Mystery History -- Solved!

Mike wins with his 10:23 a.m. Wednesday guess "this is Don Juan Benavidez playing his guitar to these kids, and I assume serenading their mothers too, at Citihall."

In the May 18, 1961, photo above, Don Juan Benavides entertains two rootin' tootin' cowpokes in front of Pasadena City Hall during the kickoff to the city's week-long 75th anniversary celebration.

Here are some photos and excerpts from the Los Angeles Times (sorry for the quality -- they're photocopies, not from negatives).

Mrs. J. Robert Paine, left, of the Shakespeare Club and Mrs. Don C. McMillan, wife of Pasadena's city manager, show off their 1886-era costumes:

A schedule of events for the celebration is as follows:

Wednesday: Kick-off Breakfast, 7 to 9:30 a.m.; costume contest during breakfast featuring clothes of 1874, 7 to 8:30 a.m., sponsored by the Shakespeare Club and Shakespeare Club Juniors.

Open house at City Hall, 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., displays showing operation of city government; free transportation for tour of Civil Defense Center, 1 to 4 p.m., also for tours of power plant, 1 to 8 p.m.; Pasadena City College Oratorical Contest finals, 3:30 p.m., council chambers, sponsored by Women's Civic League of Pasadena.

Barbershop Harmony Show, 8:20 p.m., Civic Auditorium; square dancing, 8:30 p.m., City Hall Plaza.

John Walmagott (left), Mayor C. Lewis Edwards and William R. Thompson admire a 1913 car that will be entered into the horseless carriage parade:

Thursday: Open house, same exhibits and trips as previous day; Kiwanis luncheon, noon, Masonic Temple, honoring citizens who resided in area during year of incorporation.

Mormon Choir of Southern California, 8:30 p.m., Civic Auditorium.

Friday: YMCA open house, commemorating 75th birthday of that organization, all day and evening. Boys Club of Pasadena open house, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday: Open house at the new home of the Tournament of Roses Assn., the former Wrigley family estate, 2 to 5 p.m.

Wanda Anderson, the reigning Miss Crown City, sits atop the city's vintage 1909 Seagrave engine. (To this day the engine is housed at the Pasadena Fire Museum at the Station 31. Stop by and see it and the other treasures some time!)

May 22: State and County Day, open house displays at plaza, Board of Equalization Building and County Courts.

Horseless carriage parade 11 a.m. from Bullocks parking lot, north on Lake Avenue to Colorado Boulevard, west to Garfield Avenue, north to City Hall. Presentation of resolutions from county and state marking the occasion.

Luncheon at Huntington Sheraton Hotel for public officials, 12:30 p.m. Richard Nevins, member of the State Board of Equalization, will represent the state and Supervisor Warren M. Dorn will represent the county.

May 23: Industrial Show, 1 to 10 p.m., Pasadena Civic Auditorium, sponsored by the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce.

May 24: Industrial Show, same hours; Pasadena Symphony Orchestra concert, 8:30 p.m., Civic Auditorium.

Throughout the celebration the Santa Fe Railroad will display two old engines, the Death Valley Scotty engine and a wood-burning engine of 1880, at their yards on Arroyo Parkway near the station.

The history of Pasadena will be shown with photographs and historical documents at Bullock's Pasadena Monday to May 22. The mementos are the property of the Pasadena Historical Society.

Fast forwarding to 2011, this is the 125th anniversary of the city's incorporation in 1886. Throughout June and into July and August, we're partying like it's 2099!

See a full lineup of events and more information here.


Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library and USC.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Scullery Captain wins with his 1:07 p.m. Tuesday guess "During the early days of the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, a professor explains contours and aerodynamics to a group of vehicle design students."

In the 1960 photo above, automobile design students enjoy a day in the sun as Art Center College of Design professor Strother "Mac" MacMinn leads a class.

Now called transportation design, this in one of many disciplines offered by Art Center. Some of the finest designers for the most prestigious automakers in the world are Art Center transportation design grads.


Art Center College of Design is one of the institutions that will open their doors for free on Friday, May 20, for ArtNight Pasadena. If you've never been to the Williamson Gallery at Art Center, get there on ArtNight!


Many thanks to Art Center College of Design.

Mystery History -- Solved!

I stumped everyone this week. With everything coming up roses in just two days, I decided to post a coronation photo.

But it's not the Rose Queen!

In the photo above, Susan DeClercq is crowned Pasadena City College's 1960 Red and Gold Queen by Dr. Catherine Robbins, PCC president, as other members of the court look on.

