HB’s second Fall Fair

Over the years, Huntington Beach has found many inventive ways to promote itself and its many events.

Remember the story about Charles Boster’s “Honeymoon Special,” in which a married couple traveled to San Diego and back in one of Boster’s new Buick touring cars with banners and signs advertising our beloved town?

Then there was the “Fish Parade” to advertise the opening of the bait shop and barge at the pier. It traveled throughout the county with cars decorated with fishing nets to promote one of our big events.

In many of these advertising stunts, the automobile played an important part.

One of the earliest automobile parades advertising our town occurred on Sept. 24, 1918. This parade was formed to promote our second annual Fall Fair, scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 2, through Sunday, Oct. 5, of that year.

To kick off the big event, Dr. R.H. Chapin organized a parade of cars to travel into the various cities, towns and hamlets in Orange County.

Each of these 15 cars would be decorated with banners, flags and bunting and would carry a delegation of prominent members of our community, who would extol the virtues of the coming fair and our town.

The parade of cars left Huntington Beach at 9 a.m., with half of the cars, led by Dr. Chapin, going up the coast toward Seal Beach. The other group, led by Judge Louis Copeland, toured the communities of Wintersburg, Smeltzer and Westminster. The two halves met up at Alamitos Road.

With all 15 cars together, the parade headed for Artesia and Norwalk in Los Angeles County before turning around and heading for Anaheim, Buena Park, Brea, Fullerton, La Habra, Placentia, Olive, Orange, Tustin, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Talbert (Fountain Valley).

Three Boy Scouts -- Paul Adair, Earl Cochran and Gordon Talbert -- went along with the delegation and handed out handbills to the public and window cards to the businesses along the way.

One of the cars was a pre-1915 brass-era model donated by the Union Rescue Mission in Santa Ana. A brass car is one in which there’s a lot of shinny brass trim on the radiator and headlights. This novel car was driven by Huntington Beach resident W.R. Anderson, and it carried Charles “Pop” Endicott, who played an instrument called the uniphone.

Also in the parade, Mrs. H.A. Benning drove a big Hudson Super Six that carried Mrs. H.L. Heffner, Mrs. H.V. Anderson and Mrs. A.C. Bullen.

These ladies were dressed as Red Cross nurses to represent the Huntington Beach branch of the American Red Cross.

As the parade of autos stopped in each town, Jesse Armitage and Alex Nelson, with megaphones in hand, spoke to the crowds that gathered.

Only one mishap occurred during this long parade -- one of the cars got a flat tire as it traveled through Buena Park, but Charles Andrews quickly changed it.

Included in the parade delegation were Judge Charles Warner, Thomas Talbert, Maxine Farrar, Earl Farrar, James Conrad, Celia Bentley, Mary Turner, Mrs. Gale Bergey, Mary Starr, Margaret Lavering, Mary Jane Thatcher, Mary Van Fleet, Julia French, Irene Engle, Fern Irwin, Elizabeth Kerr, Minnie Steele, W.L. McKenney, F.H. McElfresh, T.R. Canady, J.K. McDonald, George Franklin, Henry Goestch, Daniel Huston, Charles Nutt, Pierce Tarbox and Lorraine Tarbox.

As you can see, a great many of our townspeople contributed their time to the parade that advertised the fall fair.

The fair was scheduled to be held at Main Street and Olive Avenue and to be housed in three large tents, as well as in a fourth already set up at the location.

Fair Committee Chairman George Franklin leased two 60-by-90- and one 60-by-120-foot tents for a cost of $175.

To save money, the fair committee secured poles for the tents from the Southern California Edison Co.

Another parade was scheduled, only this one would feature a parade of young ladies attired in bathing suits.

This fall fair would become an important part of Huntington Beach history.

As plans progressed beyond all expectations, it became clear that this was more than a local community fair -- it was a larger county event. And so, on Wednesday night, Sept. 18, 1918, the executive committee decided to change the name of the second annual Fall Fair to the Orange County Fair, a name we are all familiar with today.

Although there were small attempts at creating an Orange County Fair in the 1890s and 1900s, it was not until this fair in Huntington Beach that it truly became a countywide event.

We can thank the people of our town who helped popularize the event in those 15 automobiles. They helped create a truly Orange County event.

Next week, we’ll look at what transpired at the fair that I would like to call the birthplace of the Orange County Fair.20060126gzerjpke(LA)