The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1935.

Fullerton Benefits from the New Deal

While Fullertonians were struggling through The Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were giving local unemployed folks jobs and a chance to build up the City’s public works infrastructure.

In 1935, both state and federal relief money was being used to improve Hillcrest and Commonwealth parks, the Fullerton Airport, streets, bridges, schools, and local water courses.

Federal funds were used to build the first Fullerton College buildings, Wilshire Junior High (now the School of Continuing Education), and to remodel and expand Maple School.

Flood Control

Over six million dollars of federal funds (around $138 million today) were planned for a large scale Orange County flood control plan–to build the Prado Dam, as well as channelize much of the Santa Ana river.

These federal dollars were contingent on local voters approving a bond measure to supplement the federal relief funds.

A well-funded opposition campaign which called the bonds a waste of taxpayer dollars resulted in the bond issue, and therefore the federal relief dollars, being lost.

Voters actually had two chances to approve the bonds, but they voted them down twice.

Unfortunately, because the flood control measures were not passed, a few years later the 1938 flood would devastate local communities. It would take a natural disaster for people to understand the need to invest in this infrastructure.

King Citrus

In 1935, oranges were the main industry of Fullerton.

Locals celebrated the orange industry with a big Valencia Orange Festival that drew around 30,000 people.

In 1932, as part of a larger mass deportation effort, nine trainloads of Mexican workers and their families were deported from the Bastanchury Ranch in Fullerton. These mass deportations led to predictable scarcity of labor.

There was talk of strike among the remaining Mexican workers, to improve pay and working conditions.

Ricardo G. Hill, Mexican consul at Los Angeles, addressed a crowd of 2,500 Mexican workers in Anaheim, urging them not to strike, and to wait until next picking season to attempt to form a union. Earlier in the day, Hill had met with local packinghouse managers who “said they would not recognize the rights of the Mexican pickers to organize and demand a minimum wage of $2.25 a day and that managers threatened to import Filipino workers to Orange County to do the work, if necessary.”

It’s ironic, though not surprising, that growers and packinghouse managers opposed worker efforts to organize for better wages and working conditions because organizing for a better return was exactly what the growers and packinghouses did. They pooled their resources in the form of the California Fruit Growers Exchange (or Sunkist) to fix prices and make the most money.

Meanwhile, plans were made by workers for a countywide organization effort in 1936. Stay tuned.

Dr. Coltrin and the Illegal Abortion

In 1935 abortion was illegal. Those seeking reproductive care had to either resort to “back room” abortions or to find a doctor who would risk being charged for a crime.

Fullerton doctor Francis Coltrin was arrested and charged with second degree murder and for performing an abortion after a 16 year-old girl named Charlotte Valentine died during a failed abortion.

Coltrin was tried and found guilty at a jury trial of both charges. He appealed his case, and it went all the way to the California Supreme Court, where the conviction was upheld.

Culture and Entertainment

Locals got some excitement when the baseball movie “Alibi Ike” starring Joe E. Brown was filmed at Commonwealth Park.

Another big, entertaining event was a Hospitality Day parade, featuring large, oversized toys, kind of like the Macy’s Day parade.

Unfortunately, a popular form of entertainment in the 1930s was the minstrel show, featuring white performers in blackface perpetuating harmful stereotypes of African Americans. Some of these took place locally.

Sports

Commonwealth Park hosted regular minor league baseball games that drew lots of fans. Fullerton baseball star Arky Vaughn won the award for best hitter in the major leagues.

Housing

During the Depression, construction of new housing slowed, creating a housing shortage, which led to higher rents and home prices.

Hard economic times also led to an increase in homelessness. Some Californians sought to “solve” this problem by actually barring poor people from California.

Belle Benchley, Pioneering Woman Zookeeper

Former Fullertonian Belle Benchley got a shout-out for being a pioneering zookeeper in San Diego.

Santa Ana Winds Bring Wildfires

Powerful Santa Ana winds wrought heavy damage and sparked wildfires.

Deaths

A prisoner hung himself in the Fullerton jail.

Edgar Johnson, who founded the Fullerton News-Tribune, died.

He died of heart disease in his room at the California hotel.

Born in Ashville, N.C. in 1868, “Johnson came to California in 1887 and first started in the newspaper business in Santa Ana, later going to Westminster and from there to Fullerton about 1894 where he remained as publisher of The News-Tribune until its sale to the present publishers in 1929,” the Tribune reported.

In Anaheim, another pioneer newspaper editor, Henry Kuchel (founder of the Anaheim Gazette) passed away.

Stay tuned for headlines from 1936!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1934.

The New Deal

In 1934, the Great Depression was still in full swing, and president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were being enacted, some of which involved federal spending on local projects.

Strike!

The 1930s were filled with labor strikes across the country. In the book Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California, historian Kevin Starr writes, “Between January 1933 and June 1939, more than ninety thousand harvest, packaging, and canning workers went out on some 170-odd strikes. 

That was just agriculture. Major strikes in other industries, such as the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, rocked California’s major coastal cities.

These strikes were massive and sometimes erupted into violent street fights between strikers and police.

