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Turn of the Century Ojai

Turn of the Century Ojai by Howard Bald

Note: Howard Bald was an early Ojai resident.  These reminiscences were probably written in the 1960s.

Nordhoff (now Ojai) has generally been described as a quiet, peaceful little place, and generally it was. Several oak trees strung along Main street from Tom Clark’s livery stable to Schroff’s harness shop furnished the only shade, for there was no Arcade until 1918-19 [1917].

There were three gaps in the row of buildings on the north side of Main Street. One was between Lagomarsino’s saloon and Archie McDonald’s blacksmith shop at the east end of the business block, about the location of the Edison office and Barrow’s hardware store [Rains Department Store] stood alone. There was an alley on both the east and west side of that building, which I think was the site of the present hardware store.

The east alley was used by pedestrians. I think the board sidewalk prevented vehicles going through. But the sidewalk ended at the west corner of Barrow’s hardware, so that alley was quite generally used by horsemen as well as pedestrians.

West of that alley was Bray’s plumbing shop, and from there on to Signal street was the livery stable with its buggy sheds, corrals and hay sheds. West of Signal on the site of the Oaks Hotel [The Oaks at Ojai] stood a small, whitewashed, clapboard house where chet Cagnacci was born at the turn of the century and later, I believe, Tommie Clark.

Across the street about the site of Van Dyke’s Travel Agency [Friends of Library book store] stood Dave Raddick’s residence, then easterly a break, then the meat market. On the southwest corner of Signal and Main was The Ojai newspaper printing office where the theatre now stands and easterly across the street, where the present post office is located, was Charley Gibson’s blacksmith shop. There was quite a gap between the blacksmith shop and Lauch Orton’s plumbing shop, the barber shop and post office. Through that gap could be seen the Berry Villa, which is now the post office employee’s parking place.

A little distance east of the post office, briefly, stood C.B. Stevens little grocery store, then the entrance and exit to the Ojai Inn which is now our city park. A leaky, redwood horse trough and a hitch rail extended onto the barranca. It was always shady, and teams of horses and buggies were customarily tied there while the out of town folk did their shopping.

I once had a Plymouth Rock hen who would bring her brood through the alley between the saloon and blacksmith shop to scratch around where the horses were tied. Sometimes she would miscalculate and be overtaken by darkness, so hen and chicks would simply fly up on a vacant spot on the hitch rail and settle down for the night. Our stable and chicken coop was just back of Dr. Hirsch’s office [next to Lavender Inn] and more than once at about bedtime, I would carry them back to their own roost.

Schroff’s harness shop east of the barranca stood high enough from the ground that one could step from a saddle horse onto the porch, which was convenient for ladies riding sidesaddle to dismount and mount.

The corner of South Montgomery and Main [now Ojai Chevron Station] was open and was used mainly by Thacher boys to tie their horses while attending services at the Presbyterian church, which stood where the Chevrolet parking lot now is [parking for Jersey Mike’s]. That building now is the Nazarene Church [Byron Katie Center] on N. Montgomery and Aliso.

I could go on and on and on with details of the village of Nordhoff at the turn of the century, but I fear that would become too boring, so I will get on with some of my memories of the activities of the time. (To be continued in future installments.)

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A Poor Farm for the Ojai Valley?

A Poor Farm for the Ojai Valley? By Ed Wenig

“Over the hill to the poor-house
I’m trudgin’ my weary way-
I, a woman of seventy, and only
A trifle gray…
Many a step I’ve taken a-toilin’
To and fro
But this is a sort of journey
I never thought to go.”

Thus ran a popular sentimental poem written by Will Carleton in the late 1880s. Except for the vote of our supervisor in 1895, such a journey might have been taken by indigent aged to the Ojai Valley.

“The Ojai” publicized a proposal on June 12, 1895, in an editorial bearing the headline: “A County Poor Farm for Ojai Valley”. “When the supervisors were in Ojai a few days ago viewing the roads, they also inspected the Roth ranch of 120 acres near Nordhoff, offered to them for the purpose of a county poor farm, and they were so favorably impressed with the advantages of the place, they ordered their intention to buy the farm.”

