The Burbank Community Book (1944)

At the time of reluctantly assuming the responsibility of writing a fifty -thousand-word history of the Burbank community, we wondered where we would get the material to fill out the quota. As we delved into the community's past we ceased to worry on chat score, and nearing the end of the task have wondered what to leave out.

In many respects the history of Burbank has been much like the history of most of the towns in the Los Angeles area. However, in many other respects its history has been peculiarly its own. Probably no community in the country has gone through such radical changes, as epoch after epoch continued their march to the music of time.

Chronicling the activities of the community covering the past 21 years has been like writing its history for the second time. Once, in our capacity as reporter for the Burbank Daily Review, in the way of writing its history as it happened - then again re-writing it from the angle of retrospection. Previous to 1923, however, we have had to depend upon those who preceded us onto the Burbank scene. Talking to the old timers, who are still on the scene, we have found to be a very enjoyable experience, as it has given us the interesting background for what our community now is.

We have found that Burbank came up the hard way of "blood, swear and tears," as Winston Churchill likes to put it. We have treated its history in the form of stepping-stones of eras - even going as far back as the first verse of the Bible - "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," of which the soil upon which Burbank rests was a part.

Then came the Era of Discovery, in which the Spanish explorers were the star performers. The Era of the Missions came next, in which the San Fernando Valley played an important and romantic part. The material for these two eras we have gotten from a history of the San Fernando Valley published by Mr. Cawston, the publisher of this book.

Then came the Era of Big Ranchos, when the entire San Fernando Valley was one big wheat field, with the propagation of cattle and sheep the chief activity, and the cattle and sheep represented its chief population. It was from the owner of one of these ranchos - Dr. David Burbank - that Burbank received its name, a large part of the rancho being laid our as a townsite and christened "Burbank."

Ushered in at this time was the Era of Small Farms, in which many who are still living played an important part. It has been from these that we have gotten the data on that particular era.

This was followed by the era of - what shall we call it - the Era of Sub-divisions? - when farm lands were worth more as town lots than for farming purposes.

And then came the Industrial Era, which had more or less of a hectic time of it, by reason of so many industries going "sour," leaving many of the stock buying citizens to "hold the sack," as the saying is.

Because of its length and its severity the ten years of the depression can no doubt be dignified with the title of an "era" - the Depression Era - which the community was able to muddle through in one form or another.

And by reason of the part it has played in the growth and development of the community during the past five years - industrially speaking - the com-munity can now be said to be in the Lockheed Era. It can no doubt be truly said that the community's growth and development in this era is but the shadow of the growth and development of the Lockheed institution.

In delving through the archives of the Small Farm and Subdivision Eras of the community's history we came across the name of Charles B. Fischer quite frequently, and we take our hat off to him for the part he has played in the activities of the community.

On starting out on the trail of the Burbank story, all fingers pointed to Mrs. Thomas Story, as the proper one to see, and from her we secured the groundwork for the Small Farm Era. Others who have contributed largely to this particular era have been such prominent personages of those days as Ralph O. Church, Orville Myers, Albert Erickson, "Billy" Ludlow, T. D. Buffington, J. D. Radcliff, Howard Martin, Henry Luttge, Earl Dufur, Dr. Elmer H. Thompson, Ray Sence, Henry and Walter Story, Mrs. E. A. Fischer, John Peyton, Mr. and Mrs. Grant Roach, Octavia Lesueur, Florence Edgerly and Dominic Morro. This Small Farm Era was the real beginning of community life in the Burbank area.

For the back of the scenery years of the depression we are indebted to David Rittenhouse. And for the derailed data for the hustling, bustling growth and development of the Burbank community for these latter years we have called on City Manager Howard Stites, J. H. McCambridge, J. D. Baer, Mrs. Addie Jones, C. C. Richards and Mrs. Chalk of the Chamber of Commerce; to Dr. Buel Enyeart and Leo Forth for school data; to Carl Squier, Bert Holloway and Svend Pederson, for the Lockheed stories; Dudley Steele for Airport infor-mation, and Blaney Matthews and the publicity department for Warner Brothers stories; Bill Hosie of the publicity department for the Disney stories.

To Harvey R. Ling and W. S. Walker for Rationing Board information; J. L. Norwood and Horace Thompson for War Bond Drives; T. V. Walker and W. S. Sandison for Selective Service activities; Mrs. Marie Rogan for Red Cross; Dewey Kruckeberg, Octavia Lesueur and Gertrude Giffin for the Parks and Playgrounds story; Chas. L. Munro of the Music realm; Monsignor Martin C. Keating for the Catholic story; Earl L. White for Magnolia Park history; Fred Jacobsen for Roscoe story; Cecil Schilling and Gale Beatty, Junior Chamber of Commerce; Edward Arnold for United Service Organization activities; Paul O. Martin for Postoffice data; Former Mayor J. C. Crawford for Burbank -Glendale Good Neighbor story; Elizabeth Ripley for Public Library history, and the members of the Burbank Historical Society for access to the data which they had accumulated.

Likewise to our esteemed Advisory Board: Walter R. Hinton, W. J. Blanchard, Mrs. Elizabeth Ripley, Dr. Buel F. Enyeart, Horace V. Thompson, and Paul O. Martin.

Thanks also to the subscribers to this book, without whose financial assistance the publication of this history would have been impossible.

In the process of gathering this history two things have impressed us particularly. One is, how much the present generation owes to the generations which have preceded it through the pioneering period. The other, the fine way in which the varied units of the community's activity have worked together to the great benefit of the whole.

We have left as a parting gesture our most fervent salute to those who have played their part in their day and generation toward community better-ment, but whose names are not to be found in this "Story of Burbank."

LYNN MONROE

Burbank, California

December 1, 1944.

In the Beginning

This is to be a history of the City of Burbank, Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. All history must have some kind of beginning, and to cover the full story it must reach as far back as it is possible to go. All human history, as far as we have been able to find out, goes back to the first verse of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And in this creation it is assumed that the territory now occupied by the City of Burbank, and its wider reaches, the San Fernando Valley, were included. It was a long time after this, however, before man appeared on the scene to possess this particular part of the earth which God created.

It was on October 9, 1542, we are told, that Rodriguez Cabrillo, on that epochal voyage of exploration, anchored his ships off the shores of Santa Monica and gazed on the low range of mountains that separates this valley from the coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. That marked the first near approach of the white man to the San Fernando Valley, a distance of approxi-mately twenty-five miles. Cabrillo had a great curiosity as to what lay back of those hills, but more than two centuries were to elapse before the panorama of the valley met the vision of his successors in the line of Spanish exploration.

It is the second land expedition in the great trek for Monterey that left Loreto, Alta California, March 9, 1769, reached the mission of San Fernando de Velicata in the same province on May 14, and arrived at San Diego on July 1, .that the narrative of San Fernando Valley is related and mainly con-cerned. This party was in command of Governor Poreola and included Fra Junipero Serra, who was to found the missions, sow the seeds of kindness, goodwill and love I among the natives and provide the actual seed, which he had gathered from many sources, that was to be the start of California's great agricultural development.

When Porto la's party reached San Diego conditions of the entire under-taking were in a chaotic state. The forces of the two ships and the other land expedition which had preceded them to this point had been decimated by disease and other causes and there was much suffering among the survivors. Porcola found it necessary to rearrange original plans, cancel the sailing of the vessels to Monterey, and reorganize one land party to continue the journey.

On July 14, 1769, Portola and his feeble but intrepid band of followers which he himself described as mere skeletons, starred from San Diego. There were sixty-three in the company including Portola, the commander; Captain Rivera and Sergeant Ortega with twenty-six soldiers, who constituted the rear guard; Miguel Constanso, engineer and diarist; Fathers Crespi and Gomez, who had been designated by President Fra Serra to accompany the party; Pedro Pages, a lieutenant, and six Catalan soldiers; seven muleteers; fifteen converted Indians from Alta California and two servants of Porcola and Rivera. Father Serra, who was suffering with an infected foot, remained behind to establish the first mission in Alta California at San Diego and administer to his afflicted comrades who were sharing his distress and hard-ships in this cradle of California: colonization.

Northward the line of march continued. Porcola and officers, the six Catalan volunteers, a band of friendly Indians to blaze the trail with spades, pick-axes, crowbars, axes and other instruments took the lead. After them came the pack train in four divisions, each with its muleteers and military escort. The rear guard, under command of Captain Rivera, was composed of the remaining soldiers and friendly Indians and was used in the convoy of spare horses and mules. Over mountains, through valleys and along the coast they proceeded. The route closely followed the present coast highway between San Diego and Los Angeles and, on the way, many names were given by these explorers to places encountered that still survive in present day nomenclature. San Juan Capistrano, Santiago Canyon and Santa Ana, are among the list.

While camped along the banks of the Santa Ana River, which was reached July 28, the parry was greatly disturbed by severe earthquake shocks, pro-viding the first recorded account of such an experience in California. More shocks were felt as the company moved on through Le Brea Canyon, by way of the Puente hills and La Habra to San Gabriel, where another camp was made near the present site of the mission.

On August 3 the parry arrived at a point near the present site of Los Angeles City (the original area) and, proceeding westward, discovered the first oil field in California, which was described as "large marshes of a certain substance like pitch, that boiled and bubbled and came out of the ground mixed with an abundance of water." This point was named The Spring of the Alders of San Esrevan. It is now known as Brea pits, from which have been taken so many fossils of prehistoric animals. The underground richness of that particular area was to remain hidden for more than a hundred years after this memorable visit by Ponola's expedition.

From here the expedition followed the foothills to a point near the present Santa Monica beach and, doubling back, proceeded through what is now known as Sepulveda Canyon to the crest of a low mountain range. It was the range viewed by Cabrillo in the year 1542.

Spreading out on the north, from a viewpoint near the present location of Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel that crosses under Mulholland Drive, was a wide, flat valley, beautiful in outline like a great oval, and bordered on all sides by majestic hills. Then and there, on August 5, 1769, Portola, Rivera, Constanso, Pedro Fages, Onega, Fra Crespi, Fra Gomez and their retinue of Spanish soldiers were the first white men to penetrate the portals to that favored garden spot of California, now so widely known as San Fernando Valley, and to form initial conceptions of its possibilities under colonization, cultivation and proper dominion.

The picture of the valley that met the view of these explorers must have been an impressive one. The same spot of outlook, today, brings expressions of enjoyment and appreciation from the many nature lovers, who travel over the Sepulveda and Mulholland Highways to view the magnificent vista.

Little time, however, was spent in the valley by Ponola on this journey. Monterey was the goal his party were seeking, so pressing on, they descended the north slope of the mountain range, passed over the floor of the valley in the direction now taken by Balboa Avenue or Sepulveda Boulevard to the present site of San Fernando City, and made their exit through the canyon, now known as Fremont's Pass.

To this valley was given the name "Santa Catalina de Bononia de Los Encinos" and his history gives but meager account of the party's experiences here other than the contact with Indian tribes in large numbers, who were encountered on the north and south slopes of the valley and were found to be of a very low type in the scale of humanity, yet friendly and non-aggressive. Encinos, meaning oaks, the latter part of the name, as given to the valley, was no doubt suggested by a forest of oak trees passed through in the vicinity of the sites, where the progressive communities of Encino and Sherman Oaks are now located, and where many ancient trees of this type arc still standing to add beauty and serve as monuments to the valley's original name, which survived until the establishment of the mission here, twenty-eight years later. The continued northward advance of Portola's first expedition, the failure to definitely locate Monterey, the discovery of San Francisco Bay and the return to San Diego complete the opening chapter in the initial exploration of Baha California and the discovery of San Fernando Valley. On the return trip, the expedition again passed through this valley on January 15, 1770, this rime using Cahuenga Pass for an exit to the south instead of Sepulveda Canyon and camping enroute on the present site of Hollywood. The same route as in coming north was followed from the Hollywood camp, the party reaching San Diego on January 24, having been on the expedition six months and ten days.

California, as it is known today, had come within the pale of civilization and enlightenment nearly two centuries after the colonizations at Jamestown and along Massachusetts Bay, on the other side of the continent. Just as England had established and left the impress of its habits and customs along the eastern coast, so Spain was to exert the same influences on this newly per-manent, essentially, and play important parts in the subsequent entry of these colonies into the freedom and liberty of the United States of America and in their future development.

San Fernando Valley, in the southern part of California, had been among the first areas of the new province to be explored and three of the canyon portals to the valley, Sepulveda, Fremont Pass and Cahuenga Pass, had been opened to the march of Spanish settlers. A new era was ahead.

Spanish Rule

Anyone familiar with the general appearance of San Fernando Valley as it was only twenty-five years ago, or in the year 1909, can draw a reasonably accurate mental picture of the panorama that greeted the vision of Portola's explorers as they crossed over Sepulveda Canyon one hundred and forty years before.

Here lay a valley with a great flat basin approximately twenty-five miles in length from east to west, varying in width from eight to ten miles. It was entirely encompassed by Low, but majestic mountain ranges, save in the south-east corner, where a narrow opening provided an outlet for drainage to the Pacific Ocean for an area that, evidently, had once been a great lake bed. There were other gateways but they were through canyons, some narrow, some wide, yet all with more or less steep gradients, and making accessibility to the valley difficult.

Down through the ages, the surrounding hills had contributed to the making of the valley in a generous and beneficent manner, aided by the sea-sonal rainfalls. The lake was eventually filled by erosion with fertile loam, which now measured thirty to forty feet above the original gravel bottom in many places, and forming a veritable garden spot for vegetation, that flourished or faded according to the whims of nature in providing rainfall.

Along the foothills and on the mountain sides, the picture must have been considerably different from modern concept. Free from the hazards of devastating fires, such as have denuded the mountains of much of their ver-dure in recent years, the Santa Monica and Santa Susanna ranges, the Malibu foothills and the mountains above Burbank can be visualized as covered with trees and shrubbery, beautiful in their greenness and freshness, and conserving the moisture of winter rains to feed innumerable springs that gushed from the sides to supply the valley below with a copious water supply for its surface needs, and to keep filled the vast underground basin, that was to become the principal source of water supply, up to the year 1915, for the City of Los Angeles.

Through the valley, from north to the south, were occasional scars to the otherwise level and grass covered plain. They were the washes that carried the water, in times of excessive rainfall, to a channel in the south part of the valley, the source of Los Angeles River, or Porciuncula, as this river was originally named.

The tree lined hills, the floor of the valley covered with various kinds of grasses, wild mustard and tules, and the luxuriant growth of cactus and other native shrubs along the banks of the washes gave evidence of the great fertility of the soil, which varied in texture from the light sandy loams found in the lower areas to the heavier structures encountered closer to the foothills. These variations of soil have been largely responsible for the wide diversification of horticultural and agricultural products, so successfully grown in San Fernando Valley, and which have placed it in the front rank of California's many highly productive areas.

Wild life was abundant. Deer, antelope, bears, coyotes and other animals roamed, little disturbed. Ground-squirrels and gophers, then, as now, were to be reckoned with as pests in any future plans for cultivation and produc-tion; sea gulls from the ocean on the other side of the mountains flew in large numbers to forage on the floor of the valley, mingling with doves, pigeons, quail and other birds, having their local habitat.

Here, in full and undisturbed enjoyment of all the natural richness this valley offered, were bands of roving Indians with no other thoughts or ambi-tions than mere sustenance, low in stature, low in mentality and low in nearly all other attributes of humanity. Whence they came and from whom they de-scended are still problems for conjecture, although many theories have been advanced. These prehistoric natives were encountered in large numbers by the Spanish pathfinders along the north and south slopes of the valley, living in strangely constructed tepees of poles and adobe, sheltered from the sun by surrounding oak trees.

Life for them was just one grand hunt for acorns, berries, roots, seeds, grasshoppers, deer, coyotes, squirrels, gophers and snakes to provide their daily diet. The only industry manifested was among the women, who tanned the skins of animals and skillfully wove reeds of grass and tule to supply ar-ticles of clothing and household equipment. In the weaving, these women often showed very artistic taste, about the only aesthetic characteristic found among the San Fernando valley aborigines.

Bows and arrows and clubs were the only weapons used in their hunting expeditions and, rarely, were these weapons used in warfare or in aggression against other native groups. Although slothful and filthy in their habits, these Indians had a happy and carefree disposition, finding their principal amuse-ments in dancing and the many ceremonials held in celebration of practically every event that took place in their midst.

Whatever the innermost thoughts of the natives were, relative to the in-vasion of their camping and hunting grounds and the peaceful surroundings of their native haunts, they showed little or no resistance to the advance of the white explorers. Always looking for food, they accepted the gifts passed out by the strange visitors with docility and, in turn, showed a willingness to bar-ter their own take of game and other foodstuffs for the untried viands and alluring articles of apparel carried by the Spanish. So keen became their de-sire for these articles, that when barter was denied, the Indians resorted to theft, causing one of the most annoying and critical experiences of Portola's expedition. This was true along the entire route of travel.

The number of Indians in the valley at the time of discovery is prob-lematic. Possibly, they were not as numerous as along the coast, or in inland areas where there were flowing streams of water throughout the year, for fishing was one of the principal sources of food for the natives. It has been estimated that, in all of Alta California, there were 100,000 to 150,000 Indians at the time of entrance by the Spanish, varying greatly in stature, speech, cus-toms and habits. The United States census in the year 1920 showed only a little more than 17,000 remaining in the State. Their passing, attributed to confiscation of their lands, famine, disease, mining operations that destroyed food sources, and other causes, is one of the clouds in the history of civiliza-tion in the American continent. As to the exodus of natives from San Fer-nando Valley, it is most probable that they were forced to leave during periods of drought and never returned to combat the inroads of modern settlement.

Records show that the number of Indians under mission tutelage in the valley varied through the succeeding years. In the year 1810 there were one thousand. By the year 1834 the number had increased to fifteen hundred, which was perhaps the peak of enrollment. Eight years later, or in the year 1842, the number had diminished to four hundred, and, gradually after that, these natives, who had roamed so freely and carefree through the valley and among the surrounding hills before the white incursion, had almost entirely passed from the valley's picture and gone the way of all American Indians.

Many reminders remain, however, of the days when the Indians were the sole human occupants of this wide, fertile plain. In the course of excavation for highways, cess-pools, water ditches and other underground work that has followed modern development, there have been brought to light arrow heads, stone bowls and other utensils used by the natives. Around the mission is plenty of evidence of the constructive uses to which Indian labor was later developed under the patient teaching and guidance of the Spanish padres.

With its discovery and naming by Portola, the valley, Santa Catalina de Bononia de Los Encinos, came under Spanish dominion. Through the tenure of office of the ten Spanish governors, who ruled in Alta California from the year 1769 to 1822, with the capitol at Monterey, the valley made little headway in white settlement and remained more or less free to the habitation and use of its native settlers. It was only during the terms of Governor Felipe de Barri, Felipe de Neve, and Diego de Borica that any direct influences were felt, affecting the valley's future destiny. Removed about three hundred miles from the seat of government and with the major plans for development of the new colony centering around Monterey, this valley received scant attention, bur was constantly in view to the travelers over Camino de Real through the valley, on their way between Monterey and San Diego, in their establishment of missions, presidios and pueblos. The fact is, there was so much territory and so few prospective permanent settlers that this valley, Like many other attractive spots in California, was obliged to wait its turn in emergence from its native state.

It was in the year 1773, during the governorship of Felipe de Barri, that a proclamation was issued by the Spanish Viceroy, granting authority for the issuance of land grants in California to stimulate permanent colonization. While the lot of dispensing these grants first fell to Captain Rivera y Mon-cada, who was among the first to view the valley, there seems to be no records of any grants in the valley during the time Rivera served in this capacity. The effect of the proclamation, however, had its influence, no doubt, in attracting covetous eyes to the lands here and arousing desires for its possession.

A few years later, in the term of Governor Felipe de Neve, the first systematic regulations for land tenure, occupation, and industrial pursuits in California were adopted and put in effect. The code, known as "Regla-mento", was prepared by Governor de Neve, himself, and was very effective in bringing order to a rather chaotic condition. By the rules of this code, and with the governor personally officiating, the Pueblo de Los Angeles was founded on September 4, 1781. As most of the lands in San Fernando Valley are now included in the corporate bounds of Los Angeles City, and as civil and criminal jurisprudence in matters pertaining to the valley rested largely with the alcalde or mayor of the new pueblo after its founding and for many years, a brief account of the birth of Los Angeles may well have a place in this story.

After plans for establishing a pueblo on the Poriuncula were adopted by Governor de Neve, Captain Divera was assigned the task of securing settlers. These he recruited in the lower provinces and they arrived in California at various times with expeditions of priests and soldiers, come to establish new missions. Awaiting the day when they should find permanent abode in the site selected for them, the twelve colonists and families, forty-six persons in all, found maintenance in San Gabriel mission. Governor de Neve, with his official staff, came from Monterey, greeted the settlers at San Gabriel, and proceeded to the selected site, where were assembled priests from the mission, neophyte Indians and others to witness the ceremonies.

A cross was raised, chants were sung by the padres and Indians, muskets were fired in volleys by the soldiers and distribution of the selected lots were made to the colonists by the governor. Grants for the lots, under the terms of Reglamento, were conditional for a period of five years, at the end of which time the settlers were to receive final confirmation of possession. Nine of the original twelve settlers remained, when the period had elapsed, to re-ceive the first land tides in the second pueblo of California, which was to be-come the metropolis of the Pacific Coast. None of these first settlers could read or write, but what they lacked in education they made up in perseverance and hard labor, and they made the best of the house lot, four fields and branding iron which each received from the government, under conditions of living that were both difficult and dangerous. Water, then as now, was a major ne-cessity for the success of any undertaking and it was the use of the flow of Los Angeles River by these first colonists, for their herds and agricultural pursuits, that established priority of right and laid the foundation for the legal claim, upon which rests Los Angeles City's present title to the under-ground water of San Fernando Valley. By the establishment of Los Angeles pueblo, this valley lost its right to its most precious possession, the copious underground store of water, but, through the growth and development of the great city to which the modest beginning has attained, a great part of San Fernando Valley has been enabled to recoup its loss by annexation to the city and securing permanent right to the water from its aqueduct for domestic and irrigation use, making it one of the best watered valleys in the entire world.

It was during the term of office of Governor Diego de Borica that two important events occurred which lifted the valley into a more prominent position in the considerations of the Spanish regime. One was the conditional grants, in 1795, of lands included in the valley, and the other was the founding of a mission on the north slope of the valley in 1797.

The Reglamento, prepared by Governor de Neve and greatly liberalized by Governor Pedro Fages, was again changed by Governor Borica to impose certain new restrictions in the granting of lands for ranchos. He insisted that such grants as were made should be to settlers of reliable character, that they be located close to established missions or pueblos, and that preferential right be given the missions to take over the ranchos, if needed, before perma-nent title vested in the grantees. Under such terms, a grant of land in this valley was made in 1795, to Francisco Reyes, who had become alcalde, or mayor, of the new pueblo, Los Angeles. It was named "Encino Rancho", a dwelling was erected by Reyes, and, with his operations in the growing of grain, there began the first agricultural development recorded in the valley. This rancho covered most of the floor of the valley, but there was one other grant made about the same time that included valley lands. It was for the San Rafael Rancho to the east.

Cattle raising, by this time, had become one of the leading industries among the Spanish colonists attracted to the Los Angeles pueblo, and some of them, either by governmental permission or as squatters, were using the valley as pasture land for their herds which had been brought in from other provinces.

Two years after the grant for the Encino Rancho, the mission was es-tablished in the valley and Reyes gave up his lands for the use of the mission, being recompensed by the government with another grant. Fra Junipero Serra, the great master builder of California missions, had passed away, but his spirit, example and influence still remained. The work he had starred and carried on with so many discouragements and so much bickering with the civil and military officials, was now in friendly hands. Governor Borica was favorable to an expansion of the mission system and Fra Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, Serra's successor, was empowered to proceed with an extensive program for new missions.

With the selection of a site in the valley for one of the new establish-ments, a new influence and a new activity were introduced which have lasted through the long period of time and left their impress on many present day customs and activities. The valley was to take on a new name. The possibilities of its soil were to be strikingly demonstrated.

Aside from the mission activities, the gradual growth of the nearby Los Angeles pueblo, and new trade opened up for the valley's principal products, hides, tallow and wines, by increasing visits of Yankee traders to California ports there is little to relate of the remaining twenty-five year period in the valley under Spanish rule. When, in 1822, Pablo Vicente de Sola, tenth and last governor of California under Spain, surrendered authority at Monterey to Augustin Fernandez de San Vicente as accorded representative of General Iturbide, ruler of the new Mexican republic, San Fernando valley basked blissful in its ignorance of the proceedings and little affected by the change that was to place it under a new flag.