The 2011 Rose Queen, Evanne Friedmann, will be showcased with her court in the Rose Parade -- just two days away!




Many thanks to PCC and Tournament of Roses.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Susan wins with her 7:07 a.m. Tuesday guess "It's the Rose Bowl hoax of 1961, when 14 Caltech students changed the Washington Huskies halftime card stunt to read Caltech."

Sure enough, in the photo above, unsuspecting Washington Huskies football fans hold up flip cards they believe spell out "HUSKIES" during halftime ceremonies at the Rose Bowl Game on Jan. 2, 1961*.

But the joke was on them because several Caltech students, calling themselves "The Fiendish Fourteen," hatched a week-long plan for carrying out a brilliant hoax in front of a sold-out stadium crowd and an estimated 30 million television viewers.

The University of Washington football team, shown here with their coaches, had no idea the stunt was being planned.


Details of the hoax are much too long and complicated for me to run down here on my humble little blog.

According to Caltech, "It has emerged as the standard against which all other pranks are compared, and has never been equaled, let alone surpassed."

The complete, most accurate background is available on the Caltech website here.

The hoax made the cover of Caltech's Engineering and Science publication that month:


That article made local news that was picked up by the Associated Press, which led to the background on the hoax being printed in newspapers around the world.

Excerpt from the Jan. 25, 1961, AP article:

The secret of how California Institute of Technology pranksters tricked University of Washington students into spelling out "Caltech" for a nationwide TV audience at the last Rose Bowl game was laid bare Thursday.

The current issue of Caltech Magazine, engineering and science, carries a story by Lance Taylor, class of 1962, which outlines the almost incredible preparation and ingenuity required.

The article goes on to report the sequence of events, which began before Christmas.

Here's the cover of the program for the 1961 Rose Bowl Game.


The Huskies must have taken some comfort from winning the game 17-7. The Huskies have had seven Rose Bowl wins.

Caltech students have been renowned for their pranks over the years:

• In 1977 Caltech grad Bruce Montgomery inscribed "DEI/FEIF" onto the valve package he designed for each of the Voyager missions. It was a nod to the long-time Dabney Eats It/Fleming Eats It Faster fraternity rivalry.

• In 1984 some students hacked into the Rose Bowl Game scoreboard at halftime and changed it to read "Caltech 31, MIT 9" (UCLA was playing Illinois).

• In 1987 Caltech students modified the Hollywood Sign:


• In 2005 Caltech students stealthfully superimposed the names of hundreds of illustrious scientists onto stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in honor of a commemorative U.S. postage stamp of late Caltech physicist Richard P. Feynman.




Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library, Caltech and the Tournament of Roses Association

* Whenever Jan. 1 falls on a Sunday, the parade and game are the following day.

Mystery History -- Solved!

I'm calling a tie on this one: (1) Trish for her 11:29 a.m. Tuesday guess "can't remember her name...ugh, brain fail. But behind her, welding work being done on the queen/court float for the parade" and (2) Roberta for her 11:37 p.m. Wednesday guess "Isabel Coleman?"

In the photo above, Isabella Coleman stands in front of the steel framework for San Diego's 1965 Rose Parade float titled "World Peace."

Here's the finished float in the parade:


It was one of the final works of the veteran float designer whose career spanned 60 years.

Isabella Coleman was a visionary who was single-handedly responsible for changing the look of the Rose Parade.

In the early days of the Tournament of Roses, before the turn of the century, the parade featured horse-drawn wagons with a few roses and other flowers woven or tied to them.

Along came "Izzy," who in 1909 created the technique of gluing individual flower petals -- thousands of them -- on a single entry.

She later pioneered many of the techniques for animation and elaborate detail that float designers still use today; and she was the first to pitch ideas for floats to corporate sponsors that would fund the work.

Here she is in 1915 with some of her awards for float design:


During the Great Depression, when her banker husband was out of work, it was her float designs that kept the family, er, afloat.

For each float she drew dozens of sketches, then hired commercial artists to create renderings. She stored the sketches and renderings under rugs in her home to keep them flat and save space.

The drawing of her 1936 float for Standard Oil of California was before its time:


Here's Izzy next to her 1960 Occidental Insurance float under construction.


Detail of the same float, later on:


All told, she designed more than 250 award-winning Rose Parade floats over the course of her career.

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History has an ongoing exhibition titled "Holidays on Display" that features Isabella's work.


Five years after she retired, the Tournament of Roses honored her by adding a new float award: the Isabella Coleman Trophy for best presentation of color and color harmony through floral use.

She remains the most respected float designer in history.

For you local history buffs, her father was C.V. Sturdevant, a Pasadena realtor and developer.