This touched off a series of editorials in various papers in the county concerning the advantages of such an establishment.

An article in the Ventura Free Press explained, “The change of the laws by which the support of indigent poor is borne solely by the county in which such indigents may reside is, no doubt, equitable and just, but it makes all the more necessary the careful consideration of the question as to how this may best be provided for in the most economical manner. By the purchase of a farm and caring for them they will become as nearly self-supporting as their condition will permit…Scarcely a county can be found in the Eastern States that is not provided with a poor farm. Nearly all of them are not only self-supporting, but a source of revenue.”

Immediately the supervisors were besieged by competing offers from parts of the county to sell them land for a poor farm.

The editor of “The Ojai” threw all his support to the proposed farm on the Roth property. He wrote, “The 120 acres are all good land, with plenty of wood and water…San Antonio Creek runs through the ranch…There are also on the place four springs, the water of which, coupled with a good climate, is said to be an infallible cure for asthma.”

In another issue he pointed out, “One strong argument why the Roth place is the most desirable for the poor farm is that it is within walking distance of all churches in the valley. Poor people desire and should have church privileges.”

In yet another issue he remarked, “The fact should be borne in mind the people who would be admitted to the poor farm are nearly always feeble and unable to do much of any labor in a climate that is not the mildest. The climate of the Ojai Valley can’t be beat in the world for its salubrity.”

The County Board of Supervisors went to San Francisco to study the poor farm maintained there. Upon their return, K.P. Grant, supervisor from Ojai, reported that, by means of the farm, San Francisco was able to care for the poor at an expense of only $3 per month each, which Ventura County was paying $5 per week.

The supervisors met on July 31, 1895, to make a final decision on the purchase of the Roth property. They were confronted with a written protest signed by many large landowners of the county, including such names as Adolfo Camarillo and Thomas R. Bard. In the final vote, K.P. Grant of Ojai and Supervisor Hartman voted in favor of the purchase of the Roth property, but the three other supervisors voted again it. Thus Ojai lost the county poor farm by one vote, and the entire issue of establishing a poor farm anywhere in the county was dropped.

It is interesting that, throughout the whole spirited discussion of the issue in the newspapers of Ventura County, the citizens of the Ojai Valley remained strangely silent. No letters pro or con appeared in the local paper, nor was there any evidence of discussion in public meetings. One wonders what the attitude of the citizens of the Ojai Valley was toward the proposal to establish a county poor farm in their midst.

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Ojai’s First Jail

Ojai’s First Jail by Ed Wenig

Andy Van Curen's Jail

For those who needed to be incarcerated for some time, Andy Van Curen, long time constable in the Ojai Valley, provided lodging in a very small, home-made jail he had built himself on his own property. According to Edna Van Curen Miner, his daughter, the jail was built of 4 inch boards, one inch thick that were laid flat, one on top of the other, and then nailed through with iron spikes an inch apart. Says she: “It was a veritable fortress from which none could escape.”

There were two adjoining cells with an iron door for each, one cell capacity was 4, the other 7. A six inch square hole in each door provided a convenient opening for air and for providing a space for passing in small dishes of food. The jail was situated first close to Ojai Avenue, in front of what is now Loops Restaurant [now Carrow’s Restaurant]. Then it was moved under a tree back of the rear parking lot of the Security Pacific Bank building [now, Bank of America].

Andy Van Curen was Nordhoff’s constable for many years. In his later life, there was a movement among some of the citizens of Ojai to elect a younger and more active man to replace him as constable. Commenting on this situation in her memoirs of the period, Helen Baker Reynolds writes: “Andy was hurt and incensed. He let it be known that if he were replaced no one else could use his jail. The movement for replacement promptly collapsed.”

Years after its use was ended, the little jail was twice offered to the City with the suggestion that it be placed in the Civic Park, but the city was not interested.