Early Mission Period

Mission San Fernando Rey, that beautiful and impressive monument of the past which stands on the northern slope of the valley, overlooking the broad domain it once ruled so beneficently, is the real foundation and background of San Fernando Valley history. Its crumbled walls, built and fash-ioned from the virgin earth and its massive rafters with lumber from the primeval forests of the nearby mountains; its stately palms, planted, grown, and nurtured by the padres, whose sole object was to bring enlightenment and Christianity to the natives; its many surviving symbols of the primitive indus-tries taught to and carried on by the Indians; all these remain to stir the imag-ination and serve as stimulus to the present day population in making the valley a better and more attractive place in which to live.

When Fra Lasuen, as president of the California missions, was dele-gated by Governor Borica to establish five new missions in the colony, he began to close the gaps between the widely separated institutions founded by Fra Serra. Here in the valley of the Oaks, midway between the San Gabriel and San Buenavencura missions, was a large area of several hundred square miles, with many Indians, and with a number of sites well adapted for a mission. With the same vision and perspicacity that noted the selection of all the mission sites, and, perhaps, guided by Fra Serra's knowledge of this valley, Fra Lasuen and his followers came, made a careful investigation, and selected a location on the north side of the valley, midway between the mountain walls to the east and west, and affording easy access to the highway, Camino Real, that connected the other established mission.

Water supply, soil conditions, the climate and other factors were even more important then, than they are now, in determining a choice of a site for habitation, so these pioneer padres must be given great credit for their judgment in picking out such a perfect and suitable setting for the new mission to be erected here.

As the site was a part of the lands granted to Francisco Reyes in 1795, the government recalled this grant and apportioned all of the Encino Rancho, as it was named, for the use of the new mission, together with other lands reaching to the ocean and as far north as Triunfo and Piru. The total extent was about ten leagues by five leagues, equivalent to about 450 square miles.

San Fernando Mission did not retain for long the entire area of lands originally placed under its control. The first large separation came in 1804 when a grant was made for the Camulos Rancho where Ramona and Allesandro had their great romance. Strong opposition to this grant was voiced by the padres of the mission.

Preliminary details having been completed, Fra Lasuen and Fra Francisco Dumetz, accompanied by an escort of five soldiers, in command of Sergeant Ignacio Olivera, starred from the mission at Santa Barbara to conduct the formal rites in the founding of the seventeenth link in the chain of California missions. They arrived in the valley on September 8, 1797, reached the selected site, and there, in the presence of a strange assembly of dirty and uncouth Indians, a cross was raised, a small arbor for a temporary church was erected and properly habilitated, mass was celebrated, and the official name, San Fernando Rey de Espana, was bestowed on the under-taking. From that time, the valley was to drop its former title, Valley of the Oaks, and become known under its present name, San Fernando Valley.

To the Indians it had been known as "Achois Comshavit."

The name, San Fernando, was a favorite among the Franciscan friars in New Spain. It had been given to the headquarters of their activities in Mexico City, San Fernando College, and to another mission in Baja California, San Fernando de Velicita, all in honor and memory of Ferdinand III, King of Spain from 1217 to 1257, who had ruled wisely and well and become sainted by his church. His greatest renown came from his successful efforts in driving the Moors out of Spain.

No time was lost in starting the missionary work in this new field. On the afternoon of the founding day, ten Indian children, five boys and five girls, were baptized and efforts were begun to gain the good-will and co-oper-ation of the adult natives. The first child baptized was named Fernando Baria, with Francisco Reyes, from whom the Eencino Rancho had been re-covered, acting as sponsor. Fra Dumetz was left in charge and Fra Pedro Corres was assigned as his assistant to start construction of the necessary buildings and bring the valley Indians into the folds of the church. Two soldiers and three converted Indian families from other missions completed the mission's official family. During the first month of their efforts, the rites of baptism were administered to thirteen adult Indians and the ground-work was laid for the great field of usefulness this mission was to attain in later years. It was for Fra Dumetz that the point on the ocean near Topango canyon, now known as Point Dume was named.

The first buildings of the mission were of a temporary character and were constructed as speedily as possible under the trying conditions of ignorant and unskilled labor. The Indians had to be taught step by step the rudiments of making adobe brick, tile roofing and pipes, and hewing timber, all necessary adjuncts of the type of construction adopted by the friars. Quarters for the fathers and soldiers, and a large granary were the first to be built in the latter part of the year 1797.

Then followed more commodious quarters for the padres and the guards, additional granaries, shops, and a tannery during the next five years. In 1804 seventy adobe houses were constructed for the neophytes and a start was made on a permanent church structure, which was partially finished and dedicated on December 6, 1806, when Fra Pedro Munoz, minister then in charge, gave the blessing. The church and the fathers' domicile, known as the convento, formed the main building that is still standing and the only one in a fair state of preservation. The long corridor in front, which adds so much to its present beauty and attractiveness, was built in 1810, and the combined structure was not finally completed until 1822. That year marked the end of the major building operations for the mission that had been carried on over a twenty-five year period, and included by the time about one hun-dred houses for the neophyte Indians.

In the year 1812 the valley was rocked by a severe earthquake that caused considerable damage to the mission buildings, but the padres, with their usual fortitude and zeal, marshalled their forces and soon had the necessary reconstruction and repairs under way, rescoring the buildings to their full usefulness.

An abundant water supply was developed from springs not far from the buildings, which was stored in a small reservoir and from there brought to the mission in tile pipes. The reservoir was located high enough to allow gravity flow to the second story of the "convento," where a cooling system, constructed of pipes and outlets, allowed the water to trickle at regular intervals over the outside walls. It can readily be assumed that this par-ticular building was a very popular place and that there were frequent "con-venios" held there during the hot days of the summer months.

The usual custom of stocking a new mission by contributions from the older established missions was carried out here. From Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano came cattle, horses, mules and sheep, more than five hundred in all, and seed for the planting of grain and other crops, soon after the founding.

Founded and equipped, San Fernando Rey Mission made steady progress in its work among the Indians, fully capitalized the many natural advantages offered by the wide spread area of fertile acres under its control, and soon became self-supporting, ranking as one of the most prosperous in the entire mission system.

The experience gained by Fra Serra and the methods devised by him in bringing Indians into the missions proved valuable here in this new field to the padres in charge. Food, shelter, raiment and kind treatment were the initial means of interesting and gaining the attention and goodwill of the natives. In overcoming the language problems, the assistance of the three converted Indian families, assigned here from other missions, was very valuable and helpful.

In the present day of speed, push and jostle to attain an end, it is hard to realize the extreme patience those pioneer padres had in moulding civilized creatures out of such a low class of humanity.

Both the physical and mental strength of the padres, in the formative stages of the mission, must have been taxed to the utmost as they acted as missionaries, educators, physicians and arbiters and, at the same time direc-ted building operations, the planting of crops, the placing and care of the various animal herds, and the preparation of the food supply, so necessary for the success of their undertaking. The diet of mush and cooked meal, freely offered to the Indians in lieu of their accustomed concoctions of acorns and other meager fare, was the great magnet that drew the natives from their villages to the mission gates.

All of these activities were carried on by the padres with little hope of monetary reward, as their salaries, paid by the San Fernando college in Mexico City, amounted to only $400 a year and was paid mostly in goods rather than money. Half of the amount was required for suitable raiment to meet the pretensions of their office. Rations, wine, tobacco and other articles of personal use absorbed much of the balance and what was left was usually expended in personal contributions of necessary articles for the wel-fare of the mission and its charges, over and above the usual allotment of $1000 made by headquarters for the general equipment of a new establish-ment. The soldiers were paid $300 a year and were much better off than the padres, as they had few responsibilities and the extent of their accrual labors was very limited. No salaries were paid to the Indians, their labors being recompensed by food, housing and clothing. In all the early operations of the mission, real money was practically unknown and such barter as was carried on was by the primitive method of goods for goods.

Subsequent causes and influences obliterated the good accomplished by the padres among the valley Indians and eventually resulted in the entire ex-tinction of these first occupants, so it is to the more material effects of the mission, as they relate to modern development, that the valley owes its deep-est debt of gratitude.

As agriculturists, as horticulturists, and as stockmen, the founders and their successors in the development of San Fernando mission have had few equals. Many of the crops grown so successfully here during the years that have elapsed, were first introduced by those pioneer padres.

Vineyards were planted on the sunny slopes near the central establish-ment and the wine produced from them became one of the principal sources of revenue. Its quality must have been excellent, for the renown of San Fer-nando wine spread throughout the colony and it was in great demand at a price of twelve reals or an ox hide per bottle. During the peak of this in-dustry, the production was 2000 gallons of wine and 2000 gallons of brandy annually. The vat, in which the wine was made and the cellar, in which it was fermented and stored, are still points of interest in the remains of the old convento building.

Out on the wide, spreading floor of the valley, luxuriant pasturage and favorable climatic conditions brought rapid increase in the herds of cattle and sheep, and the meat, hides and tallow derived from these animals pro-vided another major and valuable income. Evidences of this industry are also preserved in the rendering plant, built in 1818, that substantial and inter-esting pile of stone and masonry with its fireplace underneath and large, round receptacles for the boiling pots, located in Memory Park in front of the mission, and in the meat smoking room of the conveneo building. Horses were also raised here in large numbers.

Market for the mission's products was principally found first with the Spanish boats that couched at San Pedro, and later with the Yankee traders and vessels from other countries that came to the same port.

Transportation of the large tallow cakes, hides and wine to the coast and to the various inland centers was made by means of ox-carts of crude design, with wheels fashioned out of solid sections of trees with holes in the middle for axles. A pail of soap suds was carried as a lubricant and to prevent the holes from becoming too large. The route followed to San Pedro by these strange caravans was through Cahuenga pass, the same course that was later used by American shippers for carrying grain from the valley to the harbor. Records show that the mission authorities also shipped several boatloads of wheat, grown in the vicinity of the Sunshine ranch, but the transportation over the mountain proved so difficult, that they ceased export-ing and restricted the cultivation of this crop to their own needs. This fact establishes the padres as the real pioneers in the cultivation of wheat in San Fernando Valley, an industry that eventually drove out herding operations and became a great factor in building up riches for the men, who in com-paratively recent years, carried on such extensive farming and milling operations.

The decree of Spanish Cortes in the year 1813 provided that all missions in America be secularized after a period of ten years from the date of their establishment - that meaning that missionary padres should surrender author-ity over central establishments to secular clergy and that the common lands of the missions should be distributed among the Indians. This ruling, beneficent in intent, was adopted after experiences among the more advanced native tribes of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, but it did not work so well in California, where the Indians were of a much lower type and required more teaching and training before they were fitted to make proper use of the lands to be restored. Incoming settlers in search of lands, were also devising many ways of taking the holdings away from the Indians. However, royal confir-mation of this decree was not effected until 1821, so that San Fernando mission entered the Mexican period without being materially disturbed by its provisions.

The rise and the decadence of San Fernando mission are graphically shown by the inventories of property held in its possession, made periodically for mission headquarters in Mexico and the government authorities in Monterey. There is considerable variance in the figures of these inventories, as handed down by historians, some showing that the establishment reached its zenith of affluence in the closing years of the Spanish period, and others, during the middle of the Mexican reign. For instance, Englehardt in his history of this mission shows that its peak in holdings of cattle, sheep, horses, mules, goats, and pigs was reached in the year 1819 with a total of 21,745. Bancroft shows the greater number in 1834, totaling 26,000. All establish the fact that it was in the fifteen year period between these dates that the mission enjoyed its greatest prosperity, with that zealous, energetic padre, Fra Ibarra, fighting every inch of the way to preserve its bounds and its pos-sessions from despoliation under the growing demand for secularization.

Up to the time that Fra Ibarra came to the mission in 1820, there had been two padres at a time assigned to carry on the work here, including such outstanding characters as Fathers Dumetz, Uria, Munoz, Landaeta, Nuez and others. Owing to the Mexican revolt and lack of recruits for the ministry from Spain or Mexico, no assistant was sent for Fra Ibarra, so he was forced to carryon alone. That he did a good job was indicated by the $90,000 of specie, $50,000 in merchandise and stored produces, and extensive herds held by the mission in 1826. Increasing population in the colony and more liberal trading conditions under Mexican rule doubtless were contributing factors for success in marketing the mission products, so it is reasonable to suppose that Bancroft's figure of 14,000 horned cattle, 5,000 horses, 7,000 sheep, goats and pigs, and 8000 bushels of grain in 1834 mark the mission's most extensive holdings.

Then came secularization, and by 1842 the possessions had dwindled to 1,500 cattle, 400 sheep, goats and hogs, and the warehouses were well emptied. Most of the Indians had gone. The bells from the church's steeple were ring-ing a requiem for a glorious past, and an invitation to the commencement of a new era, under changed conditions of an advancing and greedy civilization.

Correspondence between Fra Ibarra, his superiors and the newly estab-lished Mexican governors, from 1822 to 1825, shows some of the difficul-ties and discouragements he had to meet in the course of his labors. Increasing and heavier demands were being made on the mission to supply goods and ra-tions for the soldiers. The Indians were becoming contaminated with disease, weaned away from Christian influence, and unruly, due to contact with the soldiers and covetous settlers with eyes on the mission lands. Scourges of locusts and caterpillars, rabbits and worms, were greatly retarding agricultural activities. One of the last acts of Ibarra during his tenure as padre, was the filing of a vigorous protest with the governor against the grant of the Triunfo Rancho and its removal from the mission's control.

The cards, however, were stacked against him and in October, 1834, he was obliged to turn over the establishment to Lieutenant Antonio del Valle, representing the Mexican government, under the secularization movement. Del Valle was appointed Mayordomo the following year and on May 29, 1835, the final transfer was made. The inventory of assets turned over showed: Active credits, $5,736; Mission buildings, $15,511; 3200 grapevines, $16,-000; 1600 fruit trees, $2,400; Implements, tools, et cetera, $1,650; and Li-brary, $417. Del Valle served as Mayordomo for three years and both he and his successor, Don Pedro Lopez, rendered good and efficient stewardship.

While the mission was continued as a church, served by Franciscan fath-ers for twelve years after secularization, its lands at first managed by the mayordomos, passed into private hands through grants by the Mexican government in 1846 and its power and prestige were practically terminated by the effects of this new deal. Fra Blas Ordaz was the last Franciscan to serve as minister, relinquishing control to the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, in Los Angeles, on June 30, 1847.

Through the long period of benevolent service to the Indians, San Fer-nando mission had under its care as many as 1500 of these natives at one time. The largest number of neophytes was 1081 in the year 1811. From 1797 to 1832 there were 827 marriages solemnized and during the years between 1797 and 1851, there were 2,425 Indian deaths recorded.

One of the last Indians to be buried in the cemetery of the Mission was Rojero Rocha who died in March 1902. His age is reputed to have been one hundred and twelve years. While the Mission was in its prime Rocha established quite a reputation as a skilled workman in iron and silver. In the division of the lands following the secularization he was given twelve acres near the Mission, but was later evicted and spent the rest of his life in the hills on the north side of the valley.

As an agricultural and stock raising center and as a producer of high grade wine and brandy, the mission attained prominence in the entire Cali-fornia mission system.

It became noted for its hospitality and entertainment by the many ex-peditions that came to its gates for rest and succor, one of which was led by the intrepid explorer, Gabriel Moraga, and visited the mission November 2, 1806. There was much feasting and merry making on this occasion.

Through the Mexican era and during the American occupation, it became military headquarters for various factions engaged in the warfares of those days, having such leaders as Pio Pico, Victoria, Castro, Micheltorena, and Fremont within its walls. Several minor battles were waged within the valley bounds but with few casualties.

An interesting fact in connection with the mission is the first recorded dispute relative to water rights in the valley. In 1810 the mission had es-tablished a system of irrigation for its orchards, vineyards and field crops and was evidently reducing the flow of water in Los Angeles River. The set-tlers in and around the pueblo of Los Angeles, who depended on the river water for their supply, complained to their alcalde, who in turn filed a protest with the mission authorities. A suit at law was instituted by the pueblo citi-zens against the padres, which forced the padres to tear out a dam in the Los Angeles River. This was the start of a continuous controversy between the valley and Los Angeles that lasted over a hundred years, and is still in litigation in certain pares of the valley that did not annex to the city in 1915.

One of the most enlightening reports, describing the habits and customs of the valley Indians, was prepared and submitted to San Fernando College in Mexico City during the year 1814 by Fra Pedro Munoz, who was in charge of San Fernando mission at that time. It tells also of the methods used in converting and caring for these native wards.

That the mission was a factor in the construction and care of the roads opened into and through the valley, is shown by the recorded request by the governor in Monterey, in 1822, asking Fra Ibarra to furnish men and tools to widen and improve the highway through Santa Susanna Pass. This gate-way to the valley from the north was much used by travel between San Fernando and San Buenaventura Missions. The route to San Gabriel Mission was through Cahuenga Pass and Los Angeles Pueblo.

The establishment of a pueblo near the mission that might have changed the conditions in the valley materially was at one time seriously contemplated. It was a pet project of Governor Echeandia in 1827 and he proposed to popu-late the pueblo with freed neophyte Indians from the mission. As the scheme was so flagrantly an attempt to wrest land from the mission and eventually get it into the hands of covetous white settlers, it was strongly opposed by Fra Ibarra. In this case Ibarra was successful and the plan was abandoned.

After American occupation, the government found bitter litigation on its hands over the title to lands, held by the Catholic Church as the small re-maining part of San Fernando mission holdings. As the result of a suit that followed in United States Court, the church retained title to approximately one hundred acres. The present area of the mission grounds is about forty acres, all that is left of a once mighty domain.

The power and the glamour of San Fernando Mission have gone, most of its buildings have either disappeared or fallen into a state of ruin, but the memories of its important part in the history of Southern California have been very effectively and beautifully preserved for the present generation through the partial rehabilitation of the main structure by the Landmarks Club, the establishment of Brand Park in front of this building through the gift of the land by L. C. Brand and by the appropriation of funds by the City of Los Angeles, and by that wonderful Memory Garden, a floral part of the park, de-signed and fostered by Miss Eva Hettinger and made possible by the loyal cooperation of the ladies of San Fernando city.

The Valley Under Mexican Rule

When California came under Mexican dominion in 1822, a year after Iturbe and his followers had overthrown the Spanish rule in the lower prov-inces, the coffers of the colonial government at Monterey were empty and the civil authorities were in a mood to welcome any kind of a change. Without any armed defense or conflict control was turned over by Governor Pablo Vicente de Sola, last of the Spanish rulers, to the Mexicans, who left affairs of government in de Sola's hands until the appointment of Antonio Arguello as governor.

The change in California conditions brought about by this surrender was one of allegiance rather than of mode of living, habits and customs. The popu-lation still remained of Spanish and Indian origin, the language of Spain continued as before, and the problems of government were much the same. Whatever may have been the real thoughts of the Spanish pioneers, most of the officials and some of the mission padres were politic enough to accept the situation with a show of graciousness and acclaim for the new regime, but there were a number of the missions that resisted Mexican rule.

Arguello made a good beginning as governor. Most of his acts and poli-cies augured better conditions for the colony, but his power soon became handicapped by lack of funds and by conflicting rules and regulations promul-gated by the central Mexican government for the administration of California.

Here in San Fernando Valley there was great uncertainty and unrest. The pueblo of Los Angeles was becoming a center for the many incoming settlers from Mexico in search of lands and this valley, so close by, offered a very inviting field of exploitation. Some of these newcomers became so bold as to encroach on the mission lands and pasture cattle without let or hindrance by the government.

San Fernando Mission had reached a state of great prosperity, but the new authorities were taking more and more of its products, borrowing large sums of its money, and piling up a debt to the mission that soon became a serious problem. This same condition applied to all of the more prosperous missions throughout the colony. The government was in a jam. There was not much hope of securing revenue outside the missions, so the growing de-mand for secularization began to open to the officials a possible, and probably the only method to get rid of their financial worries.

Confiscate the mission lands, sell them and thus cancel the debts. It was easy, so, why not?

The terms of secularization, as finally adopted and carried out were more drastic than the earlier Spanish decree, which gave the Indians at least an even break in the event of distribution of the mission lands. Under the Mexi-can provisions, the Indians, aside from a few individual cases, were to get nothing; the church, little more than the buildings and equipment; and the civil authorities the bulk of the rich fertile acres that had been brought to a high degree of production and utility by the efforts of the padres. No con-sideration was given to the time, study and experimentation given by the padres in the actual proving of the lands. The successful results of their labors were to go for the benefit of a few chosen civilians to pay political as well as gov-ernmental debts.

In justice to the padres who fought and stood off secularization for so long, it must be considered that they were not doing so in the hope of personal emolument, but rather for the benefit of the church they served, and the future welfare of the Indian charges, from whom the lands in question had originally been taken. When they finally lost their battle, it sounded the death knell of their influence as a power in California.

Division of the lands held by the missions had to come sooner or later, so the question of the moment was, whether the strong arm method proposed by the Mexican government at this time was preferable to the more humane and just plan set forth by the padres. Was the hope of making good citizens, land owners and farmers of the Indians a visionary and impractical dream and an impediment to proper development, or was it a sacred obligation to be fulfilled, no matter what the ultimate outcome would be?

These problems, after Mexican supremacy, are presented to give an idea of the state of mind of the padres of San Fernando Mission on one hand, and the government officials and eager land seekers on the other.

Civil strife and uprisings, caused by jealousies among those who had been raised to power and influence in the province, both by Spain and Mexico, also began to disturb the tranquility enjoyed during Spain's rule in California. Mexico, itself, was in a state of turmoil, reflecting the instability of its govern-mental affairs in the administration of this colony, and was pouring in by shiploads a lot of very undesirable settlers to make matters worse.

San Fernando Valley, being so sparsely settled and shut off by its sur-rounding mountains, was fortunate in not being materially affected by these conditions, but was the scene of several of the most important forays of troops between Monterey and San Diego, in the insurrections that developed. The mission was used as a source of supply for rations and supplies on such occa-sions by whichever side reached it first.

The first revolt occurred in November, 1831, when Pio Pico, Juan Bandini and Jose Antonio Carillo, at San Diego, organized a force to overthrow the government of Governor Manuel Victoria, and reseat Echeandia as governor. The troops came north and, with recruits gained in Los Angeles, numbered about two hundred men. Governor Victoria started south to meet the enemy with a much smaller force, in command of Romualdo Pacheco, and passed through this valley. The forces met near Cahuenga Pass and, when Pacheco saw that the government troops were greatly outnumbered, he urged Governor Victoria to withdraw to San Fernando Mission to await reinforcements. The governor refused, decided to fight it out then and there, and made a gallant stand. He was wounded, however, in the engagement and shortly after re-signed his office and left the province. Pio Pico, as the result of this uprising, claimed office as governor the following year, but after strong opposition, he was soon forced to relinquish it.

It is in this event that Pio Pico, who was to play such an important part in San Fernando Valley's affairs, first came into prominence. His family had been given a Spanish grant in 1795 including most of the best lands in Ventura County, which provided the necessary background and fortune to establish Don Pio as a formidable caballero. As a leading proponent of secularization, he became a thorn in the flesh to the mission padres, and, in his overzealous espousal of the interests of the southern part of California and in his efforts to remove the capital from Monterey to Los Angeles, he caused much disturbance to the government.

Pio Pico's influence, during his short term as governor at this time, may have extended to his successor, Governor Jose Figueroa, for it was in the latter's administration in 1834 that San Fernando Mission was finally secularized.

More trouble broke out in 1837 after Juan Batista Alvarado had taken over the governor's office and his authority was questioned and opposed by a faction in the south, who among other demands, were insisting that Carlos Carillo be seated as governor and Los Angeles be made the capital. Troops were recruited in San Diego and Los Angeles through the efforts of Jose and Carlos Carillo, Juan Bandini, Andreas Pico and others, and preparations were begun to advance on Monterey to enforce their demands.

Governor Alvarado organized his forces, placed Jose Castro in command, and set out to curb the insurrection. After a preliminary skirmish between the opposing factions at Ventura, the southern troops were forced back into San Fernando Valley. Here were stationed 270 men, under command of Alferez Rocha, many of the Indians having been impressed into service. The mission had also been called on to make heavy contributions of money and supplies for the southern cause.