Late in 1934, streetcar workers in Los Angeles went on strike.

Closer to home, dairy workers in Orange County went on strike.

Those organizing labor strikes were often accused of being communists.

“Warning to citrus growers that they might expect communistic activities in this district as soon as the valencia season opens and methods of combating the agitation was given by H.O. Easton, packinghouse manager, at the regular meeting of the chamber of commerce here yesterday,” the Tribune reported.

Easton argued that local cities should pass anti-picketing ordinances (Fullerton already had one).

“He told citrus growers that they should impress upon workers they hire that any agitation is the work of communists attempting to start trouble among men employed in this district,” the Tribune reported.

Special guards were requested to protect packinghouses.

The truth is that most rank-and-file workers were not communists. They just wanted better working conditions. However, some of the organizers were, in fact, communists.

“Charles McLauchlan of Anaheim, self-admitted worker in the interests of the communist party, was arrested late yesterday afternoon at Placentia by Chief of Police Gus Barnes and charged with violation of the city ordinance prohibiting distribution of circulars and handbills without a license,” the Tribune reported.

McLauchlan was accused of selling copies of the Western Worker, a labor newspaper, to Mexican citrus workers in Placentia. He was also selling copies of a booklet, The Fascist Menace in the U.S.A.

If the strike organizers were sometimes communists, the growers and the legal system that sided with them often acted like fascists, cracking down hard on those trying to organize to better their lot.

Upton Sinclair’s EPIC Run for Governor

In the midst of these economic hard times and labor agitation, noted author and socialist Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California. Sinclair, most famous for his 1905 novel The Jungle, which portrayed the filthy and inhumane conditions of the meatpacking industry, had spent his life writing numerous books highlighting various injustices and corruption in American life. 

Sinclair had moved to Southern California in 1916 and, in addition to writing, also involved himself in politics, running for congress twice (in 1920 and 1922) as a Socialist. He founded California’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 

In 1934, he decided to run for governor of the Golden State, this time as a Democrat. He won the party’s nomination and faced off against Republican Frank Merriam. Sinclair’s program was called End Poverty in California (or, EPIC). He wrote a pamphlet called I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty, which laid out his plans and was widely distributed.

During the campaign, Sinclair came to Fullerton and spoke before a crowd of over 1,200 in the FUHS auditorium.

Today, Sinclair sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders.

“The trouble in America,” Sinclair began, “is that privilege entrenched itself in government and society and brought a condition where two percent of the people control 50 percent of the wealth. Wall Street tricks to control American finance by piling up wealth on one side and beating down wealth on the other made bums of twenty or thirty million people…”

Sinclair was particularly outraged with the practice of large agricultural interests destroying “surplus” crops to keep prices up.

“Limitation of production or the destruction of food or other wealth while millions of people are in need is the very apex of economic insanity,” Sinclair said.

This practice of destroying food for the benefit of big business while people starve is what gave the title to John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, about farmworkers in California during the Great Depression:

“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

The backbone of Sinclair’s plan of ending poverty in California involved giving unemployed workers access to the means of production and letting them produce for themselves.

“The program…will offer land colonies and factories to the unemployed and a distributing system where the people can buy necessities at cost and thereby eliminate the middle man,” Sinclair said. “It will make production for and equal to consumption because the unemployed will produce for themselves only and will make the million in the state now leaning on charity self-supporting.”

The EPIC plan also called for a remedy to economic inequality through a revised and graduated tax system, with higher taxes on the wealthy.

Sinclair was clearly on the side of the workers. Meanwhile, the Republican Frank Merriam was on the side of business.

As is documented in his book I, Candidate for Governor, and How I Got Licked, despite his popularity, Sinclair faced formidable opposition from big business and mainstream media (including Hollywood), who ran a well-funded smear campaign against him. 

The Fullerton Daily News-Tribune ran numerous articles and editorials portraying Sinclair as a dangerous radical who would bring ruin to California.

The editorial below attempts to paint Sinclair as an enemy of the church because of statements he made in his 1927 book The Profits of Religion, which was a criticism of how individuals and churches have perverted and used religion to make money. His book, which actually speaks very highly of Jesus Christ, offered valid (and unfortunately still relevant) criticisms of the marriage of capitalism and Christianity.

The cartoon below makes the argument that Sinclair’s programs to assist the poor and unemployed will make California a magnet for homeless and desperate people, with a sign parodying EPIC which reads: Expect Plentiful Indigent Crowds. Sound familiar? This sounds like the way Fox News talks about California today.

The California Real Estate association, unsurprisingly, came out against Sinclair.

As did the Orange County Democratic party (just like the national Democratic Party did with Bernie Sanders in 2016).

Meanwhile, local leaders organized a parade in Merriam’s honor.

And the Tribune published numerous articles which painted Merriam in a very positive light.

Ultimately, Merriam defeated Sinclair. Poverty would, unfortunately, not end.

Local Politics

In local political news, Harry Maxwell and George Lillie were elected to Fullerton City Council. Both were local businessmen and orange growers.

