblar to Open Tomorrow August 14th

The many friends of the El Roblar Hotel will be pleased to learn that the new lessees, Messrs. Flander and Frank Barrington, will open that popular hostelry to the public on tomorrow noon, August 14th. A cordial invitation is extended the public to dine at the El Roblar whenever opportunity permits.