Arriving in the valley on January 19, 1837, Alvarado lined up in battle formation between Calabasas and Encino, ready to attack the forces at the mission. In the meantime, the leaders of the revolt, with many of their fol-lowers had gone to San Diego to muster more recruits, so Alcalde Sepulveda of Los Angeles decided it was time to call a truce. The conference lasted several days, the commissioners from the south making no headway in their request that Alvarado disband his army and retire. Finally, after a messenger had been sent to the mission by Castro, stating that he would order an advance if it continued to hold out, the troops of Rocha capitulated and Alvarado, Castro and their men found the mission at their disposal without a shot having been fired.

This rebellion had its ending at San Juan Capistrano, where Alvarado and Castro dispersed the recruits on their way north from San Diego in a short engagement. The only casualty in the war of 1837 was one man killed.

In 1845, San Fernando Valley again became the arena for what proved to be the last civil war engagement waged by the contending caballeros under Mexican rule. This time it was Governor Micheltorena who found his official position threatened due to various causes, but mainly on account of the thiev-ing propensities of the convict soldiers, brought to California from Mexico to recruit the government's military force.

The rebellion opened in the north and was headed by Alvarado and Castro, who after being repulsed in a skirmish near Salinas, brought their followers south and captured the garrison at Los Angeles Pueblo in a surprise attack. Here they enlisted the support of Pio and Andres Pico, who agreed to furnish additional men and horses for the rebel cause, under an agreement that Pio Pico was to become civil governor, and Castro was to be placed in charge of the military forces, in the event that Michelrorena was overthrown.

Several weeks were spent in making preparations. Hundreds of the finest saddle horses were gathered from the southern ranchos and the fighting force was brought up to about four or five hundred men, including many foreigners.

In the meantime, Micheltorena had gained aid from Captain Sutter, who with fifty riflemen, mostly foreigners recruited in Sacramento Valley, joined the movement to put down the uprising. The government force, numbering in all several hundred riflemen, artillerymen and drilled Indians with guns, bows and arrows, came south and arrived in this valley February 19. A base was established on the Encino Rancho close to the Camino Real.

Informed of this movement, Castro and Sepulveda hurriedly got their troops together and came out through Cahuenga Pass on the same day, taking a position near the present site of Studio City, where they were reinforced the next morning by Pio Pica with an additional group of recruits.

The battle opened at noon, February 20, with a long range artillery duel, which echoed over the hills to Los Angeles and drew most of the population of the pueblo to view the conflict from a hillside. All through the afternoon, the two forces advanced and retreated along the course of the Los Angeles River, wildly firing their muskets, but neither showing any inclination to get within harmful range of the other's bullets.

The display of daring horsemanship and the noise from the cannon and rifle fire must have been very impressive, for on the hillside, women and chil-dren with crosses in their hands were weeping and wailing, invoking the saints for the safety of their loved ones who were engaged in the battle. Most of the foreigners in both contingents, who had enlisted merely in the hope of securing grants of lands, early decided to get out of danger and, deserting their commands, fraternized among the spectators on the hillside.

When darkness finally put an end to the hostilities, it was found that the only casualties were one horse and one mule killed. No human blood had been shed.

Indecisive as this Battle of Cahuenga was from a military standpoint, it did impress Micheltorena with the uselessness of continuing the struggle against such a determined and strongly organized group of adversaries. The next day, a conference of the leaders of the factions was held on the Campo of the mission and on February 22, 1845, the Treaty of Cahuenga was com-pleted and signed. Under its terms, Micheltorena retired with honors of war, resigned as governor and turned over the civil and military establishments of the province to Pio Pico and Jose Castro.

A few cannon balls, relics of this battle, were unearthed during the nineties, when plows first turned over the virgin soil of the old sheep ranch, directly north of the Hollywood Country Club, where much of the fighting rook place. Others were found around Burbank.

Pio Pico had attained his ambition to become governor and make Los Angeles the capital, but the short time he served as the last civil ruler of California under Mexico more than taxed his ingenuity to hold the province for that nation, to establish an independent republic, or to turn it over to France or England under favorable terms.

He did, however, as one of his acts, take the opportunity to make final disposal of the lands of San Fernando Mission. In 1846 he effected a sale of 121,542 acres, covering most of the floor of the valley, to Eulogio De Celis for a consideration of $14,000. The proceeds of this sale was largely used in Pio Pico's unsuccessful efforts to keep California free from union with the United States of America.

This transaction, with the prior grants of the Encino, El Escorpion, San Rafael, and Providencia ranchos and a few individual grants to Indians made under Spanish and Mexican control, are the foundation for all land titles in San Fernando Valley.

Aside from the few disputes that may have arisen in the valley during the Mexican period over the use of land and water, there was little litigation requiring legal action. Such civil and criminal cases as did arise here were handled, at first by the alcalde of Los Angeles Pueblo, and later by a justice of the peace, stationed in the pueblo. Minor cases of a criminal nature were handled by the military authorities at the mission, the common punishments being imprisonment and lashings. Thefts of cattle and sheep were the most common complaints.

The first discovery of gold in California in March, 1842, by Don Fran-cesco Lopez, while picking wild onions in Placeritas Canyon, a few miles north of San Fernando Valley. The news of the discovery spread rapidly and a Mass, largely attended, was celebrated to dedicate the newly opened placer mines that soon were opened.

The first gold dust coined in the Philadelphia mine came from this field and was transported in a sailing vessel that went around Cape Horn. It did not occupy much space as the shipment totaled only 18.34 ounces. The amount received after minting was $344.75. It has been estimated that from $80,000 to $100,000 was taken in the few years that the mines were in operation.

Pedro Lopez, after his office as mayordomo was finished, continued to live at the mission. His daughter, Catalina, a great favorite among all her associates, after several years schooling in Los Angeles, married Geronimo Lopez in 1853 and she and her husband made their home with her father until the latter's death in 1861. From these beginnings, the first real pioneers of San Fernando developed after American occupation came, and many of the descendants are still active and prominent in the social and civic affairs of the valley.

Despite the differences, the unrest and the civil warfare that were ex-perienced in California under Mexican rule, this period of twenty-five years marked the creation and development of most of the great ranchos and haciendas, which furnish the background for legend and romance make California history so interesting and appealing. Though its lands were still undivided and few settlers had come into its bounds, San Fernando Valley felt the influences of the surrounding developments, biding its time to show to the world its desirability and special fitness as a place of habitation and take its rightful place in the lead of California progress.

American Period

American penetration into the affairs of California had been slowly bur surely developing. Alluring accounts of the conditions and possibilities in this part of the country by the early Pacific Coast traders and pathfinders created curious interest among the adventurous settlers in the United States and stirred up desire for emigration to this reputed paradise. By 1841, a number of parries were organized east of the Rocky Mountains to make the hazardous trip and were arriving in the province in increasing numbers. When, in 1844, the United Stares Government sent John C. Fremont and his party to the far west on a second expedition of scientific research, further emigration to California was greatly stimulated.

This growing nucleus of American settlement, the unsettled conditions here under Mexican rule, the threatened acquirement of the colony by Russian colonization movement, and the war that broke out between the United States and Mexico proved a combination of circumstances chat resulted in the raising of the first United States flag at Monterey on July 7, 1846, and a declaration of intent by Commodore John D. Sloat to make California a part of the United States.

San Fernando Valley, up to this time, had experienced little contact with the Americans. Ewing Young and his band of trappers, who stopped at the mission in 1826, were perhaps the first. Later, Abel Stearns, Thomas O. Larkin, William Wolfskill, Jonathan Warner, David W. Alexander, Benjamin D. Wilson and William Heath Davis were among those who visited the valley in their trading operations with the mission. There were a number of Ameri-cans among the foreigners who took part on both sides in the Battle of Cahuenga. None had established settlement within the valley's bounds.

Los Angeles, so close to the valley, became the center of opposition to American occupation and rule and the story of its final capitulation through the efforts of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, General Stephen W. Kearney and Colonel John C. Fremont, again brings this valley into prominence as a treaty making place and as the spot where the United States ended its military conquest of California.

Fremont, on his way from the north with a force of four hundred men to reinforce Stockton and Kearney, entered San Fernando Valley through Fremont Pass on January 11, 1847, and established headquarters at the mission.

Here, Fremont first learned that Stockton had taken Los Angeles on the previous day but that there were still some irreconcilables among the oppo-sition who might cause more trouble. An emissary, Jesus Pico, was therefore sent from the mission by Fremont to the group of California leaders who had retreated to a spot near Glendale, urging general submission by the Los Angeles garrison and the citizens. A conference was arranged and on January 13, 1847, Fremont and Andreas Pico, with their commissioners, met on a hillside near the present site of Universal City and concluded a pact, so liberal, wise and just, that the security of American control was assured, and the basis was established for the beneficial assimilation of the California dons into the new form of government. It only remained for the treaty of peace between the United States and Mexico, signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, to complete full dominion in California by the United States. A memorial park, marking the site of the Fremont-Pico treaty negotiations, was erected at Uni-versal City a few years ago by the City of Los Angeles.

By strange coincidence, a treaty completed in this valley placed Pio Pico in power as governor, and the treaty made by Fremont and Andreas Pico, also concluded here, definitely removed Pio from the office he had continued to hold in defiance of the Americans.

This ambitious don, though curbed in power, did not lose his spirit as he continued active in Southern California affairs for many years and served as a member of the constitutional convention which drafted the first form of state government for California in 1849. Through his extensive ownership of lands here Pio Pico also remained a major factor in this valley's destiny for a long time after American occupation.

In the establishment of cordial relations between the Spanish dons and the Americans after the treaty had been signed, and in helping to build up a spirit of loyal allegiance to the newly established United States Government, no one rendered greater service than Andreas Pica. After his surrender to Fremont, Andreas retired to his ranch at San Fernando Mission where he engaged in raising fine horses and cattle, yet keeping in close touch with the march of events through his frequent associations with his friends in and around Los Angeles. In 1854 it was he who organized and led the force of men who saved the sheriff of Los Angeles County and his deputies from possible death at the hands of the mob that lynched Dave Brown. Again in 1856, Andreas Pico and Thomas Sanchez were the leaders of a force organized to protect the Los Angeles area from the depredations of the bandits, Welch, Juan Gonzales, Juan Flores, Pancho Daniel, Andreas Fontes and others who were threatening American rule with their rallying cry of "Down with the Gringoes." It was on account of his service in this cause that Andreas Pica was appointed Brigadier General of the California National Guard, a position held for a number of years and from which he gained the title "General." Sanchez became the sheriff of the country as the reward for the part he had played.

The Mission Rancho of Andreas Pico became a favorite gathering place for Spanish and American friends in Los Angeles, where, under the spell of the General's splendid hospitality, all bitterness over the past was dispelled and a strong bond of cooperation was developed. Here many of the Ameri-cans gained their first intimate knowledge of real California mode of life as established by the Spanish dons. Above all else, General Pico was a horse-man, a real caballero. He never tired in showing his excellent strain of saddle horses and their fine equipment. One saddle outfit alone is said to have cost over $5,000. In the way of entertainment for his guests, General Pico pro-vided everything from a fiesta to a bull fight, and, often, hunting trips were arranged to shoot antelope in the vicinity of Elizabeth Lake.

Pio Pica and Eulogio De Celis were land barons of the valley, but it was General Andreas Pico who, through his residence here, gave the valley its most intimate touch with old Spanish customs.

Discharge of many soldiers, who had enlisted in the East with the inten-tion of remaining here when their terms of service had expired; discovery of gold with its consequent inrush of prospectors; the building and completion of the first transcontinental railroad were the main contributing causes of the rapid increase in American population that came after California became a part of the United States. San Fernando Valley was one part of the State that did not experience many direct effects from this early American settlement.

Its lands were still held in large tracts and controlled by Spanish or Mexican owners, grazing and grain growing continued as the main industries, customs, manners, and habits remained little changed, and the mission with its surround-ing settlement was the only center of trading activities.

Prior to the year 1874, not more than a dozen American and English speaking people had established settlement in the valley. The first was prob-ably George Rice, who with his family located in the early fifties on a tract of land north of the mission, near the homestead selected by Geronimo Lopez. This pioneer became a member of the first board of education in the valley.

In the eastern part of the valley, Dr. David Burbank, Dr. Oliver and Simon Hoyt had established dwellings in the Providencia Rancho, which Dr. Burbank had purchased, and in which the townsite of Burbank was later located.

Among these early Americans, Dr. Burbank and N. C. Johnson are out-standing for the influence they reflected in the moulding of lacer valley development. Mrs. N. C. Johnson was the first American woman to locate in the valley.

There was romance, there was adventure, there were many deep and lasting friendships formed between the small groups of Spanish and American settlers in the valley in those days, but there were also many difficulties, discouragements and hardships. These pioneers together with the proprietors of the large ranchos had to constantly guard their property and their herds of horses, cattle and sheep from thieves chat came in following the vigilantes movement in the northern part of the state. There were uprisings of the Indians outside mission control that often became serious, threatening the security of life and property.

These conditions and the land taxes which came with American rule made operations of the ranchos difficult and such rancheros as Andreas Pico and DeCelis of E-Mission San Fernando, Dr. Burbank of Providencia, DeLa Osa of Encino and Urbano of Escorpion were finding it hard to realize any profit from their holdings. Some of them began to seek opportunity to unload. DeCelis is reported to have offered his lands, for fifty cents an acre in 1856 but could find no buyers. Under similar handicaps, the padres had shown more fortitude and managed to keep the mission in a prosperous condition by their operations over the same lands.

After the reign of the padres, the growing of wheat and other grain in the central part of the valley had been largely discontinued, but eastward in the adjoining Providencia rancho, Dr. Burbank and his predecessors in own-ership devoted much of the land to these crops and the Providencia became the principal source of supply of grain for the stockmen in the valley and for the needs of the growing City of Los Angeles.

The Iron Horse, Wheat and Subdivision Brings Changes

Entering the seventies, San Fernando Valley was stirred by rumors of a railroad, planned to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles and being routed through the valley by the engineers. More and more attention was being directed to the successful demonstrations of farming operations provided by the pioneer setters on the smaller tracts of land in various parts of the valley. Sheep raising had practically supplanted all other lines of animal husbandry.

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company, incorporated in 1872, soon started construction work on its first two units, between San Francisco and Fresno in the north, and between Los Angeles and San Fernando in the south. With this work under way, the valley buzzed with excitement and activity as thousands of Chinese laborers were brought here to prepare the grade and lay the rails. When the southern unit was completed, locomotives and cars of a primitive type were supplied and passenger and freight service between Los Angeles and San Fernando was inaugurated. Rail transportation became a fact in 1874.

So came three great new factors, a railroad, wheat, and real estate sub-dividers to help lift San Fernando Valley into its proper place in the onward march of progress in California.

The sway of the California dons had passed. Americans had come into possession of nearly the entire valley. In the north were Maclay and the Porters; in the south, Lankershim, Van Nuys, and the Garnier brothers (owners of the Encino rancho); and in the east, Dr. David Burbank with his Providencia rancho.

An impressive event showing the rapid exodus of the Indians was the last feast week ceremonial held at the mission in 1874. This occasion, once so largely attended, gathered only a mere handful of natives who mournfully danced and chanted around a fire, into which they cast the clothing of their dead ones, who had passed away during the year. This year also marked the last Mass conducted by the Franciscans in the crumbling mission church.

Off with the old, on with the new. That was the spirit which prevailed, bringing sad memories to many, fond hopes and aspirations to others.

Rennie Nadeau was responsible for the construction of the highway, now known as San Fernando Road. Nadeau built this road and used it until he moved his base from San Fernando to Mojave. This was the first highway penetration through the southeast neck of the valley to Los Angeles. At that time there was no Burbank, no Glendale. The route was through a veritable jungle of cactus, gullies and other growth that the early pioneers had never dared to travel through, even on horseback.

The Boom and the Collapse, Floods and Drought

For more than thirty years after American occupation gold had been the great magnet attracting population to California. Agricultural and horticultural possibilities also were becoming more and more impressive to farmers in the eastern and middle western States, resulting in a steady flow of this class of settlers. Through the facilities opened by the railroads, a growing tourist traffic was developing, bringing in many people of wealth and distinction to get a first glimpse of the wonders in this western EI Dorado and investigate the chances for investment.

All of these had their effect in spreading the word throughout the nation that California had more than gold, more than good soil, and more than interesting tourist attractions. It had a climate for all around living conditions, unequalled and unsurpassed by any other part of the United States.

Los Angeles with its growth and development somewhat retarded by the lack of extensive mining operations in this part of the State, and by the fact that much of the surrounding lands were still held as large individual ranches, began to urge the breaking up of these lands into smaller parcels and to capitalize its climate in attracting settlement. Through the efforts of a live, wide-awake Chamber of Commerce, excursions at low rates were arranged with the railroads to be run from eastern points to Los Angeles. The results were astonishing even to the most optimistic. Thousands and thousands of people came rolling in during the years 1884 to 1889 to locate or invest, and Los Angeles experienced the biggest real estate boom in all history. There has been nothing like it before or since.

Subdivisions were opened and sold out in a few days. More were planted and put on the market, some of which were in locations without any merit whatsoever. There was a very frenzy of activity and excitement as buyers swarmed to pick up whatever was offered in the way of lots or lands, and realtors were hard pressed to supply the demand. A great speculative splurge developed among the citizens of Los Angeles themselves.

Newspapers devoted most of their advertising space to real estate promotions, daily excursions were nm to the new tracts and hotels were crowded with prospects.

The unfortunate part of all this activity was that Los Angeles and the surrounding tracts being opened were not ready for such an influx. Limitations as to water supply and other public utilities, necessary to properly accommodate increased settlement, soon became apparent. Climate alone could not satisfy, so in a few years the boom collapsed.

It was during this period of boom that Burbank came into being. It was in 1886 when Dr. David Burbank, who had acquired 4607 acres of the San Rafael rancho in the great partition of that rancho in 1870, sold this property together with his Providencia ranch of about the same area, to the Providencia Land, Water and Development Company, retaining an interest in the company. The combined tract of more than 9,000 acres was surveyed and platted, pro-viding a townsite to be named Burbank in honor of the original owner, and the balance for various sized farms.

It was a time when the Los Angeles area felt the first impetus of "going to town," as the saying is, and the wholesale development of subdivision under the pressure of a hip, hip, hurrah type of real estate salesmanship was entering its first prime, and sending out reverberations which reached the farthest corners of the land.

The sponsors of each new town seemed to have wracked their thinking capacity .in searching for psychologically-charged catch-phrases as sort of theme -songs to attract attention to their projects. Here are some of them found on the more or less flamboyant advertising prospectus spread abroad by the pro-moters of the Burbank adventure:

"Providencia - 17,000 acres - 17,000 - of the Finest Fruit and Alfalfa Lands in the San Fernando Valley. Only Six Miles from Los Angeles - An Abundance of Water - Three Railroads to Los Angeles - Main Line of South-ern Pacific Railroad Passes through These Lands - Burbank - The Sightliest Location in Southern California - Eight Miles to Los Angeles - Twenty-eight Trains to and from Los Angeles Every Twenty-four Hours - $5 for Thirty Round Trip Tickets - Plenty of Pure Mountain Water Now Piped to Each Lot -Lots Have Advanced 400 per cent in Six Months - Sales in Burbank in Six Months, $250,000 - For Maps, Prices, Terms, Etc., Apply to Providencia Land and Water and Development Co., No. 12 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, California."

Much stress in the company's advertising was laid on the health-giving virtues of a home in Burbank. "Designed for one vast Sanitarium. Conditions favorable to longevity nowhere more numerous. Prolongs the lives of the feeble and enhances the enjoyment of the robust. One must know the name of the month in order to distinguish winter from summer. December as pleasant as May. The invalid is constantly induced to eat, exercise, digest, and recuperate. As a sample of what all this means, we are told that "Mr. Crow sold his crop last year from 40 acres of young orange trees for about $15,000 net," and so on and so on, with the same enthusiasm.

The Burbank from which the town received its name was not the late Luther Burbank, the plane wizard, as many suppose, but Dr. David Burbank whose big ranch constituted a large part of the town's acreage.

The original plat of the townsite extended from Burbank Boulevard on the west to Grandview Avenue on the east, and from the top ridge of the Verdugo Hills on the north to the Los Angeles River on the south. In fact it reached across the river, raking in what is now known as Laskey's ranch. The site of this ranch had been set aside to be improved as a city park. When the town was incorporated in 1911 the territory was greatly reduced in size, leaving out the large section between Alameda and Grandview Avenues. This part of it continued to lie dormant in county territory until Glendale stole a march on Burbank as the latter was planning to annex it.

Before officially opening the townsite for sale of lots the sponsors spent $90,000, the improvements including two reservoirs, a $30,000 hotel desig-nated as the Burbank Villa Hotel, at the location occupied by the post office building on East Olive. The improvements also included a street railway system running from the S. P. Tracks to Kenneth Road. As a starter in resi-dential buildings each one of the officers and members of the board of directors of the company built a residence for himself. Most of these houses are still functioning as homes. They are scattered at various places in the hill section of the city and can be recognized by the 1887 type of architecture.

The official launching of the town, May 1, 1887, was a gala event in the community. A special train of three coaches was run from Los Angeles bring-ing a crowd of "prospects," supplying their own picnic lunches and spreading them under the trees about where the Burbank Building and Loan Building now stands. It is supposed that the "prospects" brought their own lunches, as it appears in their publicity that before the years was out the sales amounting to $475,000 were made "and without a single free lunch, brass band or excursion and with but little advertising."

Many new settlers were brought into the valley by the various land and lot offerings and, for a few years the outlook was very bright. Then came the second real estate slump. Values as established by the subdividers declined rapidly, settlers moved out, and investors discontinued payments on their purchases and allowed them to revert to the land companies, who were left holding the sack and obliged to assume heavy taxation owing to the increased assessed valuations. In many cases great confusion resulted in land tides as the sales lapsed or were foreclosed. The great Los Angeles boom had collapsed in all directions. It had been premature and without proper planning, but the experience was a valuable lesson and with the settlers who remained to weather out the storm, Los Angeles soon began to provide the other necessary attributes to make its climate a practical and desirable asset in future development.

By 1889 gloom had replaced the spirit of optimism in the valley, but there were enough sturdy settlers remaining, who by choice or necessity held onto their lots and lands and, through the years that followed, provided more con-vincing evidence than ever before chat San Fernando Valley was a land of plenty and of opportunity.

Wheat farming began to feel the inroads of other industries as this new class of pioneers set out citrus and deciduous orchards and started to grow other kinds of held crops. One of the largest horticultural projects undertaken at this time was the planning of one thousand acres north of San Fernando to olives. Robert M. Widney, who became associated with the Maclay enterprises about 1886 as sales and tract manager, had noted the growth of the olive trees planned by the padres around the Mission. He became interested and conducted a comprehensive research into the culture of this fruit.

The Small Farm Era

TILLERS OF THE SOIL WORK HARD WITH COMPARATIVELY SMALL RETURNS

Closely on the heels of the break up of the large ranchos came the small farm era. Even before the "Great Partition" with its confirmation of Scott's portion of Rancho San Rafael to Dr. David Burbank, and the latter's purchase of Rancho La Providencia from Bell and Alexander, the then owners, small farmers began to acquire land by homesteading or purchase along Burbank Boulevard, which was the dividing line between the big ranchos embodied in the Spanish land grams and the small amount of government land then available. The land in its natural state was covered with sage brush and of desert nature.

As the big ranchos were broken up the small farmers began to flock in in increased numbers. When the town of Burbank was first laid out and put on the market the valley section was sold in 20, 30 and 40-acre tracts. Later five and ten-acre tracts were available. These were the days when the Fischers, the Luttges, the Radcliffs, the Dufers, the Clarks, the Myers, Sheltons, Storys, Sprinkles, the Buffingtons, the Lamers, the Gowers, the Parishes, the Reeses, the Peytons, the Forbes, the Doans, the McConnells, the Kirkpatricks, the Sparks, the Grismers were common names among the farming population. Many of these names are still with us both in life and in the names of the city's streets.

The growing City of Los Angeles provided a reasonably good market for the foodstuffs produced on the farm. At one stage of the game Burbank pro-duced most of the watermelons and cantaloupes for a large section of the population of Los Angeles and Southern California.

Old timers of those days tell of getting up in the wee small hours of the morning, starting out with their wagon boxes full of melons, fruits and vege-tables, making almost an unbroken procession as they rode along San Fernando Road for the twelve miles to the public market in the growing metropolis, some of them having regular stalls in the market place. A load of melons, fruit or vegetables which sold in those days for a comparatively few dollars would bring what would have seemed at that time as a fortune at today's market prices. For instance, a crate of cantaloupes which sold at a dollar or two then would bring something like $12 today.