Below are photos of Harry Maxwell and George Lillie:

William “Billy” Hale was again chosen as Mayor.

In the races for District Attorney and Orange County Sheriff, Red-baiting was a common mudslinging tactic.

A campaign ad for OC Sheriff Logan Jackson stated: “Sheriff Jackson was ready for the agitator here and he didn’t get in. He was nipped, and nipped hard…Should trouble-makers try again to gain foothold here, Sheriff Jackson will again be ready for them…The milk strike and other threatened disturbances of that period, with disruption of the citrus industry next in view, would have cost our farmers countless thousands of dollars.”

Like his counterparts throughout California, Logan Jackson would use these “hard” tactics against striking orange workers in 1936. Read more about that HERE.

Ted Craig of Brea was made speaker of the California State Assembly.

Culture and Entertainment

For culture and entertainment, Fullertonians went to see movies at the Fox Theater.

The iconic “Pastoral California” mural on the side of Plummer Auditorium was painted by Charles Kassler as a federal art project. Sadly, it would be painted over in 1939, and then restored in 1997. To learn more about the story of that mural, check out my article HERE.

Fullerton celebrated a Valencia Orange Festival, which drew 40,000 attendees.

Sports

Locals celebrated hometown baseball star Willard Hershberger.

Baseball was very popular locally. Games at Commonwealth (now Amerige) Park drew lots of spectators. “Pep” Lemon was in charge of the Fullerton Merchants team.

The Fullerton Union High School Indians sometimes played against the Sherman Indian High School (an actual Indian Boarding School) from Riverside, leading to sometimes offensive headlines.

Fullerton used to have a country club with a golf course.

Natural Disasters

During the 1930s, southern California experienced a few natural disasters: the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, the 1938 flood, and another flood in 1934.

These floods are the reason why all the major rivers that flow through Los Angeles and Orange Counties are now concrete channels.

Housing

In 1934, a four-bedroom house atop a hill in Fullerton sold for $4000. In today’s dollars that would be about $94,000.

In the 1920s, Fullerton experienced a housing boom, with numerous new subdivisions being built. With the advent of the Great Depression, much new construction stopped, leading to a housing shortage.

To help with the housing situation, the New Deal established entitles like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which offered affordable home loans and other assistance to homeowners and home buyers. Given today’s housing crisis, lawmakers would do well to study the New Deal housing laws and reforms.

Leaded Gasoline

Starting in the 1920s, a compound called TEL was added to gasoline to improve performance. Unfortunately, it was discovered in the 1950s that this lead compound caused major health and environmental damage. It would ultimately be phased out, but not for decades. In 1934, gas companies celebrated the wonders of this toxic chemical.

Fashion

Education

The old high school building on Wilshire and Lemon (formerly called Harvard Ave.) was torn down and eventually replaced with the buildings that would make up Wilshire Junior High, and then the School of Continuing Education.

Death

Jacob Stern, co-owner of the first general store in town (Stern & Goodman), died. He became a very wealthy businessman and owned lots of real estate in southern California.

Edward Atherton, the famous Fullerton ostrich farmer, died.

Stay tuned for top stories from 1935!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1932.

International News

Internationally, fascism was on the rise in Germany, with Hitler’s Nazi party gaining a majority of seats in the Reichstag (Germany’s Parliament).

In Italy, the fascist Benito Mussolini had been in power since the 1920s.

In Asia, fighting between China and Japan in the international district of Shanghai in the so-called January 28 Incident prompted United States and European military involvement in brokering a peace deal. This was largely to protect American and European economic interests in China.

In India, Mahatma Gandhi ended a hunger strike in his long quest for independence from Great Britain.

National News

The biggest national news story was the election of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He defeated Republican Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory.

California, which had long been a Republican state, went blue for the first time in years, although a majority of Fullertonians voted for Hoover.

The election was seen as a national repudiation of Hoover’s failure to improve the economic conditions of the Great Depression.

One major debacle of the Hoover administration was his use of military forces to clear a large encampment of tens of thousands of World War I veterans and their families who had marched to Washington DC, called the Bonus Army, who sought early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates.

In more sensationalistic news, the baby of famed American aviator Charles Lindberg, was kidnapped.

Depression

Roosevelt would not take office until 1933, and so the federal New Deal programs aimed at helping the millions of unemployed, as well as unemployment insurance and social security, did not yet exist. Thus, local municipalities with their limited budgets (which had taken a hit from declining property values caused by the Depression) were largely left to fend for themselves to tackle widespread unemployment and poverty.

To address local unemployment, the city council put a bond measure on the ballot to raise money to provide jobs in developing local parks and bridges. Unfortunately, voters turned down the bond.

County programs for the unemployed also faced diminishing funds.

Thus, help for the homeless, unemployed, and hungry fell upon local groups like the American Legion, who operated a soup kitchen which offered food and (limited) lodging.

Another soup kitchen was operated by the Maple School PTA.

Tragedy Befalls the Bastanchury Ranch

The Great Depression proved disastrous for the Bastanchury family, owners of “the largest orange grove in the world.” Unable to pay their debts, the Bastanchury Ranch went into receivership, and lost most of their property.