Clara Koch who had become in possession of the Van Curen property gave the jail to Audrey Ovington of Santa Barbara, who engaged William J. Brakey, the famed “moving man” from Ventura to move it. Mr Brakey took it on a flatbed truck over the Casitas Pass, and deposited it at Cold Spring Tavern. There it stands today and may be seen by anyone interested.

Ed Wenig, Ojai’s home-made jail was escape-proof, Ojai Valley News, Nov. 19, 1969.

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Postcard: Forest Rangers at Matilija Hot Springs

This is the annual gathering of the U.S. Forest Rangers, Santa Barbara Forest Reserve, at Matilija Hot Springs.  Most of the rangers had districts in remote areas.  Supervisor Willis M. Slosson held these gatherings once/year so that they could get together and exchange ideas.

—-Patricia Clark Doerner

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Charles Nordhoff Visits the Ojai Valley

Charles Nordhoff Visits the Ojai Valley by Richard Hoye

The City of Ojai was first established as a village in 1874 and given the name Nordhoff. The village retained this name for 43 years, until it was changed to Ojai in 1917. Its original name was derived from the author, editor and journalist Charles Nordhoff, who lived from 1830 to 1901.

His name is still retained in the name of the high school, Nordhoff High School, and the name of the highest point on the ridge which forms the northern wall of the Ojai Valley, Nordhoff Peak. There is also a fountain at the center of the city which commemorates his daughter, Evelyn Hunter Nordhoff.

Charles Nordhoff is frequently confused with his grandson Charles Bernard Nordhoff, co-author of Mutiny on the Bounty; but they are of different generations. Charles Nordhoff was a well-established author in his own right. He wrote about a dozen books. His first books were about his early life as a seaman, and his Man-of-War Life (1855) was used at Annapolis as a standard reference for naval cadets. His most famous book was California for Health, Pleasure and Residence, published in June 1872. He was a deeply religious man, and one of his books was titled, God and the Future Life (1883). His Politics for Young Americans (1875) was used in public schools as a civics text.

Charles Nordhoff was a “correspondent” in Washington, D.C., for the New York Herald newspaper from 1874 until his retirement in 1890. The New York Herald was the foremost newspaper in the nation, comparable to the New York Times today. This was at a time when there was no Internet, no television and no radio. Newspapers were the principal method of mass communication. As a “correspondent” (we might say reporter/commentator) at the nation’s capital for the nation’s foremost newspaper, he was at the top of his profession and was well-known nationwide.

The following statement was included in an obituary written just after his death, which occurred in San Francisco on July 14, 1901:

“The town of Nordhoff was named for Charles Nordhoff, in appreciation of the good words spoken of the Ojai Valley as a health resort, both as a writer and in personal talks with friends.”

This is the common understanding as to how the village came to be named for the author, and it is an explanation that has been repeated many times over. Nonetheless, it is incorrect.

“Persons seeking to learn what Charles Nordhoff wrote about the Ojai Valley pick up his California for Health, Pleasure and Residence from a local library and search the book intensively only to discover that there is nothing in the work about the valley! This leads to perplexity and confusion! The book was published in 1872, and the village was named Nordhoff in 1874. . . . but, he had not written about it.”

The key to understanding what actually occurred rests in the fact that there was a subsequent edition of the work, published in 1882. The title page of the second edition stated that it was a “New Edition, Thoroughly Revised.” It is in the 1882 edition that information about the Ojai Valley is to be found. Unfortunately, it is also an edition that is less commonly shelved in public libraries.

Charles Nordhoff wrote about the Ojai Valley eight years after the village was given his name. So, it wasn’t his writing about the Valley that led to the use of his name. The suggestion for naming the village is attributed to Catherine Blumberg, wife of the man who constructed the first hotel in the center of the hamlet. She thought the use of Nordhoff’s name would be a good idea (better than the Topa Topa first considered). Nordhoff’s famous book about California had been published a couple of years earlier, and tourists were carrying it about as a reliable guide to the state.