Forty-five Minutes from Broadway

RED LETTER DAY WHEN PACIFIC ELECTRIC COMPLETED ITS LINE TO BURBANK

September 6, 1911, was a red letter day for the Burbank community. It was on that date that passenger service began on the Pacific Electric Railway between Burbank and Los Angeles. The city was colorfully decorated for the occasion.

The first car which rolled into the Burbank terminal was greeted by a crowd estimated at 1000 people, with the blare of trumpets of a brass band, the ringing of bells, the discharge of firearms and other evidences of joy.

The Burbank Review published a special edition that day which was largely devoted to a general summary of the many desirable and attractive features of San Fernando Valley pioneer municipality, and which was dis-tributed among the large number of passengers who traveled over the line on that opening occasion. A carload of Burbank folks made the trip to Los Angeles on the first car that returned to Los Angeles, returning on the next car on the day's schedule.

The formal celebration of the event was held a short time later when Governor Hiram Johnson, U. S. Senator John D. Works, and State Senator Lee C. Gates were special guests of the city and gave addresses complimenting Burbank on the progress it was making. An effective slogan adopted by the Chamber of Commerce following the opening of the street car line was "Bur-bank-45 Minutes from Broadway." It was known as the Burbank Line.

The consummation of this project was the result of the efforts of the public spirited citizens of the community. As a condition on the part of the Pacific Electrical officials for extending their lines from Glendale the citizens were required to raise a fund of $48,000 and secure the right of way. As a guarantee that the money would be raised within the six months allotted for that purpose twelve public spirited citizens headed by Ralph O. Church put their signatures to a note to that effect.

After raking the community over with a fine-tooth comb, as it were, the six months went by with only $38.000 of the amount raised. The company extended the time for sixty days and a day or two before the time expired Church and Charles B. Fischer made a trip to San Diego and set siege on O. J. Stough, who had large land holdings in the community. The seige continued all day and far into the night. Mr. Stough capitulated and agreed to con-tribute $8,000 to the fund. On their way home they came by way of Riverside where they routed out of bed in the small hours of the morning a gentleman who had some land interests in the city and prevailed on him to put up the last two thousand dollars.

Burbank as a Municipality

TREK FROM PRIVATE CONCERN TO HIGHEST TYPE OF CITY MANAGER GOVERNMENT

When Burbank first came into being as a townsite, May 1, 1887, it was in the form of a private concern known as the Providencia Land and Water and Development Company. The company was composed of L. T. Garnsey, President; John E. Plater, Treasurer; T. W. T. Richards, Secretary, and the three officers, together with J. McCuddcn, H. I. MacNiel, David Burbank, W. H. Goucher, E. E. Hall, G. W. King and J. Downey Harvey, as Directors.

The prospectus for the new townsite described it as "17,000 acres of the finest fruit and alfalfa lands in the San Fernando Valley, only eleven miles from Los Angeles."

The tract in its original form covered much greater territory than is now within the city limits. It reached from the top of the Verdugo Hills and Bur-bank Boulevard on the north and west to Grandview Avenue and the Los Angeles River on the east and south, and at one point crossed the river and took in the territory now known as Laskey Ranch.

At this stage of development it consisted of town lots and five, ten and twenty acre ranches, the principal activities being fruit and agricultural crops. Being unincorporated it was governed as county territory by the county officials.

When the city was incorporated, July 13, 1911, its confines were only a comparatively small amount of what it is at the present time. Selected as the first Board of Trustees were F. A. Halburg, Thomas Story, Martin Pupka, J. T. Shelton and C. J. Forbes. J. A. Swall was chosen as City Clerk; Ralph O. Church, City Treasurer; T. F. Ogier, Marshal, and Charles E. Salisbury, Attor-ney. The Trustees selected Story as Mayor.

Following in succession during its sixth class city days serving on the Board of Trustees have been J. E. Kendall, W. A. Lovering, Charles H. Kline, M. C. Paxton, W. M. Craig, W. J. Hornsby, W. A. Blanchard, Warren Forbes, Edwin S. Hogle, Ray L. Linn, Wm. L. Pollock, Henry W. Rouscup, Chas. H. Kline, Chas. W. Anderson, F. S. Webster, Chas. E. Hams, Thara C. Ostrander, Orville Myers, James C. Crawford, Irving S. Watson, E. J. Jackson, John Nielson, Russell B. Mullin, H. E. Bruce, J. T. Lapsley, John D. Radcliff and Roy Campbell. Of the foregoing group, in addition to Thomas Story, Chas. H. Kline, W. A. Blanchard, James C. Crawford and J. D. Radcliff served as Mayor or presiding officer.

At the regular election held April 12, 1926, there was elected a Board of Freeholders who were commissioned to prepare a Charter for the City of Burbank. After deliberation for a period of eight months the Freeholders submitted a Charter centered around the City Manager form of government. At an election held January 4, 1927, the charter was duly adopted by the voters.

The Charter bears the signatures of W. A. Blanchard as President and L. M. Rothenburg as Secretary, and J. H. Barnum, Roy Campbell, L. F. Collins, A. C. Fillbach, Octavia Lesueur, Ray G. Ludlow, J. D. Radcliff, C. A. Thomp-son, Earl L. White, A. Sence, John Lurtge and Walter E. Lawrence, members of the Board of Freeholders.

Farming and fruit raising at that time was a problem, as it was a problem a long time before and ever since. Some of the farmers became more or less opulent and some merely eked out an uncertain existence, the difference being largely a difference in management.

At the market place the growers had to match their wits with the crafty middle man or the bargaining buyer.

Most of those farmers who are still living are more or less opulent, but they didn't become that way through growing and marketing melons. But that is another story which will be treated in connection with another era ushered in some years later.

It was during this period that the water problem, which had been brewing for some time, reached an acute stage. A court decree giving the City of Los Angeles the right to all the water from the Los Angeles River watershed threatened grief for the small farmers who depended upon the water pumped from their wells for raising their crops. On the basis of the court order the big city attempted to enforce their claim to the water by stopping the farmers from using it, even from their own wells.

As a picture of the situation along about that time John D. Radcliff, who owned and operated a ranch in the locality of the present Glendale Airport, came home from market one day to find officials from the sheriff's office waiting to serve papers on him-based on the court order restraining him from pump-ing any more water from his well. He refused to accept service and the order was thrown on the ground at his feet. In response to threats of putting him in jail if he didn't stop his pumps, John told them that when he went to jail his wife would see that the pumps were kept going. And if his wife was sent to jail the children would stay at home and keep the pumps going, inferring that the entire family would have to go to jail before the pumps would be stopped.

This seemed to be the tenor of the farmers in general - they insisted upon keeping their pumps going in defiance of the order of the court. There seems to have been no attempt to carry the enforcement of the order any farther than serving the papers on the ranchers.

Whether or not it had anything to do with Los Angeles easing up on its tendency to force the issue on the farmers, T. D. Buffington tells of this gesture from "Teddy" Roosevelt, President at the time, in behalf of the farmers: To build the Owens River aqueduct, Los Angeles had to get a bill through Con-gress granting a right-of-way over the public domain. Before he would sign the bill, it is claimed that "Teddy" exacted a promise from the beneficiaries that they would quit persecuting - through the threat of prosecution - the farmers who were depending upon the water they were pumping from the ground for their irrigation - which meant their livelihood.

Because his name was nearest the top of the list - alphabetically speaking - the name of T. D. Buffington headed the list of defendants in the court case.

Beginning of Industrial Era

SMALL BEGINNING BUT SURPRISING AT ULTIMATE RESULTS

It came to pass one morning in the year 1917 as Ralph O. Church, the banker, was looking over the morning paper he came to a notice that the Moreland Motor Truck Co. was to move its plant from Los Angeles to Alhambra. The industrial bee had been buzzing the bonnets of Ralph and a number of other Burbank citizens - notably his friend, Maurice Spazier, one of the town's most enthusiastic boosters at that time.

Getting Spazier on the phone told him what was happening from the Moreland Truck Co. angle. The two immediately went to the Moreland plant in Los Angeles where they found Watt Moreland, head of the company, in conference with a delegation from Alhambra, and, as they found out later, practically ready to draw up the agreement to move the plant to Alhambra.

It looked for awhile that they were not going to contact Watt in time to head off the Alhambra proposal. They weren't able to get by the secretary in the reception room. They finally went out and came back with a box of candy which they presented to the secretary, and a short time later she ushered them into Watt's office.

They wanted to know why the company was passing up such a good place as Burbank. Watt said he didn't know that Burbank wanted it. Asked what Burbank had to offer in order to have the plant located here. A site free of charge was the offer. They were told to get an option on a site and he would come out the next day and look it over. The first site presented, at Verdugo and Flower Streets, was not satisfactory, so the committee tried a 25-acre tract at the corner of San Fernando and Alameda, owned by the late Henry E. Lunge.

This site was accepted by the Morelands and thus was Burbank launched on an industrial era that was destined to grow beyond the fondest dreams of the early industrial enthusiasts.

The cost of the land was $1000 an acre, or a total of $25,000. Church, Spazier and ten other citizens signed an agreement guaranteeing the delivery of the site when the company fulfilled its part of the agreement. The money was raised by popular subscriptions.

A considerable group of buildings were constructed, and the plant moved in a short time afterward. It operated with greater or less success until the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation purchased the property a few years ago, since which time it has been operated as a branch plant of that company.

At one time Moreland trucks could be found rolling along the highways in this and numerous other countries of the world.

Part of the original property is now occupied by the Menasco Company plant which has rendered important service in the war effort.

Following closely on the heels of the coming of the Moreland concern were the American Aluminum Corporation, the Empire China Co., the Inner Tube Co., the Libby, McNeill & Libby Canning Company and the Jergins Soap Corporation. Each one of the institutions built more or less pretentious build-ings. the Aluminum and China factory in the San Fernando Boulevard and Empire Avenue location; the Inner Tube factory at Allen Avenue and the S. P. tracks. The Canning factory and Soap factory on Verdugo at the railroad tracks.

Being of a high-pressure, stock-promotion character, the Aluminum and Inner Tube concerns soured on the stockholders before they had really gotten starred to produce what they were intended to produce, leaving the stock-holders, most of whom were Burbank citizens, to hold the "sack."

The McKeon Canning Co. came into being along about this time and is still going strong.

The China Company enjoyed a more or less precarious existence for several years and then went to smash on the rocks of factional squabbling among the stockholders. The soap company started as a Spazler and Associates concern, being afterward merged with the famous Andrew Jergen Co.

Along about this time another stock-promotion concern - the General Grease Co. - came into being and existed long enough to collect a considerable amount of money from Burbank citizens, who in turn were left to hold the sack. A number of smaller concerns, such as the Genevieve Jackson Dehyrating Co., flourished for a time and then gave up the ghost.

There seems to be one redeeming feature in this era of sunken hopes on soured industrial adventures. Every single one the buildings built and aban-doned from the standpoint of their original purpose is now housing up-an--going industrial activities.

If it had not been for the availability of one of them - the Aluminum Company's building - the city would not have had the Lockheed industry today, and if it had not located in the community Burbank would not have been the industrial center it has since become.

- - -- - --

At an election held April 5, 1927, J. T. Lapsley, H. E. Bruce, J. D. Rad-cliff, L. H. Morgan and C. A. Thompson were elected as members of the City Council, whose duty it was to put the newly adopted Charter into operation.

Succeeding members of the City Council since that time have been W. H. Stroud, C. A. Thompson, Harry H. Coffman, J. L. Norwood, Mark L. Stanch-field, Leo M. Gentner, Eugene M. Goss, J. T. Lapsley, Ernest R. Rothe, Walter R. Himon, Frank C. Tillson, Elmer E. Jackson, Paul L. Brown, Albert J. Rediger and Horace V. Thompson. Of those serving since the adoption of the Charter, J. T. Lapsley, H. E. Bruce, J. L. Norwood, Mark Stanchfield, Eugene Goss, Frank Tillson and Walter R. Hinton have served periods as Mayor.

One thing Out of the ordinary during the period under the Charter took place in the so-called Stanchfield Administration, when a flareup of the popu-lace caused the resignation of four members of the City Council in quick succession. In order to meet the provisions of the Charter one member resigned at a time, the other four electing a successor to the one resigned. In this manner, Ernest Roth succeeded Mark Stanchfield; Walter Hinton took the place of Leo Gentner, Frank C. Tillson taking the place of J. L. Norwood, and Elmer E. Jackson taking the place of Eugene Goss.

With the exception of a few minor amendments the City Charter still remains as it was when first adopted. A number of attempts to make somewhat radical changes have been voted down by the voters.

In all probability there is no better managed city in the country than Burbank under the City Manager Form of Government. There have only been three changes in City Managers during the seventeen years it has been in operation. A. B. Gidley, W. S. Patterson and Howard I. Stites.

That Burbank's first Board of Trustees were quite economical in setting salaries for the city officials is indicated by the fact that it placed the pay of the City Clerk and ex-officio City Recorder at $25 a month; City Marshal at $15 per month; Street Superintendent at $2.50 a day "for time actually spent in the discharge of his duties"; Treasurer, "one per cent of all money received by him to which the city may be entitled"; City Engineer, $6 per day and $12 per day for himself and crew for actual time spent on the job; City Attorney, $50 per month; City Recorder fees, $3 for each action brought before him.

The valley district was annexed to the city on April 8, 1915; Thornton and Luttge tracts, March 29, 1922; Sherlock Drive tract, October 16, 1922; Magnolia Park, October 9, 1923; Moreland tract, March 10, 1924; Sunset Canyon district, January 16, 1926.

Ordinance No.4 provided for the city seal, to the effect that "Said seal shall be circular in form and in the center there shall be a cut showing a cantaloupe."

Farms Become Town Lots

AND FARM OWNERS CASH IN AT FABULOUS PRICES

In the early Twenties as metropolitan Los Angeles continued to expand, farm lands out Burbank way became more valuable as town lots than as crop producing farms. Subdivisions became the order of the day, and subdividers multiplied in increasing numbers, competing with each other in their rush for the choice locations. Lands, which a few years before would have gone begging at one to five hundred dollars an acre, skyrocketed in a number of instances to $5,000 an acre.

For instance, a 20-acre tract belonging to T. D. Buffington, at the corner of Magnolia and Victory Boulevards sold for $100,000 cash. A corner lot at Magnolia and Hollywood Way is said to have changed hands at $12,000.

High-pressure salesmanship blossomed out in all its glory. "Prospects" by the thousands were herded in on free excursions and provided with free lunches, while the "lecturers" extolled the value of town lots as the certain road to quick wealth.

Farming practically ceased as a business and as a result once fertile, crop-growing farms became nothing more than patches of weeds, more of a menace as fire hazards than an asset to the community - to remain such for a decade.

Paved streets and expensive lighting systems were put in and their costs assessed against the lots, only to see the day when depression came when the lots were not worth the amount of the assessments against them.

About the only ones who came out of this period financially alive were the farmers who sold for cash their farms when the prices were at their peak and held onto their money.

It is quite likely that most of chose who purchased lots under the en-thusiasm of those days allowed them to go back for their assessments, taxes and unpaid installments.

This situation was in no way peculiar to the City of Burbank. While this particular drama was being enacted in the Burbank community, the same things were taking place throughout the Southland.

The speculative spirit was rife and many turned to it, either by promoting subdivisions or investing in town lots under the inspiration of flowery sales talks by those gifted with the art of persuasion.

At any rate it took the Burbank community a decade to weather the after-math of the land boom era.

Coming of the Movies

PUT NEW LIFE IN THE RAPIDLY DECLINING ENTHUSIASM OF PEOPI.E

One day, according to Howard Martin, who with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Martin, owned and occupied the old David Burbank homestead near where Olive Avenue crosses the Los Angeles River and enters Dark Canyon, they saw a wagon unloading a load of lumber on the property of August Handorf, their adjoining neighbor. This was the first inkling the Martins had that they were to have a moving picture studio in the neighborhood. It was likewise the first inkling that the citizens of Burbank had that their city was to be the new home of the First National Studios. This was along about 1927.

The First National has since been absorbed by Warner Brothers, and has, in the course of time become, what is claimed to be the largest moving picture studio in the world. The original lot was an 80-acre tract, hut now neighboring acres have been purchased and added and size has been almost doubled. In addition the studio owns a huge ranch of 1,200 acres at Calabasas, 20 miles out in the San Fernando Valley, where many of its outdoor productions are made.

The guiding light of this vast enterprise is J. L. Warner, vice-president in charge of all production. He knows the faces of all and the names of almost all of his studio employees and they number more than 4,000 during average production periods.

Much of the financial and artistic success of the company can be traced to this Warner brother, who used to sing in the first motion picture theatres his family owned.

Harry M. Warner, the oldest of the three brothers, is the president of the corporation and, like his brother Jack, lives in California, having moved west a few years ago from New York. Active in Americanization work and many charities, he fostered the now famous Warner patriotic short subjects which have given Americans, young and old, a new conception of their country's history and heroes.

Major Albert Warner, the third brother, headquarters in the East at the company's home office, where Warner film distribution is centered.

In the years immediately preceding the start of the great war between the United Nations and the Axis, the Warner Bros. Studios produced many im-portant pictures which both predicted the approaching struggle and tried to warn the nation of impending danger.

In their devotion to the cause of Americanism, all three of the Warner Brothers contributed much time, money and effort in building a national and international appreciation of the armed services of the country, the precepts on which the nation was founded and the highlights of its past history.

When war finally came, after December 7, 1941, the Warner organization turned its full resources and talents toward the war effort. It took an immediate lead among all the studios in the amount of war bonds purchased by its em-ployees. Hundreds of its employees volunteered for service in some branch of the nation's services.

In keeping with this determination to lend every possible help to the great national war effort, Warner Bros. planned and produced such pictures as "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," "Sergeant York," "Casablanca" (which won the Academy Award for 1944), "Air Force," "Edge of Darkness," "Watch on the Rhine," and the screen version of Irving Berlin's great army show, "This is the Army," all profits from which were pledged to Army Relief.

As his assistants in production, executive producer Jack L. Warner has twelve chief aides. These men have many important pictures to their individual and studio credit. In alphabetical order they are: Henry Blanke, Robert Buck-ner, Jack Chernok, Louis Edelman, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Alex Gottlieb, Mark Hellinger, Gordon Hollingshead, William Jacobs, Jesse L. Lasky, Arthur Schwartz, Jerry Wald. Together they produce some fifty feature pictures each year and a large number of short subjects.

The Warner studio production manager is Tennant C. Wright, a veteran of the Hollywood scene. He sees that schedules are maintained and that every-thing is always ready on the stages. Carrol Sax is studio business manager, responsible for the departmental efficiency of the big plant. Heads of many other departments of the studio have been Warner employees for fifteen and twenty years or more.

The physical plant is considered by many to be the finest in the world. There are 22 huge sound stages, all stucco, steel and concrete construction and all of the same architectural design, although varied in size to meet specific requirements. Stage 21, for instance, is, in reality, Warners' roofed ocean. It has a 65-foot clearance from floor to rafters and can be flooded to a depth of four feet for water work. Adjoining it and connecting with it when neces-sary, is the outside lake, which holds 4,000,000 gallons of water and on which many fabled ships have sailed, beginning with those built years ago for "Helen of Troy" and "Isle of Lost Ships," including the days of the English and Spanish galleons of the Sixteenth century, built for Errol Flynn and company to use in "The Sea Hawk," and on to the modern tankers and freighters shown battling their way across the seas in "Action in the North Atlantic."

The sites of the present studio was originally an alfalfa patch. There were no encroaching streets or buildings when it was first laid out, making possible wide, straight streets, and space for flowers and lawns. There are more than 12 miles of paved and lighted streets inside the studio grounds, which gives some idea of its size and completeness.

Studio architecture is Spanish and the studio facade, back of carefully groomed lawns and gardens in which flowers are constantly blooming, is made up of six handsome, two-story buildings which house the executive offices, the production offices, publicity offices, police, mail and casting offices. All of these buildings are in front of a protective fence which surrounds the stages and dressing rooms, the cutting rooms and technical departments of the studio.

Five or six hundred people work in these buildings. Beyond the fence the other 3,500 are to be found.

Also outside of this inner fence is the writers' building, where stories are born. Jack Warner's offices are in the west wing of the central administration building and are joined by a private passageway.

To get inside the fence (at last) one must pass "Duke," the studio gate-man about whom most of Hollywood's gateman stories have originated. He came with the studio grounds. Skirting a battery of cutting rooms and small theatres, the visitors finds another open space of lawn and fountain. Ward-robe departments and sewing rooms, wherein can be glimpsed the dressmaking figures of all the lovely ladies under contract to Warners Bros., are on the east side and Perc Wesrmore's new and magnificent makeup and hairdressing quarters line the west side.

The studio, as designed originally, had eight stages, only seven of which had been built when Warners took over. This was shortly before their Vita-phone process revolutionized the motion picture industry by giving the screen a voice. All of the stages had at least twelve huge doors, all but two of which are now plastered over. Fifteen stages have been added since, and the total space under roofs has increased to over 1,000,000 square feet.

Batteries of dressing rooms for 25 stars and 56 featured players occupy the front space on the back lot. There also are an executive dining room and H. M. Warner's cottage office, the walls of which are lined with a photographic history of the Warner Brothers. There are five completely equipped theatres on the lot, two enormous property buildings of the latest design and construc-tion and the famous "Crafts' Building," which houses under one roof - the largest in the entire industry - all the mechanical and construction departments. Here sets are constructed, painted and moved bodily into place on the stages. Plaster shop, plumbing shop, carpenter, machine and paint shops are all under this same roof, as well as many ocher activities of production. A first-aid station and miniature hospital occupy the center of the lot and the fire department is close by. Boulder Dam power is received behind a high protective fence and transformed into the types of current needed for picture production.

The "back lot" at Warners is quite famous throughout Hollywood. Nearly every producing company has rented space in it at one time or another. The best-remembered set is the Brownstone Front Street, which leads to still other big city streets. The front of a modern ocean-going steamer is there, too, and miles of storage bins and sheds, small parks used as sets and a train shed in which wrecks can be staged if necessary. Old world Streets, country villages and western towns dot the back lot landscape. Here is almost the whole world brought within walking distance.

Twenty-five stars and 56 featured players call this studio home as of June 21, 1944, and many other famous players are hired for one or more pictures at a time. Sixteen first-line directors, three dialogue directors and more than 34 well-known writers from stage, screen and literary fields, are employed there.

Such world famous names as Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Rosalind Russell, Ann Sheridan, Jack Benny, John Garfield, Joan Leslie, Paul Lukas, Walter Huston, Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Henreid, Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, Alexis Smith, Julie Bishop, Dolores Moran, Dane Clark, Helmut Dantine have their names on dressing room doors here while visiting stars, such as Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Joan Fontaine, Robert Cummings and many others are given temporary quarters there during the pro-duction of their pictures.

Directors at Warners include: David Butler, Curtis Bernhardt, Michael Curtis, Edmund Goulding, Jean Negulesco, Irving Rapper, Herman Shumlin, Vincent Sherman, Raoul Walsh, Sam Woods and Howard Hawks. Composers on the studio roster are Adolph Doutsch, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and Max Steiner.

Noted for timely pictures, action pictures, daring in producing pictures that seem difficult if not impossible, Warner Bros. had edged its way up to top position in the most competitive field in the entertainment world.

Mickey Mouse Comes to Burbank

SUCCESS OF "SNOW WHTE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS" INSPIRES MOVE

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" are given the credit for the Walt Disney Animated Picture Studios being in Burbank today. The phenomenal success of this great picture proved to its makers that full-length features of the animated cartoon type could be produced to catch the public interest, as well as the regular type.

Inspired by this success the Disney group decided to launch its program of feature production, and steps were taken to enlarge the facilities. An attempt was made to redesign the Hyperion Plant, but after considering the long period of construction that would be necessary to revamp the plant, and all the attendant confusion and disruption of production that such construction work would cause, it was decided to abandon the old plant and make a fresh start in a new location.

After considerable study, the present site in Burbank, at the edge of Griffith Park was selected. The plot consists of fifty-one acres at the corner of Riverside Drive and Buena Vista Avenue. Without restrictions of any kind, the studio engineers designed a plant suitable for the specific and specialized needs of the organization.

It is said that the four large three-story buildings and considerable number of smaller ones, costing well up in the millions of dollars, were largely built from the returns from the studio's first masterpiece, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

The old Disney plant at Hyperion grew "like Topsy" and many planned developments and improvements were handicapped by unavailability of property when needed. So as a result there could be no well ardored program of expansion laid at that site. As the new studio has had the advantage of starting from scratch, there were no existing buildings nor utilities to hamper the planning, and in this respect the new plant is probably unique in the history of motion picture studios. A detailed study was made of the studio's needs, and then, practically without restriction, a plant was built to fill those needs.