This was a tragedy not just for the Bastanchury family, but also for the hundreds of Mexican citrus workers who lived in camps scattered across the ranch, who in 1933 would be subject to a mass deportation/repatriation.

This connects to a larger story about Mexican deportation and repatriation during the Great Depression which is told in the book Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. As has unfortunately happened throughout American history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act to today, times of economic downturn have sparked scapegoating and calls for deportation of immigrants, both documented and undocumented.

The mass deportation of Bastanchury Ranch workers would not happen until March of 1933, but the forces of deportation and repatriation were already happening, as the article below explains:

“Cautioning his audience against signing papers or notes not fully understood, Raymond Thompson, Fullerton attorney, explained simple fundamentals of law last night at a meeting of the Mexican labor union of Tia Juana camp on the Bastanchury ranch.

Thompson’s discussion was translated into Spanish by Lucas Lucio of Santa Ana, recently appointed Mexican vice-consul of Orange county and county director of Mexican repatriation.

Legal procedure in regard to installment buying, mortgage payments and foreclosures and claiming of unpaid wages was explained by Thompson. The Mexicans asked questions on particular problems and three were discussed.

At the close of Thompson’s talk, Mrs. Lucille ward, Americanization teacher, introduced Lucio, who spoke on the work of repatriation and deportation of Mexicans to Mexico. While urging that Mexican citizens who still retain property or homes in their native country apply for repatriation, Lucio advised those who are employed in the county to remain here. Describing an impoverished Mexico with serious unemployment problems, Lucio stated that already of the 7,000 Mexican citizens resident in Orange county 2,000 have returned home since last August. Of these, three percent went by deportation and the rest voluntarily. It is expected that about 700 more Mexicans will return to Mexico this year before the repatriation movement stops.“

It was believed that deporting Mexican workers would give more jobs to white workers.

“Robert Strain and Tom Eadington, another packing house operator, declared that white crews would be given every opportunity,” the Tribune reported.

The Tribune published a couple articles which described life on the Mexican citrus camps, which I will reprint in their entirety below. Note to reader: These articles (while valuable historical documents) paint a much rosier picture of life in the camps than was the reality. For a more honest assessment of Mexican citrus camps at this time, check out my summary of historian Gilbert Gonzalez’s important work on this topic, Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Villages in a Southern California County 1900-1950.

“Sheltered in the hollow of a groove between green rolling hills covered with orange trees, El Hoyo (The Hole) camp, also called by reason of its peculiar location Escondido (Hidden Place), is at once the smallest and most picturesque of the north Orange county Mexican citrus camps contacted by Fullerton union high school immigrant education department.

A few hundred feet off the traveled path of state highway 101, a little dirt road takes a sudden circuitous, steeply downward course, and below in hilltops are the seven frail cottages composing Escondido. A half-dry creek bed meanders through the camp and provides countless flies. Touches distinctly foreign are provided by the lean cow tethered on a green slope, and by the motley array of bed springs, galvanized tin, logs and boards which go together to make up the houses.

Last week, joy permeated the Mexican families, because employment had been give all but two of the men. In one household, however, a family including a young woman with her two sons, her sister, a mother and step-father–not to mention the lean cow–are subsisting on $2 a week earned by the young woman, who works two 12-hour days doing washing, scrubbing, cleaning and general housework at the Dominic Bastanchury home. The cow provides milk which is pressed, patted, and dried into cheeses to be eaten whole or grated into tortilla “frijoles.”

In each small house of unfinished brown boards is the lean-to kitchen with its pan-dotted walls. Unlike the homes of the larger, more affluent Mexican camps nearby, the Escondido houses have few conveniences. Un-modern wood burning stoves of heaviest iron are used. The Mexican mother, surrounded by her two to 10 young ever-hungry children, will stand untiringly beside the stove, and patting and rolling thin rounds of flour-water and lard dough, will fling it on the stove top to bake into tortillas. Instead of bread, the tortilla at Escondido is the main fare, and eaten with water-cress and beans seasoned with chili-garlic sauce from a molcajete bowl, provides breakfast, luncheon and dinner.

A novel dish favorite with the Mexicans is boiled cactus. Paring off the prickly pear outer skin of the large, flat-leaved cacti, the housewife will dice and boil in salt water the inside portion, which tastes like green peas or beans.

In the absence of remunerative work, the men have spent their time since bankruptcy of Bastanchury company, by whom they are employed, in farming on small ground patches. To their village come each week a bread man from Corona, a meat man from Santa Ana, a Syrian bread merchant and a Los Angeles traveling grocer. Credit is extended in present conditions until work is obtained by the men.

Escondido was depleted in population recently by the return to Mexico of one of its families.

Twice a week Mrs. Lucille Ward, Americanization teacher, visits the little brown schoolhouse and teaches children and grown-ups alike the elementary principles of sanitation and education. Donna Felipe, who cleans and keeps neat the schoolhouse, is ancient in years and a grandmother to six boys and two girls, yet she displays an Americanized active thought, and discusses such current topics as birth control and the tenure law!

