Celebrating the Fourth in 1908

JERRY PERSON

“Where liberty is, there is my country,” were the words spoken so

many years ago by Benjamin Franklin.

Nowhere is this truer than in our city’s celebration of the Fourth

of July.

For our 200,000-plus residents, it will be a time of not only

celebrating, but of remembrance of those who served and died in war

for freedom. First celebrated in 1776 and declared a legal holiday in

1941, the Fourth of July is truly the most American of all holidays.

This week we’ll continue looking back at how our early citizens

celebrated this special holiday in 1908.

Our beach town marked its 1908 holiday event with a carnival,

parade, races of all kinds and a big fireworks display. Rush Blodget

was placed in charge of the event and C.R. Nutt and Ralph Graves

helped him.

Committees were formed and chairmen of each were named. A.L. Reed

chaired the parade committee, J.W. Walker the races, S.L. Blodget the

fireworks, newspaper editor Louis Hart handled the publicity and A.A.

Cole headed the decoration committee.

With the formation of the Huntington Beach Women’s Club in 1908,

it played an important role in planning the event. The entertainment

committee was placed under the direction of A.E. Whiteside.

A contest among several towns involved picking the Goddess of

Liberty. Each individual who purchased a ticket in those towns was

eligible to vote for the young lady who they wanted to see as the

Goddess of Liberty.

The contest was open to all young ladies between the ages of 17

and 70. Thirteen girls were selected to ride on a red, white and blue

float to represent the 13 original states. Maude Stewart won the

title of Goddess of Liberty.

The parade began at 10 a.m. at 2nd Street and Ocean Avenue

(Pacific Coast Highway) and would travel north to Main Street and

head up Main to Crest and then over to 11th Street, which took it

back to Ocean Avenue and south to where it began at 2nd Street.

The procession started with the marching of the Huntington Beach

Band under the direction of Professor Livernash. This was followed by

the Goddess of Liberty float. The Westminster Drum Corps were also

part of that year’s parade.

When the parade ended an hour later, people assembled at the

pavilion on the beach for a special Fourth of July program. It began

with the Huntington Beach Band playing “Yankee Doodle” and “Hail

Columbia.”

The Rev. Henry Roissy gave the invocation and Reed welcomed all to

the event. This was followed by a vocal solo by Gladys Abbott and

included the audience singing part of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

The high part of the program came with an oratorio given by Ray

Horton, a brilliant young attorney from Los Angeles. When he

finished, the audience was asked to sing “America.”

The Huntington Beach Band played a medley of patriotic airs and

then the Rev. Ronald McKillop ended the pavilion’s part of the day’s

event with a benediction.

A baseball game was held at 11 a.m. between our Huntington Beach

team and that of Fullerton. At 2:30 p.m. the races began and these

included foot, sack, driving and bicycle races.

The carnival part of the event consisted of eight tents manned by

local fraternal and other local organizations. Inside the Japanese

tent, an exhibition of Japanese wrestling was shown to the public.

The Huntington Beach Women’s Club had the “sweetest” tent with an

assortment of homemade candies. The club also had an Egyptian fortune

teller, born in California, who would tell your fortune, good or bad,

in proportion to the fee paid.

The Women’s Temperance Christian Union provided the beverages that

consisted of water only. The Modern Woodmen of America had an

exhibition in one of the tents, as did the YMCA.

The Huntington Beach Band had in their tent an exhibit of museum

curiosities and freaks, natural and unnatural -- such as rich

newspaper editors, a clarinet player who beats a big bass drum, Rush

Blodget making a speech, and a horned lady wearing a Merry Widow hat.

Who said musicians can’t have fun?

But the big attraction came as night fell and the fireworks

display began, and the fireworks committee spent a large sum in

securing the most magnificent display. There were no restrictions

placed on the public in the discharge of fireworks, but it was

expected that there would be no rowdyism.

Our 2004 Fourth of July will be on a Sunday and I had forgotten

until Donna Fleming Fascella stopped by to remind me that when

earlier celebrations landed on a Sunday, they were usually postponed

until Monday in deference to our local church members. The last time

a Sunday Fourth of July was changed to accommodate our religious

community was in 1982 when the parade started at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Since that time the dollar has become more important to our

celebration than God. But in all, we do have the best patriotic

celebration in the nation and I hope everyone will either watch on TV

or attend this great event.

Next week, we’ll see how this year’s event compares with one held

in 1909.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.