Wrestle With Water Problem

LONG DRAWN OUT CONTROVERSY STILL UNSETTLED

One of the most valuable assets Southern California now possesses in the nature of an insurance policy, is the Colorado River Aqueduct. A lot of water has run under the bridge since water became a problem with the population when Los Angeles was in its pueblo days.

By acquiring the water rights to the Los Angeles River the City of Los Angeles was monarch of all she surveyed in respect to water. There came a day when the water represented by that right failed to supply the increasing needs of the rapidly growing city.

By 1905 the City of Los Angeles had completely diverted the normal run-off of the Los Angeles River, and to augment that supply had constructed underground galleries across the narrows of that river to collect the subter-ranean flow. In addition, wells were put down on the southern side of the city which drew their supply from underground storage. With opportunity for replenishment during the winter, these withdrawals would have been safe, but the chief source of replenishment was being withdrawn up stream by direct diversion.

About 1900 the possibility of importing water from the Owens River was suggested. An investigation, ordered in 1904, proved the plan sound. A year later the electorate approved by a majority of fourteen to one a bond issue of $1,500,000 for preliminary engineering and the purchase of water rights and right of way. In June, 1907, a $23,000,000 bond issue to cover the entire con-struction cost of the project was approved by a ten to one majority vote, and in 1913 the Owens River Aqueduct was completed with a designed capacity of 400 cubic feet per second.

By 1923 the conditions which obtained prior to the construction of the Owens River Aqueduct were again imminent. Population growth had con-tinued even more rapidly than before, with no prospects of an early decrease in rate of growth.

Before the coming of the Owens River Aqueduct water, and as the popu-lation grew larger and the water supply grew smaller, Los Angeles grew desperate enough to attempt to stop the farmers in the Burbank section of the San Fernando Valley from pumping water from the wells on their own ranches. Los Angeles took the matter into court on the basis of their claim to all the water in the Los Angeles River. The court gave them a judgment and issued a restraining order against the farmers using the water.

In view of the fact that both Burbank and Glendale have been pumping water from the same underground reservoir, the City of Los Angeles every so often has started proceedings to enforce the order of the courts, either stopping them from pumping and using the water or paying them for it.

The case has gone to the Supreme Court a number of times already, and still seems to be about where it was before. Neither side was satisfied with the findings in its last journey to the higher court and the matter, from present appearances, is still hanging up in the air. On the basis of some interpretations of the latest decision, if Los Angeles could corral the water in the underground reservoir and put it to beneficial use, Burbank could not prevent her, but if she didn't and Burbank did get it and put it to beneficial use, Los Angeles could not help herself.

Regardless as to how this long, drawn out controversy with Los Angeles turns out ultimately, Burbank has assurance of plenty of water by reason of her connection with the Colorado River Aqueduct.

Burbank has been a part of the Metropolitan Water District from the beginning. While the city is using the Colorado River water as a sort of standby up to this time, it is there at the city's beck and call.

When the issue of participating in the project came up to the Burbank voters there was a strong sentiment against the proposition, on the grounds that the city already had all the water needed - and a better grade of water from its own wells. However, when it came to a showdown quite a respectable majority was rolled up for going into the project.

The argument which changed the tide in favor of going in was this: The growth and development of Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California depended upon an assurance of water. That assurance is generally conceded to be wrapped up with the Boulder Dam and the Colorado River Aqueduct - -as good a growth and development insurance policy as could possibly be written.

Major Airport Arrives

FROM GRAPE VINEYARD TO ONE OF COUNTRY'S LARGEST AIR TERMINALS

In the early part of the year 1928 there appeared a gentleman by the name of A. Kenneth Humphries at the Burbank Chamber of Commerce and revealed to Secretary C. C. Richards a deep, dark secret. It was to the effect that the company which he represented, the Boeing Air Transport Corporation, of Seattle, owners and operators of the Pacific Air Transport line, flying between Seattle and Los Angeles, was getting tired of the fog and other inconveniences at their then Los Angeles terminal at so-called Vaile Field near Inglewood, and had decided to develop an airfield within the confines of Burbank. Today that field is one of the leading airfields of the country. And this is the story Humphries told to Secretary Richards:

"We have spent a year looking into a number of possible locations in the Los Angeles area to find the most favorable from the standpoint of weather conditions, availability to the metropolitan district, and other things needed for an air terminal, and have found a certain location in Burbank the most ideal. Weather experts had spent days and nights in the locality selected testing out air conditions under all possible circumstances."

The land needed was in a number of different tracts under a number of different ownerships. Mum was the word passed to Secretary Richards, until the land could be tied up in options. This secrecy was to prevent the prices of the land from skyrocketing out of reasonable proportions. To a real estate operator by the name of St. John was delegated the responsibility of securing the options.

Almost a year was consumed in getting the names of the owners of the land on the dotted lines in the form of options. A total of 249 acres of land was the amount of the original purchase. The amount, which ran up into the hundred thousands of dollars was paid in cash. The consummation of the deal was hung up for some time because some of the owners didn't want the cash but wanted to receive money in deferred payments.

To provide the required length of the runways the City Council was asked to vacate a certain section of Winona Street, which was done. Eventually a string of high-power electric wire running along the Hollywood Way side of the airport was removed a half a mile farther away. A number of other things in the way of more adequate public service utilities was asked for and granted by the Council.

The runways put in at the time and has since been in use was the result of a unique experiment of the paving order. The soil, which was largely of sand, provided an excellent basis for the kind of experiment decided upon. The company took their problem to the Standard Oil Company and the company's research department worked out the solution. The land was disced and sprinkled with oil, the process being repeated until it had been thusly treated for seven times. Regular concrete pavement was not desired because of its ultra rigidness. More of a cushion-like effect was needed. The seven coats of oil, together with the repeated mixing by discing, brought forth the end desired. It was found to be ideal for the purpose intended.

The first group of buildings included quite a pretentious - for those days - -administration building, with two, also quite pretentious buildings for hangars. Later two more buildings were added to the group, one to house the Hamilton Propeller plant and the other for use of the Northrup Aircraft Corporation, both of which were added to the original Boeing setup. Some years later, what at the time was claimed to be the largest airplane hangar under one roof was constructed on the grounds.

While pretentious enough to be proud of in chose days, the buildings have been so multiplied on the airport as to make the original setup seem small in proportion.

For a number of years it was known as the Boeing Air Field, the Pacific Transport Corporation being the only commercial line using the field. It was later opened to the other commercial lines and the name changed to the Union Air Terminal. And still other lines gravitated to the airport until all of the major commercial lines are now using it for their Los Angeles terminal. The airport was later purchased by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and is now known as the Lockheed Air Terminal.

The terminal at the time of this writing was used by the United Air Lines, the T. W. A., the Western Airlines, and the Pan-American Airways. The schedule for the commercial lines provides for 78 in and out planes daily - 39 takeoffs and 39 landings. In addition to the regular lines, there are approxi-mately 300 landings and takeoffs every 24 hours. There is an average of a landing or takeoff every 2.1 minutes during the daylight hours.

The longest runway, which was 3650 feet long at the beginning has now been lengthened to 6000 feet, or more than a mile in length. The runways are 300 feet in width.

There are 343 employees on the personnel list of the airport alone, not counting the large number of employees on the list of the five major com-mercial lines using the airport. The territory now covered by the airport is far in excess of that of the 249 acres of the original field, the continual increase of activities calling for additional land.

The airmail and express which was insignificant at the beginning has grown entirely out of their original quarters, buildings and equipment.

The activities of the terminal have already reached the proportions of a reasonably large city. The Sky-Room, the restaurant section occupying most of the second floor of the Administration building, is said to have done a business for the past year reaching beyond the $900,000 mark.

At a planning conference looking into the possible post-war future, held under the auspices of the Burbank Board of Education, Dudley Steele, manager of the Air Terminal, outlined quite a pretentious program of expansion for the terminal for the post-war era, including the possibility of a large hotel and other features of a popular recreational center.

The Depression Strikes

BURBANK INGENUITY MET THE ISSUE IN VARIOUS WAYS

When the stock market collapsed on the New York Exchange on that fateful October day in 1929, Burbank folks knew not nor could they have dreamed what they were in for during the next series of years.

For the time being the community pursued the even tenor of its way as though nothing unusual had taken place. As the months began to lengthen and things of an economic nature began to tighten, folks seeing their savings, what little they might have had, fading away with reduced, or no income on hand to replenish them, began to sit up and take notice.

Reaching the point where the individuals were unable to meet the situa-tion as individuals, the community as a whole became exercised. The City Council, under the pressure of distressed citizens, established an Employment Relief Department, placing it in charge of the late A. E. Keinath, who up to that time had been the city's Right-of-Way official. His duties were to list the unemployed on the one hand and the available jobs on the other, and try to bring the two together. However, those wanting and needing jobs increased in number while available jobs decreased in still greater proportions. It was a nerve-wracking job and his friends are inclined to think that the strain so undermined Mr. Keinath's health and contributed in a considerable degree to his subsequent death.

A.W. Conrad was selected to fill the place made vacant by the death of Keinath. As the depression deepened the distress grew greater and the strenu-osity of trying to connect the unemployed with employment likewise grew apace. In the course of time Mr. Conrad passed on, his death, his friends believed being at least partly due to the nervous strain which he had been under.

The problem was then turned over to the Social Service Board with the late Maude King as the executive head. On the death of Mrs. King a year or two later the task of continuing the work devolved upon David Rittenhouse, at that time connected with the Social Service work. While Mr. Rittenhouse was still in charge the need of the work had so dwindled by 1944 chat it became practically nil.

In the meantime, going back to the early days of the depression, a variety of panaceas to combat the terrors of the situation were evolved and, while in the process of running their course contributed more or less toward meeting the issues.

The late Rev. J. P. Barker, hearing of what was happening in the Comp-ton community in combatting the depression went down there to see what he could find to help the Burbank community solve the unemployment problem. He came back quite enthusiastic over what he had learned. It developed that an ex-service man had solved, for himself and family, the food part of the dilemma by going out to nearby ranches and exchanging work for fruits and vegetables grown by the farmers. Inspired by his experience a group of unemployed in that locality got together and formed a co-operative association, and by that time had developed into a concern that took in a large number of families exchanging both work and products with each other.

A similar association was formed in Burbank and operated quite success-fully until the members got to squabbling among themselves. A second asso-ciation was formed but then the wrangling centered on which group should fall heir to the monthly contribution made by the city through the City Council, an amount both sides evidently considered sufficient to wrangle over.

One of the groups was successful in getting the State and National Welfare Departments to furnish the money and cows to operate a dairy, with the idea of furnishing milk for as many of the co-operatives that could be handled. In this connection, a joke on somebody developed when the first car of "dairy cows" switched off at Newhall near where the dairy was to be located, proved on investigation, to be steers. This dairy operated for several years under the direction of Charlie Rowe, but finally gave up the ghost as a cooperative concern.

At one stage of the depression two per cent of the wages and salaries of the city employees were withheld - supposedly voluntarily by the employees, and the money set apart as a fund from which to draw for relief and employ-ment projects. This was later increased to 10 per cent, and still later desig-nated as a reduction in wages and salaries, the difference being set aside as a relief fund.

One of the projects carried out primarily for the employment it provided was the fire protection road leading up Stough Canyon to the top of the mountains. This road is still in use on fire and other occasions.

Along about this time, looked at at the time as a Godsend, work on the Colorado River aqueduct got into full swing, and Burbank, being a part of the Metropolitan Water District, came in for its proportionate share of employment. Mr. Rittenhouse, who was in charge of the local end of this work, reports that at the peak of aqueduct employment there were as many as 600 Burbank citizens employed.

It was Dave's job to get the orders from the Water District officials and round up the men to fill them. Intimates that he had no set hours and was up at all hours of the day and night in keeping his part of the job functioning. Furthermore, there was no extra pay for overtime to say nothing about time and a half or double time.

At the peak of local relief load Dave says there were 1608 families, with an average of four to a family, on the list.

The story up to this point has been confined largely to the extent the Burbank community looked after its own dooryard. Later came the CWA, the PWA and the other alphabetic unemployment relief projects, of which Burbank received her proportionate share, no doubt.

As other evidence of the difference between not enough employment to go around and everybody employed who wants to be, it might be noted that whereas, in the days of depression there were from 400 to 700 Christmas baskets distributed to the needy, not a single basket was needed for the most recent Christmas season.

The Big Fire

ONE HUNDRED BURBANK HOMES DESTROYED WITHIN SPACE OF FEW HOURS

During the afternoon of Saturday, December 2, 1927, a resident of the La Crescenta locality, on the other side of the Verdugo Hills, was burning trimmings from the grape vineyard on his premises. Before the fire had finished its course, both sides of the mountains had been burned over, one hundred and ten Burbank homes were destroyed and that number of families were made homeless, within the space of a few short hours. The estimated loss in Burbank alone was $500,000. One of the miracles of the episode was that there were fourteen homes in the direct path of the conflagration which were not even scorched. The only personal injuries suffered resulted when a truck turned over and the driver losing his bearing when driving through a cloud of dense smoke.

It was generally conceded by experts on fire hazards that the only thing that prevented the destruction of all the residents above Tenth Street, and possibly above Kenneth Road, was the fact that the wind changed to a sufficient degree by the time the fire reached Sunset Canyon Drive to prevent the catas-trophe from continuing its destructive way.

As a result the damage in connection with the homes involved was con-fined to the Sunset Canyon residential section, which consisted of a mile or more of homes valued all the way from one to five thousand dollars, or more each.

By nine o'clock in the evening of the 2nd the fire climbing up the other side of the hills began to show on the ridge of the mountains. No particular uneasiness was felt on this side of the hills because of the feeling that it would surely be stopped at the top. By midnight indications from this side left the assurance that it had been brought under control. So much so, in fact, that many of the residents of the canyon retired for the night.

It soon became evident that the effort to stop the flames at the top of the ridge had failed and a clarion call came down Sunset Canyon for the residents to flee for their lives. Those awake and realizing the situation, hurried from door to door warning their neighbors, waking up chose who were asleep and urging them to make haste before it was too late.

Then came a grand scramble of householders to flee the menace following closely at their heels. A few of their most precious belongings were hastily thrown into their automobiles, and together with the members of the families, including the cats and dogs vied with each other in making the speediest exit possible from the canyon. It was considered a miracle that a traffic jam was avoided, with consequences hard to imagine in tragical directions. As it was, many escaped by the skin of their teeth, as they saying is, with only split seconds between them and catastrophe of unknown severity.

Expert fire-fighters were heard to remark that in all their experiences in fighting fire they never saw the like in the speed of the oncoming flames. The members of the local fire department, at that time under the direction of Homer Davis, fire chief, gave a most excellent account of themselves. It wasn't long until they had a string of 2200 feet of brand new fire hose reaching far up into the canyon. S. O. S. calls to the county fire warden's office, and to neighboring fire departments were answered by groups of experienced fire-fighters and their equipment from Glendale, Los Angeles and North Hollywood. At one time there were eleven fire departments represented on the fire-fighting fronts.

To meet the situation civilians were pressed into service in large numbers. The police department took charge of rounding them up. Police officers went up and down the boulevard, in and out of the pool halls and other public places where crowds were in the habit of assembling, ordering all to report at the fire-fighting headquarters. Voluntarily if they would and with the force of the law behind the request, if necessary. One man was arrested and put in jail because he refused to join the fire-fighters. The male part of a high-toned social event at the Elks Hall was raided by the officers for fire-fighters. They were not even given time to change their society for their fire-fighting clothes. As a result there were quite a number of tuxedo-attired gents noticed on the fire-fighting front. Even the women folks appeared on the fighting front with wash-boilers full of coffee and wagon boxes full of sandwiches which were distributed among the fighters, some of whom put in stretches of 24 hours without a let up.

It was well along in the next day when the fire, which spread to other parts of the mountains, was finally subdued. Most of the victims who lost their homes in Sunset Canyon also lost practically all their household belongings. Only one of the families, the late Will Marks family, saved practically all of their household effects. Realizing the possibilities they moved out bag and baggage in the afternoon, Saturday. The temporary homeless were given shelter in the various homes in the city.

Most of the families living between Tenth Street and Sunset Canyon Drive had their most precious effects loaded into their automobiles ready to flee if it became necessary as it seemed to at times. Usually one member of the family remained behind to do what could be done with the garden hose or other fire- protective apparatus to save the home. Sparks by the showers fell on this section of the city setting fire to clumps of weeds or other inflammable material.

When at its peak the situation was as nearly like what is expected at the Judgment Day as could be imagined. With sirens shrieking, men and women screaming, the wind blowing a gale and volumes of the blackest kind of smoke blackening out even the brightness of the flames.

While many new homes have taken the place of the destroyed ones, many a stark chimney and charred remains of the houses destroyed still remain as a tragic reminder of the greatest catastrophy which has ever struck the Burbank community.

The big fire proved to be the beginning of the end of the thriving and prosperous Sunset Canyon Country Club which had flourished for a number of years. While the big, handsome clubhouse overlooking the valley was left untouched by the flames, a smaller, but attractive clubhouse which had served as headquarters in the beginning was burned.

As a feature of the club a membership entitled the member to the purchase of a cabin-site. Many of the homes lost were of this type and those who did not rebuild retired from the organization. One calamity after another followed the havoc played by the tire. With the surrounded hills denuded of vegetation the floods came with the subsequent downpour of rains, being in the middle of the rainy season.

Resulting from an unusually severe downpour mud and debris from three to five feet covered almost the entire expanse of the 9-hole golf course on the grounds, taking something like $10,000 to put it back into condition again. The officials made a heroic effort to keep it going but finally had to give it up. And with the giving up Burbank lost one of its convenient and attractive social headquarters. Probably no better place to get an inspiring view of the valley below than from the large expanse of concrete balustrade approaching the clubhouse's main entrance.

The building has since been taken over by the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and is now the district headquarters for that organization. With the improvements added since they took it over it is even more attractive than before.

Earthquake Has Strange Reverberations

CHIEF DAMAGES IN BURBANK WAS PSYCHOLOGICAL

When the earth shook mightily in Southern California on that fateful day in the early 30's, since remembered as the Long Beach earthquake, the material damage as far as Burbank was concerned, was insignificant. However, it sent forth psychological reverberations which gathered the Burbank community in its toils in a strange and costly manner, finally ending in somewhat of a com-munity upheaval.

The fact that the earthquake wrecked a number of large school houses in the Long Beach area brought a shudder to the entire Southland section, at the thought of what would have happened had the schools been in session. A wave of apprehension swept over the entire state for fear that the school houses and buildings in general where large crowds of people were wont to congregate, were not sufficiently constructed to withstand such possibilities.

Up to that time buildings, as a rule, were not constructed with the earth-quake hazard sufficiently in mind. A general demand arose for an expert inspection of large buildings - particularly school buildings - from this danger angle. Inspection of the Burbank school buildings convinced the members of the Board of Education that there was grave question of the safety of the buildings, should a tremblor of the intensity of the Long Beach shake present itself. One of the buildings - the old Edison building in the 300 block on San Fernando Boulevard, was condemned entirely as far as holding classes in the building. It was still used for administration purposes, and has since been in disuse for some time.

A campaign was subsequently launched to strengthen practically all of the other school buildings, and carried on for several years at considerable cost and at considerable expense of architectural beauty for some of the buildings.

In the meantime, under the pressure of public fear, the Legislature passed a measure drastically affecting the construction of school buildings. The inter-pretation the Burbank Board of Education put on the new law made the mem-bers fear that if anything should happen to the buildings and the school children in them they would be held personally and individually responsible. Not being willing to take this risk the Board authorized the construction of tents and bungalows on the premises of each school and the children were moved into them, while vacancy was allowed to echo throughout the buildings them-selves.

This prevailed for a couple of years until there was such a clamor from the populace to get back into the buildings, that it got into politics and became an issue at the school elections. One of the candidates was elected on the issue. A postcard vote brought something like 5000 in favor of putting the children back into the school buildings to about 250 against. Rather than run the risk of what they considered as a personal and individual liability several members of the board resigned and others were chosen in their places.

The strengthening of the buildings continued, however, and all new build-ings erected since that time have considered the earthquake hazard in their construction. All of the buildings, with the possible exception of the old Edison building are expected to live through any kind of an earth tremble as great, if not greater, than the Long Beach episode.

Lockheed Comes to Burbank

SPARK-PLUG OF COMMUNITY'S INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

The marvelous growth and development of Burbank as an industrial center, majoring in airplanes, is concededly but the shadow of the growth and development of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Its beginning, indeed, was small but its growth and development has been terrific, if such a term is permissible.

It was little dreamed when Allan Longhead and his brother, Malcolm, brought their little plant over from Hollywood in February, 1928, to occupy a part of a building which had been built a few years before for housing the American Aluminum Company plant, that its coming would, in a decade or more, boost the population of the community from its insignificant 2900 figure given in 1920 to a metropolis of 60,000 souls, making it one of the airplane centers of the world, together with writing aviation history of the most sensa-tional sort in the process.

The original Vega was the pathfinder in the realm of airplane streamlin-ing. Its tuna-like shape has continued the regulation type of the fuselage up to this day, and will no doubt remain so a long time to come.

The history of the Lockheed makes interesting reading. It dates back to 1910, a scant seven years after the Wright Brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, N. C., when Allen Longhead taught himself to fly. Allan and his brother, Malcolm, built their first airplane in 1912-13 - a daring three-place seaplane in which hundreds or passengers were given their first airplane ride at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.

The Loughead brothers began building, at Santa Barbara in 1916. The organization first became a company in 1926, moved to Hollywood in 1927, and to the present site in Burbank in February, 1928. The name was then changed to Lockheed to conform to the pronunciation.

The Loughead brothers sold their company in 1929, and the present man-agement bought all property, rights and assets on June 21, 1932. The group included Lloyd Stearman, who was elected president; Robert E. Gross, who became President following the resignation and departure of Stearman in 1934; Cycil Chappellet, secretary and executive assistant to the president, recently elected vice-president; Carl B. Squier, vice-president and sales manager; Walter T. Varney, Pacqueline S. Walker, and Thomas F. Dyan, III.

Shortly after the present ownership acquired it in 1932, Lockheed pion-eered in metal ships. Jimmy Doolittle (now a general) hung up the first major record in an Electra. Another Lockheed flew the Atlantic both ways, and Howard Hughes used a Model 14 transport to circle the globe in three days, 19 hours. Finally in 1940, a Lodescar transport cut the first Lockheed transcontinental record in half, flying coast to coast in nine hours and 29 minutes.

When the war came, the Model 14 was converted into the famous Hudson bomber and Lockheed became the first American company to sign a contract with the British Purchasing Commission for military planes. Lockheed built Hudsons for the R.A.F. and, during the early dark days of the war, this ship distinguished itself as Britain's all-purpose plane.

At the time of this writing four of America's greatest air weapons were rolling off its assembly lines in large numbers - the Lightning P-38, most versatile plane in the war to date; the B-17 Flying Fortress, America's Number 1 heavy bomber; the C-69 Constellation, biggest and fastest land-based trans-port in the world; and the PV-l Ventura, the Navy's superlative submarine buster.

Spurred on to greater achievements by the needs of a nation at war, a greater Lockheed arrived to challenge the future.

At that time Lockheed employed an army of men and women, 100,000 strong, working in more than 100 geographical locations in 18 nations on five continents.

It operated eighteen manufacturing plants in Southern California; service bases and modification centers in California, Texas, Northern Ireland and England; liaison offices in Washington, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Cleve-land, Detroit and Chicago.

Tens of thousands of war workers, employed by some 3,000 sub-contract-ors in 300 cities and towns scattered the length and breadth of the United States, shared indirectly in the building of Lockheed planes.

Its corps of service representatives lived and worked with combat units on every fighting front.

The company employed a staff of more than 2,800 engineers, charged with the responsibility of seeking out ways to improve its planes, designing new and better models, and grappling with the science of advanced aerodynamics.

A modern research laboratory, staffed by a battery of specialists in a wide variety of fields, devoted itself entirely to exhaustive exploration of problems of chemistry, physics, structural fatigue, plastics, and a myriad number of other subjects.

Tests were being made day and night in the Lockheed wind tunnel, one of the biggest and finest in the world.

Lockheed employed close to a hundred experienced test pilots, enough fliers to operate an average airline.

Employees of the company were banded into the largest industrial Aec-readon Club in the world. This club operated a modern, up-to-the-minute commissary which served 60,000 hot meals daily.