Main Street, Nordhoff, California in 1890

A two-volume biography of Thomas Bard was written by the author W.H. Hutchinson (Oil, Land and Politics: The California Career of Thomas Robert Bard) and published in 1965. Bard was the Valley’s first real estate agent; and he later became a member of the U.S. Senate, representing the State of California. Hutchinson included the following statement in his book:

“Without visiting the Ojai, he [Charles Nordhoff] penned some glowing prose about its salubrious climate and other advantages, and it is believed that he gleaned his material from Bard and Roys Surdam. His other periodical press articles and a book about his travels first gave national publicity to the southern coast and especially to Santa Barbara.”

If complete information had been available to Hutchinson, he would have reached a different conclusion.

Charles Nordhoff first visited the Ojai Valley for a quick, weekend turnaround on October 22-23, 1881. Here is part of a report from a Santa Barbara newspaper:

NORDHOFF AT NORDHOFF

The Ventura “Signal” says:  “For the first time, on last Saturday, in company with D.W. Thompson and wife of Col. Hollister, of Santa Barbara. Charles Nordhoff, the celebrated newspaper correspondent, and the man to whom more than anyone else Southern California owes the greater portion of her population, visited Nordhoff and the Ojai Valley. Of course, he went into ecstacies over the beautiful valley.”

— Santa Barbara, The Daily Press, Oct. 31, 1881, p. 2:1.

Charles Nordhoff doesn’t seem to have been a man who would have been lost to “ecstacies”, even though the Valley does have this effect upon some. The visit was a momentous event. Here was William Hollister, owner of the Arlington Hotel in Santa Barbara, and Dixie Thompson, manager of the hotel, escorting Charles Nordhoff on his first visit to the valley. Hollister was a man of considerable wealth, after whom the town of Hollister was named in northern California. So, both Hollister and Nordhoff had towns named after them.

“Dixie Thompson was owner of a Ventura ranch which in time would be described as the largest lima-bean ranch in the world. His name is found today in Thompson Boulevard in Ventura. The news account omits the fact that Mrs. Charles Nordhoff was also a member of the party.”

We see, then, that Charles Nordhoff first visited the Ojai Valley in October 1881. The second edition of his book on California, and the edition with information about the Ojai Valley, was published in 1882. He saw the valley before he wrote about it, and Hutchinson was wrong in this particular.

Charles Nordhoff’s interest in the valley was friendly and supportive. He visited again in 1889 and 1894. He was a member of the building committee for his community church in Alpine, New Jersey; and when a decision was made to construct that church in stone rather than wood, the architectural design for the wooden church was sent to the Ojai Valley and used for the design and construction of the Valley’s Presbyterian church (which still stands). He (a Methodist) donated money for construction of the Presbyterian church and provided books for its “Sabbath School” (we would say Sunday School).

Charles Nordhoff also established an enduring friendship with Sherman Thacher, founder of the Thacher School in the Ojai Valley. Thacher hosted a reception in the Valley for Nordhoff in 1894. There is a record that Thacher later visited Nordhoff at Coronado, California, where Nordhoff had retired. Thacher was also among the last persons outside the immediate family who visited with Nordhoff in San Francisco shortly before Nordhoff’s death.

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Meiners Oaks

Meiners Oaks by Ed Wenig

Meiners Oaks, a community where nearly every home is under a Live Oak tree, takes its name from John Meiners, who owned the large area for many years.

John Meiners, native of Germany, had come to the United States about 1848 and had established a successful brewery business in Milwaukee. He acquired his Ojai ranch in the seventies, sight unseen, as a result of an unpaid debt. When he heard that his friend, Edward D. Holton, a Milwaukee banker, was going to California for a brief trip, Meiners asked him to see the property he had acquired. Mr. Holton’s evaluation was, “It is the most beautiful valley I have ever seen.”