Excerpt from one of my favorite books in the Centennial Room at Pasadena Central Library, "Pasadena: Historical and Personal" by J.W. Wood:

So it would seem that despite the "late disturbance" the town was altogether in desperate straits. The Board of Trade Directors, then as now, met now and decided that "something should be done" to promote progress, etc. Due attention must be given to the fact that the "Colony" had outgrown its swaddling clothes, and had become a regularly incorporated "City" of the sixth class, which, under California laws, meant that it was managed by a Board of Trustees, with a Chairman whose duties corresponded with those of Mayor and City Council under a more expanded system.

One of the things that counted after the boom wreck had been cleared away, was the efforts made to improve the street by cleaning up, sprinkling them and in cases, paving them. Scarcity of water, at times, scarcity of money, always, retarded street sprinkling and the dust was frequently intolerable. The wide awake real estate agent realized the drawbacks in these conditions and urged their correction.

I remember particularly the endeavors in the direction made by such agents as C. V. Sturdevant in the Los Robles, Galena and other streets in the northeast section. Sturdevant labored for two or three years to bring about better street conditions and saw them completed at last.

Many thanks to the Tournament of Roses Association and the Smithsonian Institution.

Mystery History -- Solved

Karin wins with her Tuesday 9:42 a.m. guess "Jackie Robinson's mother reading about his induction into the baseball hall of fame, 1962."

In the photo above, printed in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1962, Mallie Robinson sits in her Pasadena home at 133 Pepper St. and reads the news that her son will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The photo, dated Jan. 25 of that year, was taken by Herald-Examiner photographer Terry Sullivan. The photo in the newspaper had this caption:

Mrs. Mallie Robinson, Jackie's 72-year-old mother, reads story of son's Hall of Fame election in Pasadena home. "I knew he'd make it," she said.

Born Jan. 31, 1919, in Georgia and raised in Pasadena, Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was a graduate of Washington Junior High School, Muir Tech and Pasadena Junior College. He left UCLA just a few credits short of graduating and joined the U.S. Army.

After her sharecropper husband abandoned the family, Mallie Robinson packed up her five children (Jackie was 16 months old) in 1920 and boarded a train from Georgia to Los Angeles. She rented an apartment in Pasadena and later they moved in with a family on Glorieta Street. After she found steady work as a domestic worker, Mallie bought the house on Pepper Street in 1923. The Robinsons were the first African American family on that street. The home was demolished in the early 1970s; a plaque in the sidewalk marks the site.

Mallie is seated below with her children -- left to right -- Mack, Jackie, Edgar, Willa Mae and Frank.


And here's Jackie (left) as a teenager, playing ball in front of the house on Pepper Street.


Jackie (center) visited home in Pasadena with Mack and Mallie in 1947.


In his autobiography, he wrote:

Several days before the winners were announced, before leaving for my office at Chock Full O'Nuts, as I kissed Rachel good-bye, she told me to "be very careful what you say today."

Rachel has almost always agreed with my basic intentions when I sounded off. I could tell she was concerned that I might unnecessarily say something which would hurt my chances of being chosen.

On the evening of Tuesday, January 23, I learned that the baseball writers had given me 124 out of 160 ballots cast. Appropriately, I was with Rachel in Stamford when the word came.

The phones began ringing. The newsmen and cameramen began arriving. Everybody wanted to hear my reaction. Truthfully, after having steeled myself to be passed over and not to let it hurt me a lot, I was almost inarticulate.

Branch Rickey (left) joins Jackie, Jackie's wife Rachel and his mother Mallie after the induction ceremony in Cooperstown, New York.


Jackie passed away at the age of 53 -- too young -- on Oct. 24, 1972, at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.

Rachel Robinson keeps her husband's legacy alive through her work with the Jackie Robinson Foundation in New York City, which she founded.


Pasadena has paid tribute to Jackie Robinson and his family in many ways: a community center, post office, stadium, ball field and more bear the Robinson name.

Please allow me to correct one mistake many people make: Robinson Park in Pasadena was named in honor of the entire family, including Jackie, Mack, the other siblings and Mallie. There is no such thing as Jackie Robinson Park in this city.


The Robinson Memorial, created by artists Ralph Helmick, Stu Schecter and John Outterbridge across the street from City Hall, is a wonderful installation that honors Jackie and Mack. When you visit, be sure to go around to the back side to see the symbols and inscriptions on the backs of the heads.

I'll have more about Mack and the other siblings another time.




Many thanks to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the Robinson family and the National Baseball Library for use of some of the photos.