Lockheed's job-training department, as well as its wartime employee- transportation system, has been a national model.

Faced with manpower shortages, Lockheed pioneered in the employment of the physically handicapped. It also instituted a program for the use of boy power, employing youth at a wide variety of jobs during hours which did not conflict with their schooling. Lockheed sent more than 15,000 employees into the armed services.

Later, Lockheed absorbed the business and assets of the Vega Aircraft Corporation and the name "Vega" disappeared from the corporate identity of the enlarged Lockheed organization. Since Vega was a wholly-owned Lockheed subsidiary, the integration was merely a compacting of the two organizations into one - in line with the increased demands being made upon Lockheed facilities.

Officers of the greater Lockheed Company are Robert E. Gross, president; Courtland S. Gross, vice-president and general manager; C. A. Barker, Jr., vice-president in charge of finance, and treasurer; Cyril Chappellett, vice -president in charge of administration; Carl B. Squier, vice-president in charge of sales and service; Hall L. Hibbard, vice-president and chief engineer ("B" Plants); Mac Short, vice-president in charge of engineering ("A" Plants); H. E. Ryker, vice-president in charge of materiel; L. W. Wulfekuhler, secre-tary; Dudley E. Browne, comptroller; and H. R. Campbell and R. P. King, assistant treasurer.

The Army Air Forces' newest quotas called for hundreds of Lockheed planes per month. Top consideration was given the A.A.F.'s demand for more and more Lightning P-38's. This speedy twin-tailed, two-engined fighter topped them all as an all-around performer, "good for any job between ten feet and the stratosphere." It was used with marked success as an escort for bombers, an interceptor of enemy aerial raids, as a skip bomber of ships, for tank busting, ground strafing, as a camera ship, and it can tote its own share of bombs over enemy targets when called upon to do so.

The Germans called it "der Gabelschwanz Teufel" or "fork-tailed devil" and steered clear of it when they could. Because of its two engines, the Japs called it two planes with one pilot. American fliers tagged it the "Round Trip Ticket," since those two engines are reasonable assurance that they will make the homeward trip from fighting missions. The Lightning has been flown as far as 600 miles back to base, with one engine shot away.

The Lightning P-38 was the longest range fighter plane in the war. Equipped with droppable tanks, was used as a bomber escort in A.A.F. and R.A.F. long-range missions over Germany, accompanying the big bombers to the very heart of the Reich.

The climax, up to the time of this writing, of the Lockheed production line was the sleek C-69 Constellation. Largest and fastest land-based transport in the world, equipped to carry sixty passengers or fifteen tons of cargo. Powered by four 2,200 h.p. Wright Cyclone engines, its supercharged cabin makes it possible to cruise above the weather at 18,000 to 30,000 feet. Faster than the Jap Zero, the Constellation can fly a tank across an ocean. This great behemoth was in production for war use, and its tremendous range re-made the maps of the global transport of the post-war world.

The History-Making Lockheed

Ever since the trail-blazing little Vega of 1927, Lockheeds have flown first or fastest across oceans, continents and the poles.

Down the pages of the Lockheed Log there run such names as Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, Sir Hubert Wilkins, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, Charles A. Lindbergh, Col. Arthur Goebel, Capt. Frank Hawks, Howard Hughes, Ruth Nichols, and James Mattern (now a Lockheed test pilot). And etched in the annals of aviation beside their names are such early Lockheeds as the Vega, Sirius, Air Express, Altair, and Orion.

Those were the fliers and the planes that teamed together in the per-formance of so many notable feats of pioneering in the air that the slogan, "It Takes a Lockheed to Beat a Lockheed," became accepted as a maxim.

The very first flight of a Lockheed Vega took place on July 4, 1927, and after that date are crowded some of the most important milestones in the early history of aviation. Among those "firsts" or record-breaking performances achieved by pioneer pilots in Lockheed planes are the following:

1928 - On April 15, Capt. George Hubert Wilkins with Pilot Ben Eielson made the first flight over "top of world" in a ski-equipped Whirlwind-powered Vega. On a 2200-mile flight, non-stop, across the Arctic Sea they flew from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitzbergen in 20 hours and 30 minutes. On De-cember 20 of this same year Wilkins and Eielson, in a Whirlwind-powered Vega, made the first flight over the continent of Antarctica. During a 10-hour flight they mapped 100,000 square miles of the continent.

In this same year Col. Arthur Goebel and Harry Tucker, flying the "Yankee Doodle," established a new west to east non-stop transcontinental record, flying from Los Angeles to New York in 18 hours and 58 minutes. Goebel then set a New York to Los Angeles record of 24 hours and 20 minutes, including a Stop at Phoenix.

Capt. C. B. C. Collyer, flying a Vega, established a new east to west non-stop record from New York to Los Angeles in 24 hours and 51 minutes.

1929 - Capt. Frank Hawks, on February 3-4, established new non-stop west to east transcontinental record, flying from Los Angeles to New York in 18 hours and 21 minutes. On June 27-29, Hawks cut the east to west record, non-stop, to 19 hours and 10 minutes, the west to east non-stop to 17 hours and 38 minutes, and established a round trip record of 36 hours and 48 minutes flying time, 44 hours and 4 minutes elapsed time.

Amelia Earhart, on November 22, in a Vega, established a new speed record for women over one mile course: average speed, 184.17 m.p.h.; fastest mile, 197.8 m.p.h.

1930 - Col. and Mrs. Charles A. Lindbergh, in a Cyclone-powered Sirius, established a new west to east speed record, 14 hours and 45 minutes, including one stop. This was April 20, and on August 13, Capt. Hawks in another Lock-heed cut the record to 12 hours and 25 minutes.

1931 - The Lindberghs made their famous flight from Washington, D. C. across the Bering Sea to Tokio, in their Cyclone-powered Sirius seaplane.

Ruth Nichols established American feminine altitude record of 28,743 feet, flying a Vega, and later established a world speed record for women of 210.636 m.p.h.

Wiley Post and Harold Gatty established round-the-world speed record of 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes, in the Wasp powered Vega "Winnie Mae." They started July 1.

July 15-16, Capt. George Endress and Alexander Magyar crossed the Atlantic from Harbor Grace to Bickse, Hungary, 3600 miles, in 26 hours.

1932 - On May 20-21, Amelia Earhart, first woman to pilot a plane across the Atlantic, flew a Wasp-powered Vega solo from Harbor Grace, N. F., to Londonderry, Ireland, in 15 hours and 18 minutes.

On July 5-6, James Mateern and Bennett Griffin flew non-stop from Harbor Grace to Berlin in 18 hours and 41 minutes in Wasp-powered Vega. On at-tempted world flight they continued to Borisov, Russia.

1933 - From July 9 to December, Col. and Mrs. Lindbergh, in a Cyclone-powered Sirius, made 29,000-mile survey flight from New York to Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, Europe, the Azores, Africa, Brazil and return to New York.

July 15-22, Wiley Post made record flight around the globe, solo, flying 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 1/2 minutes in a Wasp-powered Vega. First man to fly around the world alone and first to fly around twice.

1934 - October 20 to November 4, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Capt. P. G. Taylor made 7,365-mile flight from Brisbane, Australia, to Oak-land, California, in 54 hours and 49 minutes flying time, using Altair-powered by Wasp motor. First crossing of Pacific from west to east.

1935 - January 11-12, Amelia Earhart flew solo from Honolulu to Oak-land in first eastward crossing by a woman, covering the 2408 miles in 18 hours and 16 minutes in a Wasp-powered Vega.

1936 - On April 29, Maj. James Doolittle, in an Electra with full load, broke all speed records between Chicago and New Orleans, flying regular Chicago and Southern Airlines route in 5 hours and 55 minutes (old record 7 hours and 15 minutes).

1937 - On May 10, H. T. (Dick) Merrill and John Lambie flew from New York to Northweald, England, in 20 hours and 48 minutes, in a Lock-heed Electra, for the Coronation of King George. On May 14 they returned with the first pictures of the Coronation ceremonies, flying from Southampton, England, to Squantum, Mass., in 24 hours and 55 minutes. The entire trip took about five days.

1938 - Howard Hughes, on July 10-13, circled the globe in 3 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes, using a Lockheed 14. Hughes also set a cross-country transport record, California to New York, 2,478 miles in 10 hours and 34 minutes.

1939 - Lockheed 14 of "Air Afrique," French Air Lines, made a new non-stop record between Paris and Algeria, covering the 908 mile route in 3 hours and 55 minutes. Former record was 5 hours flat.

1940 - A standard 17-place Lockheed Lodestar flown by G. T. Baker, president of National Airlines, set a new transcontinental transport record. Flew the 2,357 miles from Burbank to Jacksonville, Florida, in 9 hours and 29 minutes.

1942 - Early in 1942 a Lockheed Hudson bomber effected the first aerial capture in history of a submarine and all its crew.

The world's first trans-Atlantic ferry flight by a fighter aircraft took place when scores of Lockheed Lightning P-38's made a mass crossing with special oxygen equipment and auxiliary droppable tanks. B-17 Flying Fortresses ac-companied the Lightnings for navigation purposes.

A Lightning P-38 became the first plane in the world to travel the speed of sound when Lt. Col. Cass S. Hough, American test pilot, succeeded in div-ing a Lightning 25,000 feet, or nearly five miles, and achieved a speed of more than 780 miles an hour. Hough's dive also is believed to be the longest in aviation history.

1943 - The Lightning P-38 became the first fighter plane to accompany heavy bombers the long distance to their targets in the heart of Germany. Equipped with droppable auxiliary tanks, the Lightnings acquired enough additional range to escort the bombers the entire length of their missions.

Chamber of Commerce on the Job

LOCAL INSTITUTION GREAT COMMUNITY PROBLEM DOCTOR

If the function of a Chamber of Commerce is to search out and apply the answers to community problems, which it no doubt is, the Burbank com-munity has been blessed with one of the most able institutions of the kind in the country.

There are a whole lot of things of a welfare nature connected with com-munity life, which occupies the realm of nobody else's business - officially, semi-officially or non-officially. When problems of this kind arise, and they are all the time arising, the wide-awake Chamber of Commerce appreciative of its unlimited prerogatives, steps into the breach and turn them to com-munity advantages. This has been a true picture of the beneficial activities of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce.

The list of occasions when projects beneficial to the community has seem-ingly struck an unsurmountable empasse, the Chamber has entered the picture and having discovered the answer has led the way through them. Very few of the 151 industries now located within the city which have not called upon the Chamber to assist in working out an answer to their problems - always with the best of results.

For instance, there was a flock of obstacles in the way of the establishment and development of what is now known as the Lockheed Air Terminal, the air terminal for the entire Los Angeles district, utilized as the terminal headquarters for all of the commercial airlines now in operation in this region. All of these obstacles have been removed with the cooperation of the Chamber of Commerce, the City Officiary and the interests concerned.

Practically all of the big industries, such as the Lockheeds, in aircraft, Warner Brothers and Disney, in moving pictures, and others of lesser proportions, have been served in a beneficial way and some of them have been represented continuously on the Chamber Board of Directors.

When the city has had a problem to solve the Chamber has been called in to help solve it, and the service has continually been efficient and success-ful. Everything of a community welfare nature has received the active sup-port of the Chamber, and where there has been no other institution to fill the place it has stepped into the role of leadership.

When the depression became acute the Chamber took the lead in finding and leading the way out of the difficulties. When the federal housing propo-sition appeared on the scene, there were a hundred and one obstacles to be removed before its operation in the Burbank community. The Chamber of Commerce automatically fell into the role of clearing house for the removal of the obstacles.

When the Benmar Hills project got itself tangled into a ten-year-old knot, the Chamber had a conspicuous part in unscrambling the tangle. When the schools have some kind of a problem on their hands, the Chamber of Com-merce is sometimes called in and their

assistance is timely and helpful.

When the County, State and the Federal Governments have anything special to bring before the Burbank community, they usually utilize the Cham-ber of Commerce to make the contact and are never disappointed in the results.

Much of the time, the State and Federal Governments have representatives at the Chamber headquarters to look after their affairs on the issues at hand. At the recent Income Tax paying period there were practically as many served from the Chamber office as from the government's own offices in the local postoffice or Federal Building.

At the time of this writing the war housing section of the Federal Hous-ing Administration had a large section of the Chamber of Commerce building in use with a dozen or more employees in charge.

It would be hard to enumerate all of the activities of the Chamber in con-nection with the war efforts, from the beginning of the war. Representatives of the State and National war setups have advised with and utilized the mem-bers and facilities of the Chamber in many ways.

The Chamber took an active part in the campaign in connection with Burbank becoming a part of the Metropolitan Water District, one of the most valuable water insurance policy the community can boast of at this time. In short, the Chamber has long since proven itself to be one of the most valuable institutions in the community.

The Chamber has an ideal organizational setup. It is made up of a Board of Directors of eighteen members, which elects its president, treasurer, and executive secretary, or manager. It is supported by an appropriation from the city together with membership fees. Much of the success of the institution can consistently be credited to C. C. Richards, Jr., who has been secretary- manager since 1928.

The Chamber was incorporated in 1922, with Charles LeRoy Munro as president and Miss Octavia Lusueur as secretary. Succeeding presidents have been John B. Watson, J. H. Barnum, W. J. Riley, Charles B. Wood, Earl Dufur, Leigh M. Rothenberg, Andrew C. Fillbach, Homer Reed, Harvey R. Ling, James L. Norwood, Ralph Walton, W. A. Blanchard, Elmer J. Jackson, Fred Denslow, W. O. Mulligan, Maurice T. Porter, Robert E. Tyler, J. O. Bishop, J. L. Hey, Walter Long, Judson Blanchard and Frank Murray. The present officers and directors are as follows:

Frank J. Murray, President; W. J. Blanchard, First Vice-President; Walter H. Long, Second Vice-President; M. T. Potter, Treasurer; C. C. Richards, Jr., Secretary-Manager; H. V. Thompson, J. O. Bishop, W. J. Blanchard, John Canaday, A. E. Dufur, C. H. Eckles, Buel F. Enyeare, A. C. Fillbach, J. L. Hey, E. J. Jackson, R. J. Kliegel, Walter H. Long, Frank J. Murray, James L. Norwood, E. A. Pendarvis, M. T. Porter, Dudley M. Steele, Robert E. Tyler. Mrs. Marie Chalk, assistant Secretary.

The Good Neighbor Policy

GOODFELLOWSHIP HAS REIGNED SUPREME BETWEEN BURBANK HER NEIGHBOR GLENDALE

One of the outstanding features of the past too decades in the history of Burbank has been the harmonious goodfellowship between her and her across- the-street neighbor, Glendale. In fact, not even the full width of a street separates the two communities in some sections. This happens to be the case along Alameda Avenue, where the line between the two cities is the middle of the Street.

This good-neighborly spirit can no doubt be justly credited to the good generalship of James C. Crawford, at a critical point in the dealings between the two communities. Back there in the early twenties there was a considerable strip of county territory lying between the two cities. A movement was on foot among the Burbank officials to annex a part of this territory to this city. Learning that a group of Burbank officials with their engineers had been seen checking up on the territory involved, and suspicioning what was in the wind, the Glendalians stole a match on the Burbankers with the publishing of a notice that there would be an election on a certain date to annex the territory to Glendale. This gave them the jump on the proposition and in due course of time the election was held and it became a part of Glendale.

The feeling became quire bitter between the two communities, providing a fertile soil for growing friction, as is often the case between neighboring localities. Recognizing the danger of a perpetual squabble with an increasing tempo of bitterness, to the disadvantage of both communities, Mr. Crawford, who was then mayor of Burbank, on his own initiative, had a heart-to-heart talk with Spencer Robinson, known in his day as "The Singing Mayor of Glendale," advancing the argument that perhaps if the people of the two communities knew each other better they would think more kindly of each other. Accordingly, the Burbank officials, at Mayor Crawford's suggestion, invited the Glendale officials to a dinner prepared for them in Burbank. The occasion was such an enjoyable one for all who participated in it, that the custom became an annual event from that time to up to this day (1944). The occasions are alternated between the two cities, Glendale entertaining Burbank officials one year and the Burbank officials playing hosts to their Glendale neighbors the next year. Instead of continual bickering between the two cities, if the antagonistic attitude had been allowed to have taken its course, these annual dinner events developed into veritable love-feasts.

On one occasion, held in the "Old Stone Inn," which at that time was a popular setting for gatherings of such nature, connected with the Benmar Hills setup, the meeting developed into a genuine songfest. The Orpheus Four, a male quartet of considerable radio fame in those days, came over and put on one of their popular programs, went to the radio station and put on their regular program, then came back to the Stone Inn and participated until mid-night in a "singfest" engineered by Glendale's "Singing Mayor" Robinson. If Burbank's officiary never sang before or have never sang since, it certainly sang vociferously at that time.

There have been a great many things that the two cities have had in common which have been worked out to the advantage of both communities in this spirit of collaboration. The water controversies between the two cities and Los Angeles, is a case in point. They have joined forces in the employment of attorneys and defending their cases in the courts. Burbank has obligingly changed the names of some of her streets, such as Glenoaks Boulevard and Kenneth Road, to harmonize with the Glendale sections of the same streets. Glendale is sharing part of her Boulder Dam power so as to help Burbank meet its emergency of its tremendously growing industrial activity.

In other words, the two communities have given an impressive demonstra-tion of the worthwhile value of the good neighbor policy.

Churches Grow With Community

FROM ONE TO THIRTY IN COURSE OF SIXTY YEARS

As is often the case in the pioneering of a new country, there was a church in the community before there was a town of Burbank. The first church to appear on the Burbank scene was known as the Providencia Methodist Episcopal Church. The first church building was a little frame structure located at the corner of Empire Avenue and Lincoln Street on ground since absorbed by the aviation industry. It was dedicated September 14, 1884. The building was later moved to 1114 Burbank Boulevard on land donated by the late J. T. Shelton, and used as a residence for a number of years by George S. Thompson.

The congregation, in 1888 then built a new building at the corner of San Fernando Boulevard and Angeleno Avenue which they used until 1919, when it was sold and the corner of Olive and Third Street purchased for a new location. The congregation worshipped in "Horne's Hall," on San Fernando Boulevard which stood on the ground now occupied by the Newberry store building. As soon as the parsonage at the Olive Avenue location was com-pleted it was used for a place of worship until the completion of the present building, which was dedicated October 8, 1922.

From this meager beginning the church life of the community has grown to at least thirty congregations. Among them, together with their respective locations are the following:

First Presbyterian, 503 East Olive; First Christian, Sixth and Angeleno; Four Square Gospel, Providencia and Third; St. Jude's Episcopal, 347 East Santa Anita; First Evangelical, Fifth and Cypress; Calvary Baptist, Glenoaks and Elmwood; Church of the Nazarine, Sixth and Santa Anita; Congregational, Glenoaks and Amherst; First Baptist, Third and Magnolia; First Lutheran, Sixth and Elmwood; St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic, Fifth and Orange Grove; St. Finbar's Catholic, Olive and Keystone; Magnolia Park Community, Mag-nolia and Catalina; Full Gospel Hall, 516 Glenoaks; Emmanuel, Fifth and Harvard; Victory United Brethren, Victory and Maple; The Rescue Army, 228 North Glenoaks; First Church of Christ, Scientist, 300 East San Jose; Little White Chapel, 3403 Jeffries; Reformed Presbyterian, 204 North Brighton; Christ Lutheran, Burbank and Brighton; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) 136 North Sunset Canyon Drive; Church of Spiritual Philosophy, 291O-D Riverside Drive; Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 203 North Lincoln; Institute of Religious Science, 318 East Angeleno; Seventh Day Adventist, Third and Angeleno.

The first three churches erected in the San Fernando Valley were those at San Fernando, Riverdale and Providencia, in the order named. The first was dedicated on March 2, 1884, with the services in charge of Rev. P. F. Bresee. The Churches at Riverdale and Providencia were dedicated the same day, Sunday, September 14, 1884, the Rev. R. W. C. Farnsworth, in charge. The original San Fernando Building is now the rear portion of the stone church in use by that congregation. The original Riverdale building was later razed to make way for the new annex at the Central Avenue Church in Glendale, the corporate name of which organization is still Riverdale. In 1886 the Post-office at Riverdale was named Mason and Providencia. Shortly after Mason was changed to Tropico. The present Central Avenue church in Glendale is the same body that has successively been known as Riverdale, Mason, Tropico and Central Avenue, and is the oldest church in the city of Glendale of any denomination.

Harry R. Stevens built with his own hands the churches at Riverdale and Providencia, with such assistance as others volunteered. Among these was his son, Albert Stevens, of Los Angeles, who claims that he and Harry Chandler put the shingles on the Providencia building early in September, 1884. Prior to the dedication of this building there had been maintained a Sunday School in Providencia school house, founded possibly in 1883, the first superintendent of which was a Mr. Romer. Among those still living in this vicinity who were active in this school are the Chandlers, the Storys and the Fischers. Some time in 1884, Harry R. Stevens began to preach in the schoolhouse and late in the summer of that year the church was built. This church was used about four years only. In 1893, after standing idle for nearly five years, it was sold for $100 and the proceeds applied toward the building of a parsonage alongside the church in Burbank. The land reverted to the original owner, Mr. Shelton. Services were continued in the Providencia by student pastors from the Maclay School of Theology, then located in San Fernando up to the spring of 1889, when the class was merged with the new Burbank church on the corner of San Fernando and Angeleno.

On the day on which the Providencia church was dedicated, September 14, 1884, the members met and elected as trustees H. R. Stevens, R. B. Shelton, M. K. Chandler, Joseph Thompson, C. H. Bradley, A. E. Pomeroy and T. M. Adams.

In 1887 the town of Burbank started with a boom, which, alas, seems to have been of short duration. The church situation at that time was pictured in a report made at the time which read as follows:

"Burbank is one of the charges to which a student of the just opening theological college was appointed, F. S. Thomas. It was a destitute field at the start. It scarcely would have been much else now, had not Brother Thomas in the latter half of the year moved to the place and devoted his energies entirely to the work. It has now a flourishing little society with a church building of their own. The building cost them $2628, which has been all or nearly all provided. This is a commendable achievement."

The Burbank church was incorporated April 28, 1888, with the follow-ing trustees: J. W. Fawkes, A. H. Copeland, W. W. Slocumb, A. L. Burbank (not Dr. Burbank), and A. E. Pomeroy.

Fine Club-House Their Monument

BURBANK WOMAN'S CLUB CLEBRATE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF FOUNDING

Climaxing twenty-five years of activity in the social and cultural life of the community, the Burbank Woman's Club recently, with fitting ceremonies, burned the mortgage on their beautiful $25,000 club-house located at the corner of Olive Avenue and Seventh Street.

Mrs. E. R. Butterfield. retiring president, lighted the yellow taper of "constancy and devotion to principle." The blue taper of "loyalty and fidelity" was lighted by Mrs. R. W. Batts; and Mrs. J. V. Baldwin, incoming president, accepted responsibility for the future of the club by lighting the blue taper of "faith and hope."

A brass urn, the same one in which the Los Angeles Woman's Club's Hobart Avenue clubhouse mortgage had been burned at Whittier, January 21, 1944, was loaned to the Burbank club for the occasion. The mortgage was placed atop sand in the urn, and the four corners of the paper were lighted with the four symbolic tapers. As flames consumed the evidence debt, Mrs. Max Eckerman sang "Bless This House."

Past presidents were honored witnesses of the ceremony. A complete list of past presidents, some now deceased, but all of them honored, included, Mesdames: L. B. Doan, E. A. Fischer, Evaleen Locke, Philip Zeiss, Claire Woods, Ellen Johnson, Mida Fisher, R. H. Cummings. M. P. Groshong, Jane Marks, J. Delbert Baer, Leo Irving Mulvey, M. Elmer Gibson, Hugh K. Hougham, Almira Anderson, J. Milton Ball, Earl C. Schultz, E. H. Ward, Edith M. Crouch, B. W. Redding and J. B. Harris, Jr.

Founders also mentioned and honored (some deceased) were, Mesdames: E. A. Fischer, Clara E. Robison, R. W. Rouscup, Charles B. Fischer, Esther Kendall, Emma Anderson, George Wood, Martin Pupka and Florence Church.