Upon investigating his new property, John Meiners found that he owned what was perhaps the largest oak grove on level land in Southern California, much of it so dense that the ground was in continuous shade. Furthermore, to his surprise, Meiners discovered that the climate of the valley was good for his asthma.

For a long time, the oak grove was fenced and provided a pasture for a large herd of hogs. All traffic from Ojai to Matilija went on a private road through the Meiners property, using a gate which was supposed to be kept closed. So many people went through the gate without closing it that in 1893, the manager of the ranch, P.W. Soper, locked the gate. With the Meiners road closed, the only way of getting the mail to Matilija by stagecoach was a roundabout one by Rice Road.

A news item in “The Ojai” related that, as Rice Road has been flooded, “the mail was sent up to Matilija last night on horseback, the rider going across the back hill country . . .” However, Mr. Soper later gave several keys to A.W. Blumberg, operator of Matilija Hot Springs, with the stipulation that they were to be used only by mail carriers and scheduled stage coach drivers.
In 1896, the big barn on the Meiners ranch, located approximately where the Ranch House Restaurant is now, caught fire one evening about midnight. No fire-fighting equipment was available. Twenty horses, many tons of hay, harness, and farm implements were completely destroyed. “The Ojai” of February 15, 1896 reported . . . “Mr. Meiners built a large temporary barn on Monday, and the work of the great ranch goes on energetically.”

The Milwaukee brewer lived on his ranch intermittently from the 1880s until his death in the valley in 1898. His original big house still stands on the hill above the Ranch House Restaurant and is now used by the Happy Valley School.

John Meiners organized his ever-increasing acreage into a very productive ranch. Several hundred acres to the north of the oak grove were planted in oranges, lemons, prunes, apricots and apples. P.W. Soper, father of the late “Pop” Soper, was general manager of the Meiners Ranch and lessee of 90 acres of Texas red oats, 90 acres of wheat and 200 acres of barley. A visitor who toured the ranch with Mr. Meiners in 1897 wrote, “At the Meiners Ranch we saw stalks of oats that measured 7 feet 7 inches.”

To visualize the vast area, the ranch can be described as bounded on the south by the hills of the Happy Valley School, on the west by Rice Road, on the north by the foothills near Cozy Dell Canyon and on the east by a line running through the junction of Highway 33 and El Roblar Street, north and south.

The forebears of several of the present-day residents of the Ojai Valley came here as a result of John Meiners’ interest in his ranch. The granddaughters of Edward D. Holton, who made the original favorable report concerning the ranch of Mr. Meiners and the Ojai Valley, are Misses Alice and Helen Robertson of the east valley, and his granddaughter, Mrs. Anson Thacher. Otto Busch came to the ranch as manager in 1907, and his son George Busch, now retired, was one of Ojai’s postmasters.

“He got Meiners O. for unpaid debt,” Ojai Valley News, Dec. 3, 1969

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Ojai’s First Store

Ojai’s First Store by Ed Wenig

Lafayette Herbert's Store

The first general store in Ojai Valley was opened by Mr. and Mrs. L.R. Herbert in 1874 on the north side of Ojai Avenue across from the present Civic Center Park [now, Libbey Park]. Ojai pioneers recall it as a small one-story building with one room that carried everything the early settlers needed.

Hattie Waite Cota, in an article on Ojai Valley’s first store, described the amazing variety of goods it displayed. She said: “The shelves were divided into sections in which goods were placed, each item in its respective department. There was a drug, a dry goods, a boot and shoe counter, and near the entrance a small glass showcase that contained, among other things, several varieties of candy, such as peppermint, horehound, gum drops, stick candy and licorice strips, very strong and very black.”

A cherished memory of Mrs. Cota: “Some time later a millinery section was added, stocked only with children’s hats. My choice was a broad-brimmed, plain-black straw [hat] with band and streamers of corn-colored ribbon.”