After a trip through the flower-bordered small houses, the return job takes one past a veritable picture book scene of slender eucalyptus and weeping willow in which is set a tall brown house overhung with climbing roses. Showers of yellow and deep pink flowers fling themselves over the shingled roof in undisciplined color. Shaded by the willow leaves, the garden is filled with roses and small plants of beauty–but there is an air or desolation. Donna Maria, well-loved Mexican housewife and “favorite” of the Americanization workers, died last summer and her home is left to her husband, who works on the ranch. Now left to bloom unaided, the garden was formerly a marvel of orderliness and the house exemplary of meticulous tidiness. Miss Druzilla Mackey, director, Mrs. Arletta Klahn Kelly, former teacher of the camp, and Mrs. Ward all have words of sorrow for the hospitable Donna Maria, prize pupil of “la escuela.”

In the main, Americanization is well accepted and its teachings to a degree are followed by the residents of the tiny hidden village.

Click HERE for more about the local Americanization program.

“Old Mexico and new California blend to compose the daily life in the Mexican camps which dot north Orange county, a tour of the camps with Miss Druzilla Mackey, director of immigrant education of Fullerton union high school district, reveals.

Before the rows of brown frame company-built houses the clothesline of each Mexican housewife wears its serape of drying clothes in a riot of color. Fat brown babies play on the doorsteps and marigolds and turnips thrive side-by-side in the front gardens of the homes.

Inside the home cleanliness is marked. Wood or linoleum-laid floors alone are scrubbed shining and spotless. Bed room and living room are frequently combined, and on the beds fluffy boudoir dolls made in Americanization school share honors with delicate cut-work and lace pieces which most Mexican girls delight to make. In one room corner is a cross or family altar, while in the more affluent homes the radio is found.

Baking tortillas and enchiladas, washing and cleaning occupy the time of the Mexican mother. While she retains the language and dress characteristics of her motherland, her daughters are products of public schools and wear the waved hairdress and modern garments of the American girl.

Monthly a trained nurse and physician visits the camps to hold a clinic. The Mexican bambino (baby) is dressed in shirts heavy with crocheting and hemmed in handmade lace. The young mothers anxiously request and put into effect suggestions as to sanitary care for their children, which are seldom ailing.

Miss Mackey, Mrs. Carmen Adams and Mrs. Anna Roy visit Pomona camp in Fullerton each week to instruct the residents in elementary English, housekeeping, sewing, and cooking. In La Jolla, Atwood, La Habra, Placencia, and at Bastanchury the camps serve as counsellors for their miniature communities which average 40 families.

A Mexican citrus worker is employed in this district between six and nine months each year, and earns about $2.50 a day. In Fullerton he pays about $15 a month for house, gas, lights, and water. In the idle months, the men of the family travel through the state in hope of finding additional work. On an average salary of $80 a month a family of from two to 10 children and in-laws with pet dog, cat and tame birds lives in comparative comfort. The young girls often assist in housekeeping and the boys seek whatever odd work they can obtain. The drawn-work and lace of the women in exquisite but they are not paid enough to warrant their selling it.

Each camp has between a dozen and 40 houses with community shower, bath, and outdoor laundry tubs. In La Habra, first rural camp and organized 10 years ago, the most affluent Mexicans are to be found. At La Jolla, a group of cement workers, citrus and general workers selected an unrestricted space of land and built their homes. Here is a typical Mexican community. Each house has its fence to keep the neighbors’ chickens away from the garden.

Except for church holidays and occasional wedding fiestas, there is little social life in the camps except for “school days” when the entire feminine population turns out to study household arts and learn hand crafts.

At present, lodges are popular and in the community halls hang charters of labor unions and social orders. In the past year, cement work has been so scarce that several families now contemplate returning to Mexico to take up homestead lands.

Boys of the colonies seldom complete high school and since minors are forbidden citrus work in this district, they spend their time playing rebote, or Mexican handball, and working wherever they can. The young girls and their mothers work on dresses, linens, and quilts. They throng the community building to spend their time sewing and studying. In Placentia, a young Mexican girls club is being organized under direction of Miss Rose Camers, resident teacher, by Fullerton, Placentia, and La Jolla girls. The 60 families in the La Habra camp are advised by Mrs. Jessie Hayden. They live in homes scattered over a hill and are distinctly separate from the independent homeowners of a neighboring hill. A substantial colony is in Atwood, and at Bastanchury several groups of families constitute the general camp, which is managed by Mrs. Lucille Ward. At Placentia, community gardening is a current project.

Education in opinion of Miss Mackey is a serious problem for the Mexicans. Scarcity of space at home, and the distance of the library or school are obstacles to education. Each member of a family is needed as a breadwinner and many difficulties beset the path of the young Mexican who aspires to more than a grammar school education.

An education attained, the student has still to face a racial prejudice in the business and professional world, she says. Unless parents and children are eager to undertake the struggle for higher education, it is not forced on them, since the odds are so great against success.