Charter members honored for the part they have had in the club's growth were, Mesdames: J. H. Anderson, W.A. Blanchard, T. D. Buffington, J. G. Haldeman (Cora Clark), L. B. Doan, A. E. Dufur. E. A. Fischer, Charles B. Fischer, Florence Gower, M. P. Groshomg, J. A. Johnson, Sidney King, Jacob Haldeman (Estelle Ludlow), M. B. Hockenberry (Clara Miller), L. I. Mulvey, G. Roy Pendell, Carrie Rogers, H. W. Rouscup, J. D. Radcliff, Grant S. Roach, and J. T. Shelton (Annie Boden). Deceased charter members whose memory were honored were, Mesdames: Mattie Craig, A. O. Kendall, Delmont Locke, Catherine Nickerson, Clare E. Robinson, C. W. Siveter and George Wood.

Members who contributed $100 each toward the clubhouse fund were paid tribute. These included, Mesdames: P. N. Anderson, C. W. Anderson, S. F. Allen, W. H. Adams. W. A. Blanchard, T. D. Buffington, J. D. Baer, H. E. Bruce, Mattie Craig, J. D. Cameron, Emma Clader, D. D. Cummings, R. O. Church, J. C. Crawford, Lela Doan. L. A. Dymond, E. A. Fischer, M. P. Gro-shong. Charles Munro, J. J. King, Clementine LeMarr, H. R. King, A. J. Nickerson, J. L. Norwood, A. S. Nicholson. H. W. Rouscup, Francis Reese, J. L. Ryder, J. D. Radcliff, Henry Story, Louise Thompson, John Taylor. George Thedaker, W. S. Walker, J. A. Johnson, J. T. Shelton, W. S. Sandison, Philip E. Zeiss, C. B. Fischer, Mamie Herman, Harriett Greenman and Earl L. White.

The officials of the club for the year 1944, were as follows: Mrs. J. V. Baldwin, President; Mrs. Ray Stanton, First Vice President; Mrs. Frank W. Coulter, Second Vice President; Mrs. E. A. Pendarvis, Recording Secretary; Mrs. R. E. Brisbine, Corresponding Secretary; Mrs. R. G. Ludlow, Treasurer; Mrs. E. F. Kurtz, Mrs. Grant S. Roach and Mrs. E. R. Butterfield, Directors.

Public Library

GROWS TO BIG INSTITUTION FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS

The Burbank Public Library was started in May, 1913, as a contract branch of the Los Angeles County Library. It was established through the efforts of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce.

It was combined with the Library of the "Brotherhood" and located in their rooms in the Thompson Block, corner of San Fernando and Olive Ave. The Ladies Auxiliary provided the custodian. In 1918 the branch was moved to the second floor of the old City Hall. In 1923 it was again moved, this time to the second floor in the Thompson Building, corner of San Fernando Boulevard and Orange Grove Avenue. Mrs. Paxton and Mrs. Minnie Hum-phrey were custodians during this period.

In January, 1924, Mrs. Elizabeth Knox was appointed as librarian. In February, 1926, the library was moved to a building built by Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Farley. This location, centrally located was on the ground floor and better suited to the needs of the library. This move was accomplished through the cooperation of Mr. Charleville, then secretary of Chamber of Commerce. In June, 1930, Mrs. Knox resigned on account of ill health.

On June 16, 1930, Mrs. Elizabeth Ripley was appointed as librarian and was still in office at the time of this writing.

In 1935 a new library building was erected at 425 East Olive Avenue, with building funds which had accumulated since the beginning of the charter government, and with S.E.R.A. help. This was accomplished and the build-ing finished without bonds or debt, through the interest and cooperation of the City Council, Mr. Stites, the city manager and the Library Board.

Up to this time, the City of Burbank had a year-to-year contract with the Los Angeles County Library for library service. But as the city began to grow very rapidly, it was decided the foundation of a municipal library should be established. In 1938, the contract with the County Library was not re-newed, and the Burbank Public Library began on July 1st, 1938, as an independent municipal library, a department of the City of Burbank.

Since 1938, the book count has grown from the beginning to 30,790 books, catalogued and in use.

On February, 1943, a branch library was established in the valley section, with 3,929 catalogued books. Miss Carolyn Robins is the branch librarian. Funds were being accumulated for a new branch building, to be built as a post-war project.

Burbank Red Cross Chapel

MORE THAN ELEVEN THOUSAND PINTS OF BLOOD GIVEN BY LOCAL CITIZENS

More than eleven thousand pints of blood were shed by Burbank citizens in behalf of the war effort, through the channels of the Blood Bank section of the Burbank Chapter of the Red Cross during the year ending June 30, 1944.

This is but an inkling of the large and varied activities of this fine institution of volunteer relief workers. The list totaled 1,365 women and girls who participated in these activities during the year.

Instituted during the first World War under the leadership of the late Mrs. Evaleen Locke and Mrs. W. A. Blanchard, the Chapter served admirably during that war, and in the meantime it has functioned with similar efficiency on all occasions when the need of its services has presented itself.

During the present war the chapter has greatly enlarged its activities, until its program includes practically every avenue in which the general organ-ization has introduced into its activities. The officers at the time of this writing were David Rittenhouse, Chairman; Mrs. Marie Rogan, Executive Secretary, and J. B. Brown, Treasurer. This story would hardly be complete without mentioning the 24 years in which Mrs. Olive Mulvey served as Executive Secretary. Mrs. Rogan bas been associated in the work for thirteen years.

The activities include Blood Bank, First Aid, Home Nursing, Nurse's Aide, Canteen, Motor Corps, Production Chairmen, Surgical Dressing and Admin-istration, topped off with a Home Service Department, the business of which is to assist in smoothing out family troubles, including financial affairs where such is found necessary, which is often the case.

Thursday, August 10, 1944, was a red letter day in the Surgical Dressing Department at which time 5,127 2x2 dressing pads were turned out, establish-ing not only a record for the local chapter, but one for the entire San Fer-nando Valley.

A glance at the report of the chapter's activities for the year ending June 30, 1944, provides an impressive picture of the result of the year's work:

Staff Assistance Corps Chairman, Mrs. Robert Bruner, reported 5,139 hours, 52 workers and 15 certificates issued. Canteen Corps, Mrs. Nina Diem, Chair-man, 7428 hours and 57 workers. Home Nursing course, Mrs. Letha Lane, chairman, 169 enrollees, 99 certificates awarded. One Stork class, 43 enrollees and 31 certificates.

Motor corps, Mrs. Nellie Bisset, chairman, 19,872 miles driven by 18 girls who answered 1490 calls and worked 5040 hours. Production Corps, Mrs. C. B. Fitzsimmons, chairman, 61,386 hours, 1063 workers and 429-787 articles, including surgical dressings. Home Service, Mrs. Milton Recksiek, chairman and Mrs. Edward Kinzey, assistant chairman, both with over two years service, served approximately 1500 persons for the year, working between an average of 130 volunteer hours each month.

The production corps under the general chairmanship of Mrs. Fitzsim-mons, is composed also of two sub-chairmen, Mrs. A. L. McMillan, in charge of knitting and Mrs. Robert E. Taylor, surgical dressings. Mrs. Fitzsimmons takes direct charge of the sewing division of the corps.

Production for the year totaled 638 knitted articles, including sweaters, helmets, mufflers and socks for the armed forces and toe and stump socks and afghans for the veterans' hospitals.

The year's sewing included 11,990 items, among them kit bags, sewing kits for service men, bath robes, bed jackets, bedroom slippers, bedside bags, bed socks, bedpan covers, hot water bottle covers, comfort pillows, lap robes and pajamas for the hospitals; towels, quilts, bandages, compresses and sheets for the hospitals and children's clothing and layettes for local needs.

Thousands of garments also were donated by the people of Burbank and sent to Foreign War Relief. Games and musical instruments were collected by the corps and sent on to camps and hospitals.

Newspapers Have Done Their Part

HAVE BOOSTED FOR THEIR HOME TOWN IN ITS UPS AND DOWNS

Some of the most successful plays on the stage and screen, in these times, are stories based on newspaper life. From these stories it is found that ro-mance, as interesting and thrilling as can be found anywhere are to be found within the radius of the smell of primer's ink, the whirr of the presses and the nervous tension of the "city room," in a newspaper office.

As a matter of fact, there is probably more drama in the process of getting out a newspaper than in almost any line of human activity, considering that the drama in all other activities is relayed through the newspaper offices to the public.

From other angles as well as drama the making of a newspaper falls with-in the range of an important factor in the workaday world and the community in which it is published.

Take the Burbank Review, bringing the matter close to home. There is a whole lot of interesting romance to be found in its growth and development from a little country weekly, a comparatively few years ago, with a plant of only hand type-setting, one old cylinder press of such an ancient vintage that it is said to have been among the "first settlers" in these parts; one job press, a few fonts of type and a personnel list of three persons, to its present status of four typesetting machines of the most modern make, an immense tubular per-fecting press capable of grinding out newspapers at the race of 25,000 an hour. Also all of the modern equipment which goes into the makeup of an up-to-date priming establishment, with quite an army in its personnel departments. Starr-ing with a payroll of a few hundred dollars a year in its beginning, grown to far up into the thousands of dollars, providing employment for a considerably large number, together with equipment well up to the $100,000 mark in its value.

From the paper's masthead it is noted that the Review was first entered as second class mail at the local postoffice July 9, 1908, indicating that the paper is now in its 36rh year. It was started by E. M. McClure, who published it until the latter part of 1911. It was then purchased by H. E. Lawrence who published it until his death in October, 1914, and was continued by his widow, Mrs. Ida M. Lawrence.

The paper was sold to S. M. Greene, October 14, 1916, and in successive order was published by Charles E. Salisbury from February 23,1917, to June 7, 1918: by Carlton M. Brosius from then until April 4, 1919; by J. B. and A. P. Welch from then until May 2. 1919, when W. P. Coffman bought it and ran it until November 1, 1920, when Harvey R. Ling and Bert R. Greer became the owners and publishers. The company was incorporated in 1924, with Mr. Greer as president and Mr. Ling as publisher. Since the death of Mr. Greer, Mr. Ling has been at the head of the institution.

When the Review was first started in 1908 Burbank was nothing more than a small unincorporated village. The census of 1920 gave the town population of 2913. Since 1920 the city has grown to a population of approximately 60,000, the Review, without doubt, contributing no small degree to its growth and development.

During all this time the Review has faithfully chronicled the joys and sorrows, the comedy and tragedy, of the community, and has always been an optimistic booster through times of adversity as well as rimes of prosperity, never losing faith for a moment in the future of the city's home, business and industrial center.

During the booming days of the 1920's the Burbank Daily Tribune, a unit of the Earl L. White setup, flourished for a time but retired from the field in the early days of the depression.

Something like thirteen years ago the Burbank News was launched with Bert Jermain at the helm, and is still going strong, under the management of James Liener.

The Valley Times published at North Hollywood and covering the San Fernando in general devotes considerable space to the Burbank section.

The Amazing Buck of the Month Club

OPERATES MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS IN ORGANIZED GIVING

A million dollar business in organized giving has followed in the wake of the organization of the Lockheed Aircraft employees into a Buck of the Month Club--one of the most unique of all systems connected with raising money for charitable purposes.

From a financial report of the club, as of April 30, 1944, it is noted that in the two or more years of its existence it had received from its members on the basis of one dollar a month, the significant sum of $975,286, and had donated for the period from March 31, 1942, to September 30, 1943 a total of $522,968.

In the items were noticed $243,250 given to the Los Angeles County War Chest; $78,515 as part payment to the American Red Cross; $6,000 to the Army and $7,000 to the Navy Canteens, and $7,000 to the Marine Corps; $10,000 to the L. A. County Tuberculosis organization. The list included sixty-one different charities with donations ranging from $50 to the $243.250 given to the County War Chest. Since that time the contributions and dis-bursements have gone far over the million dollars with the list of donations lengthening in proportion.

Nobody has missed his dollar a month very much, but the Lockheed Air-craft plant has escaped all the flurry, bother, and lost production time inherent in charity drives. The workers have built fighters and bombers with both hands, while delivering many a solid charitable punch with a mere flourish of bookkeeping.

From these Bucks of the Month the soldiers guarding the plants received coffee, doughnuts and smokes. They also get free bus tickets, so they can reach the bright lights on a 12-hour pass without thumbing rides. Soldiers, sailors and marines can almost anywhere on the Seven Seas in the canteen have a soft drink or sandwich on the Lockheed men and women, via the $37,000 in Canteen Credits.

An iron lung appeared in a Burbank hospital. The armed forces get more free Gideon Bibles. "Thank you for your beautiful check for $5,000," wrote Anna May Wong on behalf of United China Relief - and then she came out and autographed workers' lunch-boxes, sometimes with nails, until her arm hurt.

The Lockheed workers wore no poppies, but the Veterans of Foreign Wars received $1250 on Poppy Day. The Travelers' Aid got a little boost, to help handle newcomers in search of war-production jobs. Infantile paralysis found thousands of new dollars fighting against it. The Red Cross got a mobile blood bank unit. Many a charity in Southern California, small but meritorious, gets a few hundred dollars every month from these Bucks of the Month.

Management of Lockheed had nothing to do with the founding of this unique club, and it has very little to do with its operation. The Gross brothers, Robert E. and Courtlandt S., presidents of the allied companies, have an ad-visory voice in the disbursement of funds, but no vote. In practice they help to investigate charities which apply for donations, and pass upon their merits. Employee and union representatives make the final decision.

The club was hatched in a meeting of these representatives, who were trying to puzzle out a method of handling Red Cross, March of Dimes, and United Service Organizations campaigns in overlapping succession. "Why not pool them, and put on a campaign to end campaigns?" was the suggestion. "Let the accumulated funds take care of all worthy war causes."

Both managements approved the idea warmly, and Lockheed attorneys incorporated the dub under an agreement between the Lockheed Employees Recreation Club; the twin Vega Club, and Aeronautical Lodge 727, Interna-tional Association of Machinists, the sound and helpful union which is the bargaining agency for both companies. Presidents of both Recreation Clubs and the president of the union were designated as ex-officio voting members of the disbursing committee, and their three unanimous votes are necessary before a donation may be made from the accumulated funds.

With the machinery set up, the "drive to end drives" began in all Lock-heed and Vega plants in the Los Angeles area. Buck of the Month Club mem-bership cards were distributed with time-clock cards, and collected again by Recreation Club and union representatives. Articles in the house organ, posters, and minute-man speeches during lunch periods told the story. Within two weeks, and with no personal solicitation, 70 per cent of the censored thousands of Lockheed and Vega men and women had joined up "for the duration of the war."

The volume of the voluntary response surprised everybody, and the man-agements soon decided that best efficiency could be obtained by retaining and (compensating, without drain on the donated funds) a full-time executive secretary. Voltaire Perkins, an attorney with a philanthropic background, cook over the post and handles funds, presentation ceremonies, membership enroll-ment, correspondence, investigations and recommendations for action by the disbursing committee.

The dollars began to roll in, more bookkeeping entries. A girl signed up for her husband, a Lockheed representative in the South Pacific, "knowing he would want to." Washington and European Lockheed people heard about it, and airmailed their authority for the payroll deduction. One large Lockheed outlying plant organized a similar dub for the benefit of its own city. "Thank you for this chance to do a small thing for a good cause," wrote more than one new member.

Immediately the dollars began to roll out, as shown, but they were more than bookkeeping entries. The major "universal" charities presented a little problem at first, because the Lockheed workers live in some forty different cities and towns in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area; their Buck of the Month membership cards arc proof against any other solicitation at home or in the factories. Naturally, unless the Glendale Community War Chest re-ceived a few Bucks of the Month, the Glendale chest would lose the support of its own citizens.

The problem was solved by distributing the Community Chest, the Red Cross and U.S.O. donations among the forty-odd communities concerned, pro-rated according to the number of club members who live in each. Each com-munity received its due without the pains of collecting it, so the solution was a ten-strike. Experience indicates that the Lockheed Buck of the Month Club has succeeded in pleasing everybody.

Walt Disney and the War

CONTRIBUTION OF THE BURBANK STUDIOS TO THE WAR EFFORT IMMENSE

When the saga of Burbank in World War II is written, the chapter reserved for the effort of the Walt Disney Studio may well lead off: "The im-possible was difficult but nevertheless was fully accomplished.

As war broke over Europe Disney was living in a world of whimsy, film -"Bambi" and contemplating "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan" among other fantasies. By the time the flames were licking the shores of England, Disney realized that the long arm of Mars would be stretching across the Atlantic to encompass the United States. He laid aside Peter Pan and Alice and turned his thoughts to the possibilities his medium offered for the instruction and education of our people in the forces and arms of war.

Following a three months' tour through Latin America, made mostly by plane, he was very air conscious, and foreseeing the need for turning out planes en masse envisioned a bottle-neck in production caused by lack of trained personnel. Mass production, depending a great deal on riveting, Disney de-cided to make a picture which would help speed up the training of riveters.

The result was "Four Methods of Flush Riveting," the first strictly defense project to come out of the Disney plant in Burbank. The Canadian government grasped the import of the picture and ordered prints. This was followed with a contract for a Technicolor film explaining the technique of the Boys' Anti--Tank rifle, to hasten the training of Canadian troops in this all important arm of the military.

Then came a series of bond-promotion pictures for the Dominion govern-ment. In the riveting and anti-tank gun production Disney made use of the live-action camera for its limited scope, and turned to his own animated tech-nique for the technical portion of the film.

With Pearl Harbor our own armed services were quick to grasp the train-ing and instructive powers of the medium. The Navy Bureau of Aeronautics were in the vanguard. The Treasury suggested a picture that would help to painlessly extract income taxes from American pocketbooks, particularly those which never before had been hit by this levy. The picture also was to show why the taxes should be paid without delay, and the part these funds would play in the building of our equipment for warfare. The result was "The New Spirit," which was sensationally successful and was credited to a Gallup poll with inducing 37 per cent of Americans to pay their taxes almost immediately after seeing the picture.

The offices of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs had previously recognized the American film as a good-will builder and as an educational arm in the Latin Republics, and a number of pictures were placed with the Disney Studio for production on behalf of this government agency.

Also the Army needed films to help "spotters" quickly identify our planes on the wing. Thus the Wift system of identification (wings, engine fuselage and tail) became the basis of a series of films for the Army, as well as for the Navy.

In its biggest year of entertainment production, the Disney plant shipped little more than 30,000 feet of negative. This represented the customary output of shorts and features. A new high was hit January (1943) when this same amount of footage was shipped in a thirty-day period-ninety-four per cent was for government agencies. This is the ratio of all film now being shot at Disney's. Close to 300,000 feet was filmed by the end of the year 1943, or ten times normal footage. This colossal task has been done in the face of a loss of twenty-seven and one-half per cent of personnel - men and women - -to our armed forces. One hundred and seventy-five Disneyites, all trained technicians, were under arms by the end of 1943.

The problem of personnel was overcome by an astute handling of the force remaining. Men and women were placed at the jobs they were most capable of handling. Now animating technique developed during the year Bambi was filming were brought into use, and proved time-savers. At every turn, Disney was taking advantage of live-action, using it where appropriate and reserving animation for the field in which it alone can tell the story, such as the X-raying of a highly technical machine, the action of anti-bodies in the human blood stream, what makes an engine tick, etc.

This is the design for the Disney studio at war: The product being filmed and yet to be produced will fall under four categories: I-Entertainment, for Disney feels morale at home is as important as food and guns for our boys at the front. 2- Training. 3-Educational. 4-Psychological. Virtually all have a bearing on the issues, the battle fronts, Pan American and home morale.

Under "entertainment" comes the Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Pluto shorts. The last feature production released was the widely dis-cussed and most controversial book of the day, Major Alexander P. de Sever-sky's "Victory Through Air Power." This film brought home to the man in the street in the Allied Nations, the importance air power holds in the progress of the war. Major Seversky is perhaps the outstanding advocate of air power in the world today, and for years has preached the theory of the late "Billy" Mitchell. "Victory Through Air Power," demonstrated the part the airplane has played since its creation by the Wright Brothers through the war to date, and showed how eventually it will prove the decisive factor in the outcome of the war. This feature was part live-action and pare animation, with Major Seversky himself appearing on the screen explaining his theories. It was in technicolor.

Released in 1943 was "Saludos Amigos," the first Disney South American musical which came under the war effort as a good neighbor gesture. Disney took a group of artists, writers and musicians to South America for three months gathering material on folk lore, legend and arts of the Latins, and turned out a picture that has won acclaim in the South American countries and in the United States. It reversed customary releasing practice by showing this picture first in the countries which furnished the source of material for the production. It was hailed everywhere as a sincere and successful attempt to encourage the feeling of good will between the hemisphere.

Currently in production was a second South American musical feature called "The Three Caballeros." Mexico, which was not pictured in "Saludos Amigos," was given a prominent part in "The Three Caballeros," with Donald Duck and the Brazilian parrot, Jose Carioca introducing a new Disney char-acter, a Mexican Charro rooster, named "Panchito." Still a closely guarded secret, several sensational new developments in production technique char-acterizes the film. Disney has divulged only that they will involve the associa-tion of live characters with the cartoon figures, on the same screen. The de-velopment is revolutionary and opens up an entirely new vista from the Disney medium. Aurora Mirando, sister of Carmen Mirando, and one of the top entertainers in Brazil was featured in the film which also introduces Dora Luz and Carmen Molina, sensational singing and dancing stars, respectively, of Mexico. Again Disney and his aides made certain that their material was authentic, and spent weeks in Mexico prior to starting work of this attraction.

2.- Training: Practically all the scores of pictures coming under this cate-gory for the Army and Navy are of hush-hush status. Through pictures of this type the services have in some instances cut by as much as forty-five per cent it takes to teach technical men. However, one of the production privi-leged makes "Gone With the Wind" look like a short by comparison in length. This was filmed for the Navy and is "Aerology" tears apart every weather ele-ment which was of incalculable value to the fighting men as well as civilian pilots in knowing what goes on inside thunder and lightning storms, fog, ice, and in fact, every element other than mechanical a pilot encounters after taking his ship off. Hundreds of pilots the world over contributed to the Navy's fund of material going into this picture, through stories of their encounters with weather. It will be as standard as any text book in flying schools after the war.

3.-Educational: Here, at last, the film comes into its own as an instruc-tional instrument. Most of these pictures were made for the office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs, but for showing wherever a motion pic-ture projector can be found. Included in this group, already finished and shipped were: "The Grain that Built a Hemisphere," the story of corn and corn products; "The Winged Scourge," which relates the why and wherefore of malaria and how it can be overcome; "Defense Against Invasion," all about vaccination and innoculation; and "Water Supply," an invaluable treatise on the prevention of water pollution. Still in production at the studio was "The Amazon Awakens," the story of the greatest delta land in the world. All these pictures are in technicolor, and are indicative of the power of the motion picture as an educational medium.

4.-Psychological: Pictures under this classification have been made under the regular Disney theater program. But they treat with the tropics that are also psychological. For releases in this group were: "Der Fuehrer's Face," a satirical comedy which made (quite a hit throughout the nation, and which would laugh Hitler out of Germany if it could be shown in the Fatherland; "Education for Death," a powerful if short treatment of Gregor Ziemer's slashing indictment of the Nazis; "Reason and Emotion," a plea for a good level-headed job of winning the war, and "Chicken Little," bringing the nurs-ery rhyme up to the minute with it ludicrous scourging of the bandier of false rumors.

In a separate category was the "Spirit of '43," successor to "The New Spirit," which the Treasury Department commissioned Disney to produce to March, 1943, because of the terrific success of the latter, in exploiting income tax payments. That year there were twice as many persons paying this excise tax as previous year, and consequently the Treasury Department's educational problem was twice as great.

Yes, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and their pals have gone to war- - completely all out for it. It is another evidence of the part the industry is playing in the gigantic task ahead of the nation, both on the war front and the home front. It is casting its shadow, too, on the future when the school room will echo to the sound projector relating the story of biology, chemistry, medicine, surgery, and in fact, every other educational subject to a wide awake, alert studentry which will grasp its lesson faster for being able to visualize it along with reading about it.

Women Folks to the Rescue

FALL INTO THE BREACH WHEN MAN SHORTAGE BECAME ACUTE

As the soldier draft began to make inroads on their working personnel the Lockheeds soon discovered that something radical would have to be done to meet the increased pressure on production of war planes on a rapidly de-creasing manpower situation.

It began to be noised about, mostly from governmental production circles, that some of the industrial institutions in the east were meeting the situation by recruiting workers from the women contingent. It was noted that in De-troit automobile manufacturing circles women in increasing numbers were being put on jobs which theretofore were considered exclusively men's work. Furthermore, they were making surprisingly good at it.