Mrs. Thad Timms read a paper before the Pioneer section of the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club in 1938 and is here quoted: “Prior to the year 1874, all incoming and outgoing mail was carried by some one of the residents of the valley who happened to be riding or driving to Ventura to the post office. On March 11, 1874, the Postmaster General in Washington, D.C. appointed LaFayette R. Herbert as the first postmaster of Nordhoff [now Ojai]—an office was established.”

The Nordhoff store, as with most general stores, had a little section in the front for the distribution of mail. This addition, of course, drew many into the store who, in winter especially, lingered around the wood-burning stove in the middle of the room. Here the cracker-barrel philosophers settled the problems of the world, lent their ears for local news and gossip.

Early settlers remember the blending aroma of cheese, coffee, spices, sausages and new leather. Of course, nothing was packaged, and the storekeeper measured the amount wanted from barrels, sacks and other volume containers.

Farmers, with their wagons hauling hams, chickens in small coops or with legs tied, cases or boxes of eggs, tied their horses to hitching racks or trees and proceeded to trade their produce for coal oil, flour, sugar, harness and other needs.

Barter between the farmer and the storekeeper was the general rule. This put an extra load on the Nordhoff storekeeper, who had to take all the farm produce to Ventura and bring back goods for sale. With dusty roads in summer and deep mud in winter, this was quite a burden for heavy-laden wagons.

Through the years the little store was sold to A.A. Garland and son. Later, Thomas Gilbert bought it. Finding that he needed help in the store, he sent for his bride-to-be from Michigan and announced publicly that he was going to be married. He invited all the residents of the valley to the wedding, which was held on the hotel grounds [at the front of what is now Libbey Park] with music furnished by the Ventura band. Some years later, the Thomas Gilbert family moved to Santa Barbara.

A Mr. Brown and his wife then took over the store for a brief period, but Frank P. Barrows bought it and changed it to a hardware store. Finally, Mr. G.H. Hickey and two brothers bought it and rebuilt it. The Rains Department Store, now operating on the same site, is a successor to Hickey Brothers and is operated by Alan Rains, grandson of Mr. G.H. Hickey.

“Everything sold in Ojai’s first store,”Ojai Valley News, Nov. 5, 1969

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Richard Robinson

Richard Robinson by Richard Hoye

Richard Robinson was an early rancher in the valley, and he first came to the valley after retiring as a ship’s captain. The romantic story of his life at sea is accented by the fact that his wife often accompanied him on his voyages.

Richard Robinson was born in Thomaston, Maine, in 1817, and he was of Welsh extraction. He began his life at sea at age seventeen. His advancement was rapid, and he captained his first ship at age twenty-three in 1840. For the next fourteen years, he captained ships that bore names such as Mountaineer, Pyramid and Hardet. These were “Yankee Clippers” engaged in ocean-crossing commerce.

Robinson pooled his resources in 1855 with several other men to commission construction of a 200-foot long clipper ship, christened the Richard Robinson. It was the custom of captains of the clipper ships to race each other, since the winning of a race provided profitable publicity. This was the way that sea captains built their reputations, and “Virtually every passage from one port to another was a race.” Robinson won a race against the formidable Dreadnought and thereby established his ship as “one of America’s fastest ships.”

Voyages could be lengthy. One of his voyages from New York City to Bombay took eighty-eight days, and that was close to breaking the speed record for the route. Ships’ captains were inclined to take their families with them on such long trips, and such was the case with Richard Robinson. He wed Mary Wentworth in 1840, the very year he first became a ship’s captain. She was a woman fit to match him.

Mary Wentworth Robinson was the first woman to receive the degree of Doctor of Education from Harvard University. She was descended from an aristocratic English line, which included Sir Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Stafford. She accompanied her husband on over thirty voyages. Three sons were born to the marriage: William, Richard and Charles. Two daughters died in infancy.