The state, county, local school system and the citrus associations combine to maintain Americanization schools and resident teachers. In addition to visiting teachers, Miss Macke makes frequent visits to each colony to note progress and assist in teaching.

Mrs. Arletta Klahn Kelly assists in work at Pomona colony, where she was until recently in charge. In recent years of depression, when other activities have been curtailed, the citrus industry still contributes to the camp work.“

Politics

In local political news, Billy Hale, Ted Concoran, and Thomas Gowen were elected to the City Council.

A local crisis occurred when a new council majority chose to dismiss local judge Halsey Spence, which prompted massive community backlash, and a petition to reinstate him. Stay tuned for more on this in 1933.

Education

In education news, Valencia Drive school was built.

Prohibition

Prohibition, which was enacted in 1919 with the ratification of the 18th amendment, was nearing its end. It would be repealed in 1933 by the 21st amendment. Prior to that, the Wright Act, which provided state enforcement of prohibition, was repealed by voters. 

Fullerton, being Fullerton, kept its local ordinances making alcohol illegal.

This is pretty much what Fullerton did in 2016 after California voters legalized recreational cannabis, making dispensaries still illegal. Dispensaries are still illegal in Fullerton. 

Crime

Local crime mainly involved robberies and burglaries, which is not surprising given the unemployment and poverty created by the Great Depression.

In Anaheim, the Mayor was murdered.

Culture and Entertainment

For entertainment and escape from their troubles, Fullertonians went to movies at the Fox Theater.

Fullerton hosted an annual Jacaranda festival, which included a bike parade and an air show.

Thousands attended a massive Armistice Day parade.

There was a kite contest.

Downtown businesses created elaborate window displays for an annual “Hospitality Night.”

An Easter event at Hillcrest Park drew thousands.

And there used to be something called Golden Rule Week, which I think should be more widely celebrated.

Sports

Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1932.

Fashion

Miscellaneous

And here are some miscellaneous clippings from 1932:

The above article describes how World War I veteran Jessie E. Houser was awarded the Purple Heart: “He was wounded July 19, 1918 at the battle of Soissons Chateau-Thiery while a member of Company 1, 26th infantry, First Division. He received a machine gun bullet in the leg. His citation for gallantry came when he was one of a part of three that captured a machine gun nest and brought back 13 prisoners. Houser also volunteered on a detail to bring machine gun ammunition to the front under heavy barrage fire…Houser, who came to Fullerton after the war, is a member of Fullerton post 2073, Veterans of Foreign Wars.”

Stay tuned for top stories from 1933!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Daily News-Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1931.

Fascism on the Rise in Europe

Before getting into what was happening locally, I’d like to give a bit of context of what was happening internationally, as overseas developments would eventually involve the United States.

Perhaps most ominously, fascism was on the rise in Europe, with Mussolini having taken power in Italy, and Hitler consolidating power in Germany. The post-World War I economic devastation faced by Germany led directly to the rise of extremist political movements, like fascism.

It’s interesting to note that, prior to World War II (when Italy and Germany were adversaries of the United States), not all Americans saw fascism as a bad thing. This is illustrated in a talk given to a Women’s Club in Brea.

“Mussolini is an absolute dictator, a benevolent despot, which is pronounced by many to be the best form of government in the world,” the speaker concluded.

On the other end of the political spectrum, communism had taken hold in Soviet Russia.

US Intervention in Central and South America

Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States entered a phase of imperial expansion into countries like the Philippines and throughout Latin America. Backed by the U.S. military, the United States intervened in countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, Cuba, and Panama, largely to protect American business interests, although that was not usually the reason given by politicians and the press.

Read more about the U.S. intervention in Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Panama during the “Banana Wars” HERE.

Smedley Butler, a Marine who involved himself in many of these interventions, later became an outspoken critic, writing in his book War is a Racket:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

I’ve recently been reading a book entitled Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire by Jonathan M. Katz, which describes the age of American imperialism and its lingering effects today. For example, some of the migration crisis stemming from Latin America today has its roots directly in US intervention.

Great Depression/Unemployment

Back at home, the most significant problem facing Fullerton in 1931 was the Great Depression.

Republican Herbert Hoover was president, and so the New Deal programs created under Franklin D. Roosevelt did not yet exist. FDR would be elected in 1932.

With little or no help from the federal government, local communities were forced to create their own solutions to the poverty, hunger, and unemployment caused by the Depression.

This took the form of both large and small-scale efforts, like city workers and teachers donating some of their pay to help the unemployed, food and clothing drives, church efforts, soup kitchens, and more.

City Council placed a bond issue on the ballot that would authorize funds to pay unemployed locals to do work on city parks.

This issue would be on the ballot in early 1932.

Meanwhile, others sought larger-scale changes.

Culture and Entertainment

To escape the troubles of life, folks went to movies at the Fox Theater:

Fullerton’s First Jacaranda Festival

In 1931, Fullerton hosted its first Jacaranda Festival, showing off the purple flowers of the trees that still line Jacaranda Dr. and other streets.

The Festival included a pageant at the high school with a cast of 300.

King Citrus

Due to over-expansion in the 1920s followed by the Great Depression, the Bastanchury Ranch (called the largest orange grove in the world), couldn’t pay its debts and went into receivership.

“It was revealed that liabilities of nearly $2,00,000 rest against the 2,600-acre ranch. W. Edgar Spear of Los Angeles was appointed receiver upon complaint of the Consolidated Securities company of that city,” the News-Tribune reported.

Aside from a slumping market, another problem facing growers was a disease called red scale. A common method to kill the disease was to fumigate trees with cyanide gas, a dangerous process that sometimes killed workers.

Thankfully, a new (perhaps safer) product was created with the unfortunate name Black Sambo.

Immigration

With unemployment on the rise, immigrants (as always) made a convenient scapegoat and there were calls to restrict immigration.

In 1931, the Mexican immigrant population of Fullerton lived mostly in segregated work camps or neighborhoods and sent their children to segregated “Americanization” schools.

Water

Fullerton residents voted to enter the Metropolitan Water District, which would give the city access to water from the Colorado River via aqueduct.

Crime

In national crime news, gangster Al Capone pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Locally, a Brea bank was robbed, a man was murdered, and a rum-runner airplane was held at the Fullerton Airport.

Transportation

The Airport also hosted a big air meet.

Thousands turned out to celebrate the widening of Spadra (now Harbor) Blvd.

Deaths

The following local people died: Dorothea Burdorf, City Councilman Oscar Adelbert Kreighbaum, Mildred Johnson (the wife of Fullerton News-Tribune founder Edgar Johnson), furniture store owner J.G. Harris, and drug store owner G.W. Finch.

Stay tuned for top news stories from 1932!

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get a sense of what was happening in the town over the years, and creating a mini archive. Below are some news stories from 1927.

In international news, civil wars rocked the countries of Mexico, Nicaragua, and China, which the United States involved itself in to protect its economic interests, including a total occupation of Nicaragua. Benito Mussolini and his fascists were in power in Italy. Germany was admitted into the League of Nations.

In national news, aviator Charles Lindberg became an American hero by making the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. He was greeted by adoring throngs after his return home. Protests erupted in New York against the execution of Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murders they may not have committed.

Growth

Throughout the 1920s, Fullerton experienced a building and population boom. According to the Tribune, Fullerton’s population was around 11,250.

The Odd Fellows Temple was constructed, which remains an impressive building downtown.

Amid great fanfare, the Chapman Building (the tallest building in town) received a new tenant, Ministers Department Store.

Housing

New subdivisions were being built, mostly radiating outward from downtown. Unfortunately, many of these had racially restrictive housing covenants that prevented non-white people from purchasing or renting property in these neighborhoods.

The Chamber of Commerce sponsored construction of a “model house” that would serve as inspiration for new home builders.

Segregation

In addition to the racially restrictive housing covenants, another form of institutional racism involved the segregation of the town’s Mexican migrant farm workers and their families–many of whom lived in housing and went to schools that were segregated from the larger community.

Agriculture

Although new buildings and housing subdivisions were going up downtown, Fullerton in the 1920s was still a largely “rural” city, with vast acres of citrus and other crops.

Fullerton was in what was called the “citrus belt” of California. Large regional orange shows celebrated the area’s most profitable crop:

At one orange show, citrus workers competed in a “World’s Championship Packing Contest” and a girl from Fullerton won!

The Orange County Fair, which still happens annually, is a testament to Orange County’s agricultural past, even though those days are long gone, having given way to urbanization and development.

Oil!

In addition to agriculture, the other big industry in Fullerton in 1927 was oil, a commodity that was central to industrial America, and Fullerton’s oil fields were contributing more than their fair share.

Unfortunately, industrialization came with a cost in the form of pollution and (as folks would later understand), climate change.

Culture and Entertainment

As a testament to its status as a growing city, Fullerton hosted a massive regional Armistice Day parade that drew thousands.

The Mission Court Theater (later called the Fox Theater) had been built in 1925, and became a big draw for movie goers and fans of live vaudeville shows.

Not only was Fullerton home to a first class movie palace, it was also home to a significant movie director named Lois Weber.

Occasionally Weber and her husband Harry Gantz would host parties at their El Dorado ranch in Fullerton, and invite top Hollywood figures.

Crime

An article published in early 1927 gives some crime stats from the previous year. The majority of the arrests were for booze [this was during Prohibition] or “vagrancy” (homelessness?).

The report lists three suicides, three auto fatalities, 22 arrested for disturbing the peace, four for battery, four for disorderly conduct, 21 for drunkenness, one for operating a still, 21 for possession of intoxicating liquor. 198 car accidents, 47 arrested for vagrancy.

Sometimes the perpetrators of crimes would be given names by the media, such as the Praying Sisters (bank fraudsters who sought a more lenient sentence by showing their piety), the Chloroform Burglar (who knocked people out with chloroform before burglarizing their houses), and The Fox (a murderer who killed a girl in Los Angeles and went on the run, sparking a massive manhunt).