Robinson retired from the sea in 1872 and moved to Santa Barbara. In the following year, he purchased land in the upper Ojai Valley and began to farm. By 1875, he joined Judge Eugene Fawcett, Jr., and a wealthy eastern man, H.C. Dean, in the purchase of land from Jose Arnaz (land which now is largely covered by the northern half of Lake Casitas). They subdivided the land and started the development of ranches in the Santa Ana Valley.

Richard Robinson signed the voters registration roll for Ventura County in 1884 along with his sons Richard Owen Robinson and Charles Wentworth Robinson. All three stated that their birthplaces had been in Maine.

Robinson’s approach to farming was diversification. He planted many different varieties of trees and vegetables on his upper Ojai Valley ranch. By doing this, he introduced new agricultural products to the valley, and his farm was judged by his contemporaries as especially interesting for its variety.

He also tried his hand at breeding race horses. He was photographed in 1896 with a race horse and sulky. In his final years, he lived in Ventura, where he died on February 6, 1896.

For an excellent account of Richard Robinson’s life, see: Marsha Kee Robinson Strong, “The Yankee Clipper Richard Robinson,” Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly 27:1, Fall 1981, pp. 11-25.

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Postcard: The Frost-Coolidge Music Festival

The Foothills Hotel

The Frost-Coolidge Music Festival. Although the Foothills Hotel catered to wealthy Easterners, Ojai residents often benefitted from the cultural and social events held there. A good example was the Frost-Coolidge Music Festival of 1926. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had a winter home in Ojai, was one of America’s foremost promoters of chamber music. She teamed up in 1926 with another Ojai resident, Frank Frost, to create a three-day chamber music festival at the Foothills Hotel. Two-thirds of the audience was Ojai residents. When the festival concluded, The Ojai proclaimed, “One of the greatest musical events that has ever taken place in America came to a close on Sunday evening with the final concert of the Ojai Musical Festival.” Many consider the Frost-Coolidge Music Festival to be the forerunner of the current Ojai Music Festival.

The above is an excerpt from Ojai: A Postcard History, by Richard Hoye, Tom Moore, Craig Walker, and available at Ojai Valley Museum or at Amazon.com.

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Boulez Conducts Train at Ojai Music Festival

“Baton Not Tuned To Train’s Wail” Ojai Valley News, June 3, 1989
By Bob Bryan

Pierre Boulez (C) 2003 Daly Road Graphics

The year was 1967, and the Ventura-Ojai orange train—locomotive, one freight car and a caboose—was coming ’round the bend making less than 90 miles an hour when its whistle broke into a deep-throated blast. It was a familiar sound, even appreciated by some as it floated up the Ojai Valley. There, Maestro Pierre Boulez, standing on the podium with baton raised, prepared to give the downbeat that would begin that year’s Ojai Festival.

The opening number was listed as the Schoenberg String Quartet No. 2, arranged for string orchestra; its harmonics, according to the program notes, would be “unconventional, even irrational.” Nobody had said anything about a whistle.

When train whistle and raised baton coincided for the third time, Maestro Boulez walked off stage with just a touch of Gallic impatience. He was replaced, after a hurried conference backstage, by Ted Lillefelt, that year’s festival president.

An apology was offered and a question posed to the assembled music lovers: Would it not be better if the opening number of the Ojai Festival 1967 were delayed until such time as the orange train could continue on to Ojai’s packinghouse, as it was required to do daily? There it would reverse itself and come through town again, passing once more to the rear of the Festivals Bowl.

The first-night audience clapped its approval.

About 10 minutes later the orange train passed through once again, hooting jubilantly as if wishing well to the proceedings. There was an answering applause from the audience, and then everybody settled down to give Schoenberg his turn.

Open-air concerts in Ojai’s Festival Bowl have included the gentle ostinato of resident crickets and birds, a feature that Oliver Messiaen, a composer who has written music in honor of birds, found to his liking during his tenure as resident composer of the Ojai Festival.

The birds still sing, but some things that once were are no longer. There will be no freight train whistle this weekend in Ojai for Maestro Boulez or, for that matter, any future conductor of the festival. The orange train doesn’t run here anymore.