In 1927, a county Grand Jury probe raised ethical and legal questions about top law enforcement officials. Some were accused of being in cahoots with bootleggers. A big rally at what is now Amerige Park in Fullerton called for a recall of OC Sheriff Sam Jernigan for his alleged improprieties.

The meeting was presided over by Carrie Ford, a prominent leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). 

Because, at this time, the Ku Klux Klan was a big supporter of Prohibition, some felt that the effort to oust Jernigan was a KKK plot. This rumor was dispelled by “attendees [who] said it was not a KKK plot.”

According to the Tribune, one attendee “challenged any members of the Ku Klux Klan to stand up and show themselves. About 20 men arose in response. The speaker then pointed out that more that 90 percent of the persons are the meeting were not of the Klan.”

This is fascinating to me because it shows that the KKK was still a conspicuous presence in local affairs, even after its popularity began to wane after 1925.

Natural Disasters

In 1927 a big fire broke out on the back of the Chapman building, drawing hundreds of spectators. Thankfully, the building survived.

A much more damaging natural disaster occurred when heavy rains caused the Santa Ana River to flood its banks.

The flood disproportionately affected the homes of Mexican Americans who lived on the south side of town.

“The houses of many Mexican families on the south side between Spadra road and Lawrence avenues, were reported to be under water and uninhabitable and arrangements were being made by Mrs. Mae Reeve, city treasurer, for their accommodation. She will welcome offers of help,” the Tribune reported. “As a matter of precaution, the Placentia Growers’ association today moved about forty Mexicans form its camp on Balcom avenue, to the packing houses where they have been made comfortable.”

This prompted local efforts to deal with the flood and its aftermath.

The flooding also caused oil to pour onto farmlands.

At the regional level, plans were discussed to curb future floods by damming and channelizing the Santa Ana River.

Meanwhile, wealthy residents were encouraged to “Buy a Lot Today, High Above the Flood.”

Water Wars

Those familiar with the movie “Chinatown” may be familiar with the California Water Wars that broke out when LA officials used dishonest means to buy up land in the Owens Valley and then build an aqueduct that drew water from those farmers to the growing metropolis of Los Angeles.

“A state of virtual warfare existed in the hills bordering Owens valley today while officials here debated measures to curb dynamite attacks upon the Los Angeles aqueduct by bands of armed marauders in Inyo county,” the Tribune reported. “Along the 265-mile waterway stretching from the mountain lakes to the city of Los Angeles, through desert wastes and across barren foothills, powerful army flashlights gleamed last night. Meanwhile, the aqueduct guard had been strengthened by the addition of a squad of ex-service men, armed with machine guns and orders to shoot to kill in an effort to prevent another destructive sortie against the city’s main water supply, built at a cost of $44,000,000.”

Meanwhile state growers and politicians were pushing for the creation of Boulder Dam (now called Hoover Dam) which would bring additional waters from the Colorado River.

This is of interest to Fullerton because our city was one of the founding members of the Metropolitan Water District (created in 1928), so (to this day) some of our water comes from the Colorado River, although a larger portion comes from local groundwater sources managed by the Orange County Water District, which would be created in 1933.

Sports

Sporting events were popular forms of entertainment and local pride. High School football and baseball games were often well-attended. Fullerton Union High School’s mascot was (and remains) the Indian, although the Tribune often used even more offensive names for the team.

A popular City baseball league played on the field next to Ford School.

Bowling was a popular sport at the bowling alley downtown.

The high school pool (or plunge) was a popular swimming spot during summers.

Transportation

In 1927, automobiles were becoming increasingly popular, and more roads were being built and paved. Some of the funding came from a state gas tax.

However, rail travel infrastructure was vast. The sprawling Pacific Electric (“Red Cars”) rail network was called the largest interurban rail system in the world.

Airport

Formerly a “sewer farm,” the Fullerton Airport began to take shape in 1927, with locals volunteering to help clear the land.

County News

Orange County was growing, with the establishment of Dana Point and San Clemente.

Fashion

The 1920s were an exciting time for fashion. Here are a few clippings of clothing that women could purchase in downtown stores.

Gender

In the 1920s, real strides were made for womens’ rights, with the passage of the 19th Amendment (granting women the right to vote), and “Jazz Age” fads challenged some traditional gender roles. However, some clippings from the 1927 Tribune suggest the presence of more conservative ideas about what is (and is not) acceptable for women.

Eugenics

In the first decades of the 20th century, the pseudoscience called eugenics was very popular among thought leaders. This theory held that, because there was a hierarchy of races and people, only those with “good genes” (basically of northern European stock) ought to be encouraged to reproduce. An article called “Birth Control Foe of Beauty is Claim” expressed eugenic ideas:

“To balance the large families of so-called inferior groups and the small families among the so-called better classes, the authors recommended that control of birth be legalized to keep down the numbers in the former group,” the article states.

“Such is Life” Cartoons

In 1927, the Tribune ran a cartoon called “Such is Life” which sometimes had a darkly funny tone.

Deaths

Notable 1927 deaths include rail magnate Henry Huntington and early Fullerton developer H. Gaylord Wilshire, among others.

Stay tuned for headlines from 1928!