The company decided to give it a trial, and began to round up recruits by the thousands among the womenfolks. At first the women were rather shy in adventuring into what had been taken for granted as masculinity's sphere. A new system of training was inaugurated to fit the situation, built on the basis of introducing the new trainees into their new activities in sufficiently of a gradual nature to overcome their newness to the work. In other words, it was several weeks from the time a new recruit found her way to the place in the factory where she was supposed to enter into the actual work of making airplanes.

This preliminary training likewise gave the trainers an idea of the kind of work each was fined best to perform. By the time the women reached this point they had overcome much of their shyness and felt more at home on their new type of work.

At the time of this writing it was estimated that approximately forty--seven per cent of the aviation workers, in the local airplane industry were women. It was nor expected from the beginning that the women would in short order attain the production capacity, person for person, as the men who had been engaged in this kind of work for a long time. However, as far as helping the war effort through an acute emergency the women have given an excellent account of themselves.

Generally speaking the industry itself looks upon the employment of women in large numbers in what has usually been looked upon as man's job, only to meet the war emergency. At the end of the war the supposition is that the women will be allowed to return to their homes, as there will no doubt be plenty of men to fill the jobs as the country and the world gets back into what are considered as normal times.

While some of the women will probably like to continue on these jobs, it is thought that most of them will be glad of the opportunity to go back to the one job of keeping the household functioning properly, rather than per-manently trying to fill two jobs at the same time -- the woman's work of keep-ing house and the man's job of keeping industry functioning properly.

There are chose who predict that the adventure which women have taken into man's domain, is going to require a new economic setup in some respects, to in some way, offset the effects of that extra check which, by reason of the war emergency, has been added to the family income.

And the Floods Came

SEVEN INCHES OF RAINFALL WITHIN A FEW DAYS PLAYS TERRIBLE HAVOC

The first four days in March, 1938, the Southland was visited by one of the most copious periods of rainfall in its history. During a four-day period seven inches of rain fell. All the streams were flooded to their banks and in many places beyond. The dams located within the San Fernando Valley water-shed, already almost filled to capacity, were unable to absorb any more. In fact great fear was entertained for the safety of the dams themselves.

The regular channels were filled to overflowing and even the usually dry washes became raging torrents. Many homes along them were washed away with great loss of life. Bridges were washed out and the Los Angeles River, usually a joke in the classification of "rivers," at least once in its life, relegated all joking to the rear and took its place in the demonstration of what a real river looks and acts like.

Broke out its channel in the vicinity of the Warner Brothers moving picture studios, took out a twenty foot section of the Olive Avenue Bridge and a number of buildings on the Warner lot. Took a wide circle in the vicinity of Chevez and Allen Streets, taking three homes with it, including the ground on which the homes were built. One of these homes was of mansion-like proportions and valued at $100,000. On the checkup on March 4, it looked like the loss of life throughout the district would reach two hundred with eighty, five already known dead and one hundred and fifty missing. An authentic estimate of the possible dead was never attempted.

The Burbank deaths were few in number, but the property damage was considerable. Many of the residents of Sunset Canyon were marooned in their homes with boulders, sand and debris filling the roadway. Water mains were washed out and the marooned had to depend on the rain for drinking water.

Two hundred employees at Warner Brothers, unable to get home on ac-count of the washed out bridges, turned one of the big stages into a hotel and spent the night there, putting on an improviso entertainment to while away the time.

Glen M. Odens, prominent Burbank business man, who was given up as lost for twenty four hours, finally turned up with one of the most thrilling stories coming out of the flood. Responding to an S.O.S. call from friends who were marooned on an island in the Tujunga wash at the junction of Strathern Avenue and Laurel Canyon Drive, waded across one of the channels. When he attempted to return he found the channel too much swollen to risk crossing. A friend, Bob Williams, of Roscoe, in attempting to throw Odens a rope fell in the stream and was washed so far down stream that he could not get back, and came near losing his life.

Odens found himself and twelve other persons, mostly women and children, including a baby, on an island rapidly diminishing in size with waters raging on all sides. As the waters got higher and higher the refugees sought refuge in one of the houses and as the waters kept rising they sought safety on the roof. The house was struck by another house floating down the stream and the entire thirteen were precipitated into the raging stream. Only four of the party were ever heard of again. Odens and one of the others succeeded in climbing on a pedestal upon which one of the big steel power towers was resting. They remained on this until it began to crumble and the falling high power electric wires began to sizzle dangerously around them. Having no other choice they both ventured into the scream, hoping against hope that they could make their way to the opposite shore.

The next morning Odens was found in a semi-conscious condition on the bank some distance below. The other three men saved passed through very much the same experience.

In the meantime City Manager Howard Stites had a crew from the Bur-bank Street Department hard at work piling sand-bags in a breach of the Tujunga wash up the line where the flood waters were etching out a new channel.

Army engineers, who later had looked into the matter, reported that if the water bad gotten away from them at that point, it would have plowed a channel around the point in the nearby foothills which would have brought the flood waters right through the center of Burbank in the vicinity of the Lockheed plant.

Since all this happened the Hansen dam has been built and has removed all future danger from that source. Likewise the Burbank wash channel has been constructed further removing danger from the flood angle.

A Dream That Didn't Come True

LOFTY VISION OF A VISIONARY WHICH FAILED TO MATERIALIZE

Many of the dreams indulged in by members of the Burbank community in behalf of their home town have come true - even more than their fondest hopes could have expected. However, the dreams of one of its most ardent dreamers never reached the tangible status embodied in the dreams.

In the early 20's a gentleman by the name of Ben Marks appeared on the Burbank scene, acquired several hundred acres of land sloping from the hill-side and extending up into the foothills and canyons, which he christened "Benmar Hills." His dream was that of making the section one of the most renown educational and cultural centers in the country, and possibly in the world.

In fact, his program included a University of International Relations which would draw from far and near those in search of things associated with things of a cultural nature -- music, art, literature and things which go with them. Elaborate architectural drawings and blueprints were provided, including music, art and science buildings, and a veritable Hollywood Bowl up in one of the canyons. The main boulevard leading to the institution was to be two hundred feet wide, beautiful parks on each side with a background of $50,000 residences. A twenty-acre section of the land was donated to the city as a Civic Center, with the proviso - which the city authorities accepted - that any more public buildings erected by the city should be built on the tract.

As a starter for the cultural activities of the project a temporary auditorium was built on the civic center plot and used as a cultural center. In this building was given from time to time such high class entertainment as the Vollmer String Quartette, more or less famous organization at that time. These concerts were given with the general public invited without money and without price.

An old stone barn constructed when the tract was used as a ranch was transformed, with the help of professional experts in such things, into an old wayside inn after the pattern of those found in the New England section in the early days. This was christened as "The Old Scone Inn." It became the gathering place of the elite of the community in social gatherings of a type that could use such a place.

In the course of time the project came upon troubled days. It seemed to have been spending more money than it was raking in and went through periods of refinancing, each time taking on new life and percolating for a time.

Hope was revived from time to time by certain new turn of events. At one time there seemed to be good prospects for the removal of the University of Southern California from its location in Los Angeles to this tract in Bur-bank. Later a section of the tract was deeded to the University of Inter-national Relations, fathered by Dr. Von Klein-Smed of U.S.C. This failing to materialize, the land reverted back to the original owners.

When a site for the University of California at Los Angeles was sought for, the Benmar Hills tract became an active contender. Through the process of elimination the list of possible sites was whittled down to a choice between the Burbank site and that at Westwood. It looked for awhile that Burbank had the project "in the bag," as the saying is. By a very slim margin, however, the Westwood site was chosen.

The beginning of the end of the dream came with the approach of the depression, when the payments for the improvements began to come due and the concern not having the finances to meet them. It was then that the project became a "pain in the neck," as it were for the community as a whole.

Improvements, such as streets and sidewalks, up to that time were put in under the so-called 1911 act, which provided that the property itself was its own security. On the plea of the contractors that the use of the so-called 1915 act would make it possible to submit lower bids and thus make it cheaper in the lot owners, the City Council began to use that act, nobody dreaming at the time that the time would ever come when the property would not be worth the amount of the assessments. And this was the slip which produced the subsequent grief for the taxpayers. For the 1915 act provided that when the property itself did not pay the assessments the responsibility to make up the difference fell to the property owners of the city, as a whole, and that is why it brought on eight or ten years of litigation in the courts - going to the Supreme Court two or more times, and why several years before it was settled by compromise a few years ago, the taxpayers of the city had an extra charge on their tax bills to pay. At this time the proposition is out of the courts as far as the city is concerned.

It is expected that when the war is over the project will cake on new life, but quite evidently not in the direction of fulfillment of the dreams of the original sponsor.

Camouflage Galore

MIILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT TO FOOL ANY ENEMY WHO WOULD DO US HARM

Millions of dollars have been spent in Burbank since the breaking out of the war in the effort to fool the enemy who might try to drop bombs from the skies in the hope of putting our war industries out of business.

In the effort experts in camouflage spent at least a year or more in one of the most elaborate efforts in that direction that has been indulged in any place in the world.

From an airplane the territory occupied by the Lockheed Air Terminal and the Lockheed and Vega Airplane plants has all of the appearance of a peaceful valley, farm houses, with here and there more potential buildings resembling apartment houses. The runways at the air terminal have the appear-ance of fields of grain and other farm crops, with here and there a tree or two to break the monotony. The parking lots where automobiles by the thousand are parked looks like fields of growing alfalfa saturated with an atmosphere of rural bliss and quietude.

In other words, the landscape thirty feet in the air as seen from an air-plane is as different from what it actually is on the surface thirty feet below as it is between a peaceful rural scene and a rip-roaring-snorting metropolitan industrial center.

All of these effects are brought about by a lot of false construction on the real buildings, so painted as to leave the desired effect from the air. Some of the trees are nothing more than imitation tree-tops sitting on telephone poles. The alfalfa fields covering the automobile parking lots are acres and acres of chicken wire soaked in glue scattered over with chicken feathers. The parklike landscaping on the airfield runways is merely different colors of paint on the surface of the runways.

Two types of versions come from airplane pilots who are called upon to sit their planes down at the right place in this conglomeration of intended deception. One is that it takes a genius in the art of deciphering camouflage to find his way with a plane to where he is supposed to be going. The other one is to the effect that the camouflage itself gives itself away and would help the enemy to locate what we are trying to hide -- our precious war equipment making industries.

Underneath this camouflage, together with the other buildings connected with the airport and the industrial buildings are miles and miles of solid concrete air-raid shelters ready for the army of workers should the occasion demand.

As the danger of bombing attack from the enemy seemed to be waning, it is understood that the camouflage was soon to be removed. An elaborate system of smoke-screen equipment which was installed earlier in the game has already been removed and the personnel manning it has been given other war duties to perform.

Every few yards in a circle surrounding the airport and industrial plants a half a mile or more from the plants, there were installed specially made heaters similar to those used in orchards as a protection from freezing. These were attached by pipe from large drums of oil of a nature found to make the produce the greatest profusion of smoke, so as to bamboozle any enemy bent on bomb raiding.

The camouflage, smoke screen and other precautions against air attack is supposed to have been provided at government expense as part of the war cost.

Industrial Growth Has Been Phenomenal

IMPRESSIVE PICTURE SEEN THROUGH INCREASE IN ELECTRICAL CONSUMPTION

From no angle does the industrial growth of the City of Burbank appear more impressive than from the increase in the consumption of electrical energy during the past ten years.

It was with considerable apprehension that city officials signed the Boulder Dam Power Contract on November 10, 1931, obligating the city to pay for 25,000,000 kilowatt-hours annually. At this time the city's energy requirements were slightly less than nine million kilowatt-hours per year. However, as the allotment of Boulder Power was to be fixed for the fifty years of the term of contract it was necessary to contract for a larger amount of energy than then required in order to insure power for the future.

While the most optimistic outlook indicated that it would be many years before the city could utilize all this energy it was obligating itself to pay for, the birth of Burbank's industrial development took place several years before Boulder Dam Power became available in June, 1937, and by this time the power demands had exceeded the Burbank allotment of Boulder Power.

It appeared that some additional power source would have to be found to keep up with the growing demand and, while both Los Angeles and Glendale had surplus power, it was uncertain how long it would be available to meet Burbank's need.

The idea of a steam generating plant then was investigated. Findings were that it would not only be highly economical but also more reliable as trans-mission lines would be eliminated by local generation. Plans were formulated for a unit costing $1,000,000 to be paid for with a bond issue of $350,000 and the remaining $650,000 to be paid for from revenues of the Public Service Department. Before this plant was completed the demand had so grown that it was evident another unit of at least similar capacity would be required, This second unit, also of 10,000 kilowatt capacity, was built at a cost of $900,000, Utilizing much of the same engineering data and plans used in construction of the first unit.

From 1937, the first year Boulder Dam energy was available, energy con-sumption gradually increased to a point beyond the expectations of the wildest optimist. During the calendar year of 1943, energy consumption reached the enormous figure of 197,532,400 kilowatt-hours.

Of this amount 100,000,000 kilowatt-hours were generated in the city's steam plant, 25,000,000 kilowatt hours from Boulder Dam, and 72,000,000 were purchased from Glendale's surplus.

Estimates based on present load growth indicate that the system energy consumption will be approximately 215,000,000 kilowatt-hours for 1944. The record month up to the time of writing was the month of January, 1944, in which 18,100,000 kilowatt hours were consumed with a maximum demand of 33,560 kilowatts.

The total capacity of the two generating units of the steam plant is 20,000 kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to 26,800 horse-power. Both units operate at maximum output every day. With the present cost of fuel, and with present operations, the cost of electricity generated in the steam plants is about 75 per cent of the cost to Burbank for Boulder Dam energy. The cost of energy purchased from Glendale is approximately the same as the cost of Boulder Dam energy.

Up to the time of this writing, not a single new application for power has been refused and all power requirements have been successfully met. This is indeed remarkable, considering the adverse conditions prevailing, such as limited availability of equipment and personnel and other war imposed restric-tions. No small measure of credit is due to the management of the municipally owned Public Service Department, whose long range planning was so liberal as to adequately meet this phenomenal load growth.

Improvements Without Bonds

GRIEF FROM ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS BRING ABOUT NEW POLICIES

During the speculative boom days of the 1920's, under the pressure of a type of super-salesmanship gone wild, seeds were sown that produced untold grief for Burbank property owners. Under the temptation of unsound public improvement laws miles and miles of street paving were put in at the expense of the property owners. Much of it was more elaborate and costly than the situation justified. When the annual assessments began to come due it proved to be such an unbearable burden to the property owners that many allowed their property to go for the assessments. Expensive ornamental street lighting projects were allowed to degenerate into more or less of a makeshift affair, more unsightly than ornamental. As the property owners were charged up with a large part of the cost of operation the quality and quantity of the lights were reduced and still reduced.

Coming to the conclusion that the assessment district was not a fair and proper way of handling the street improvement system, the city officials evolved a plan which reduced the cost materially with very little, if any, hardship on the property owners.

A complete paving plant was installed, including rock, sand and gravel equipment, and the work is done by the city's own paving crew instead of letting it by contract to private contractors. The progress under the new system is indicated by the fact that, whereas in 1928 the city had 150 miles of streets with but 35 miles of it paved, at this time (1944) out of a total of 190 miles of streets 120 miles of it has been paved.

With this as a starter the city gradually developed a cash basis policy until it is hardly likely that there is a community in the country which has secured as much public improvements with as little resort to the more expensive bond issue process.

The extent that the pay-as-you-go system has been carried out in the city in the last few years is indicated in the fact that there has been built a $2,000,000 steam electrical plant and a $420,000 City Hall with the need of only a $350,000 bond issue. The $900,000 second unit of the steam plant was paid for largely from the revenue of the light and water departments.

In financing the building of the City Hall the officials adopted in 1927 the policy of turning over the unspent amount in the various funds at the end of each fiscal year into a building fund. This was augmented by a small tax levy from year to year which brought in $60,000 in 1941, $85,000 in 1942 and $50,000 in 1943. Only approximately $10,000 of W.P.A. labor was utilized in the construction of the new City Hall.

The same wise policy has been pursued in the construction of the city's sewer system. In 1928 only eight per cent of the city was served by the city's sewer system. The first unit covering the hill section was put in under the assessment district plan, with the trunk line connecting with the Los Angeles outfall sewer paid for with a bond issue. After this year this will be the only outstanding bond issue connected with the building of the sewer system. Other interceptors have been constructed on a pay-as-you-go program with the prop-erty owners paying a certain amount with annual payments at the time the property is connected with the system. At the present time 50 per cent of the city is served by the system, and it is estimated that all property will be con-nected within the next ten years.

Up to 1934 a considerable part of the valley section of the city received its electricity from the Edison Company. At that time the Edison distributing system was purchased by the city and has since been a part of the city's system. The cost of this, something like $130,000, was paid for out of the revenues of the public service department of the city.

Despite the magnitude of its growth and expansion the city's utility factor has kept pace with the industrial growth of the community affording all users of water and electricity every need in this respect. Furthermore, at the lowest rates to be found in any community of Burbank's class. The community's peak load in the use of electricity has been 33,560 kilowatts.

The city's official and working personnel which was something like 150 in 1920 has reached at its peak to more than 800 persons.

The city's management attributes this fine record of economical municipal management to the high class of stewardship which has from time to time been in charge of affairs and the fine collaboration between the various groups of the community's citizenship, a fine Chamber of Commerce and the best of cooperation between its many departments.

In addition to looking after its own municipal dooryard the officiary has contributed much through activity with the California League of Municipalities to the cause of good government throughout the state. Burbank officials have filled such important positions in the State League as president; president of the Attorneys section of the organization; president of the City Engineers section; president of the City Managers' section; members of the Board of Directors. Also, three times in 10 years as chairman of Municipal Institute of University of Southern California; president of City and County Engineers' Association; treasurer of Los Angeles section of State League.

New Adventure in Education

LOCKHEED JOINS FORCES WITH BURBANK SCHOOLS AND EMERGENCY PROBLEM IS SOLVED

One of the most unique adventures in collaboration originated in the Burbank community when the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation joined forces with the Burbank Public Schools in meeting an emergency forced upon the corporation by the contingencies of the war. It proved likewise a unique adven-ture in education, as well.

If somebody hadn't thought out putting into operation the program involved, it is hard to figure out what the aircraft institution would have done toward meeting the emergency.

The corporation was moving along in the even tenor of its way when all of a sudden, in the face of the rising danger from Hider's Germany, the British government placed an order for 200 airplanes to augment its own production in their own factories, with the Lockheed concern. By the time the two hundred had been built and delivered an order for 800 more war planes came from the same source. In other words, orders for new planes were coming in faster than the company could take care of them with the: meager number of skilled workmen available. The usual apprentice system of training the workers was entirely too slow to meet the situation.

The Burbank schools had been carrying on vocational educational work since 1919 in a small way. Svend Pedersen had been employed by the Lock-heed Corporation to work out some kind of program for training young men and adults for aircraft work. A plan was worked out in which the company and the setup already in operation in the schools was used as a foundation for the expansion which followed rapidly.

John C. Beswick, chief of the division of the State Department of Education, at Sacramento, consulted with the Lockheed officials and with Dr. Enyeart, Superintendent of Schools. Also met with the local Board of Education. In the fall of 1938 Mr. Pedersen and Randall Irving of the Lockheed Personnel department worked out a program of aircraft classes. The following January the classes were formed with Homer Ferry in charge. After two years he was succeeded by Rhodes Elder and a year or two later by Glenn Trout.

These classes grew in number and importance in leaps and bounds, as the need for workers increased proportionally. The extent and rapidity of their growth is impressively set forth in the number of youths and adults who passed through them to the graduation stage.

In 1937 the graduates numbered 350. In 1938 there were 800. By 1939 the number graduating had grown to 2,100; 1940 to 10,500, and 1941 - the peak year - the unprecedented number of 19,500. The year 1942 with a total of 14,000 showed the beginning of a tapering off. According to Mr. Pedersen, up to the time this was written, there had been approximately 85,000 persons, youths and adults, men and women had gone through the courses.

So great was the success of the Burbank experiment the State Department of Education borrowed Mr. Pedersen from the Lockheeds and utilized his services in establishing similar schools throughout the State. However, no other locality has reached the status of the original experiment in the Lockheeds and the Burbank schools.

In the course of time the Federal Government took note of the success of the Burbank experiment and was instrumental in sending Mr. Pedersen from place to place throughout the country to explain and introduce the system where conditions were in need of such a program in the war efforts. In these activities Mr. Pedersen traveled an estimated 50,000 miles, representing some-

thing like 250 hours in the air, as he traveled mostly by air.

The Federal Government has likewise been exceedingly liberal in financial help in connection with the Burbank experiment, the contribution from Federal and State governments having, at last accounts, reached a total of something like $500,000. In addition to that the Federal Government has had delivered to the local school system $265,000 worth of the highest type of machinery and tools which are utilized in the courses of instruction.

As the soldier draft has reached deeply into the personnel of the Lockheed these courses have been looked upon in the way of a godsend in filling in the breaches resulting from that angle.

The system has worked marvelously in a number of ways. Outstanding above all other angles, no doubt, has been its contribution to the nation's war efforts in the way of increasing the output of warplanes. It has done wonders in capping a new labor market to maintain full war production in spite of the manpower shortage, and at the same time giving valuable vocational training to thousands of boys of 16 and 17 years old, as well as adults, the Lockheeds being pioneers in the use of "boypower" in the manufacture of its fighters and bombers.

This part of the plan is unique in its close cooperation with the school systems in charge of the boys' education. Boypower is hired only through the boy's own school, with consent of his parents, and the boy must maintain his scholastic grades - exactly like a football player - or lose his factory job.

As many as 4,000 boys from 40 different high schools and junior colleges have helped to build the Lightning P-38 fighter, the Lodestar transport, and the Ventura and Flying Fortress bomber under the Boypower plan, although the total varies to meet school and factory requirements. The total at present runs far up into the thousands. Two boys are required to fill one factory job. since each works half time and attends school the other half.

Two methods are in effect at Lockheed. Most of the boys work four hours daily and attend school for four hours, with a full work day on Saturday. Others work a full eight hour day for four consecutive weeks, and then return to school with a fresh outlook and renewed mental vigor for the next four weeks. Under either method, a factory job is kept filled by two boys, one of whom works while the other is at school.

Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San Fernando Valley schools, in addition to Burbank, cooperating in the BoyPower plan have stremlined their curricula so that these worker-students can do three years' work in two and one-half years, with a credit given for their factory experience. The mutual determination of I,ockheed and the schools alike is that every boy will receive his high school diploma, meanwhile helping to win the war and earning regular wages for his war production work.

The 16- and 17-year-olds ride to and from work in chartered buses. Most of them are used on actual assembly work, whifting from job to job during a training period to give them a broad background and fit them into their best skills, avoiding all oc-cupations classed as hazardous. They start at the regular learn-er's rate of 60 cents per hour, receiving an automatic increase every four weeks until their rate is 75 cents. After this, wage increases depend upon skill and merit.

The boys work on the day shift only. School supervisors ob-serve their work in the factories, just as in the schools, and their safety training is especially thorough. The company feels its obligation to make sure that these boys complete their edu-cations, while they are helping to maintain schedules despite the manpower shortage, and the "four-fold" plan is a compromise between these two national needs. It meets every requirement of the state labor code, and quite evidently benefits the boys.

Burbank and Pasadena schools were the first to enter the Lockheed Boypower plan, in February of 1943, and are still send-ing hundreds of boys to the factories. "Our students have done better work in school since the factory work program began than they were doing before," said Dr. George H. Merideth, deputy superintendent of schools in Pasadena. "They have improved their work habits, shown closer attention, and taken fresh interest. The scholarship of boys who work at Lockheed now is higher than the school average, so our report on the work program is favorable."

Dr. B. F. Enyeart, Burbank superintendent of schools, reported that the attitude of the boys toward their school work has improved, their scholarship is as good as the average or better, and we are very happy about the plan. So are our boys." High praise has come also from California state school officials and law-enforcement officers.

Lockheed line supervisors unanimously are enthusiastic about the 16- and l7-year olds as aircraft builders. "They are quick to learn, eager to work, and their workmanship is good," they say.

"Any tendency toward horse-play usua1ly turns into spirited work when they sense the importance of their jobs on fighting planes."

For a few score boys who, usually for family financial reasons, are authorized by their school systems to work 44 hours per week and attend a Continuation School for four hours weekly, Lockheed has es-tablished its own high school at the factory. Known as Los Angeles Metropolitan High School, Lockheed Branch, and staffed by a Los Angeles teacher, it operates several mornings each week in the Lockheed Education Building. Among the subjects taught are basic mathematics, blueprint reading, practical English, citizenship, health and safety and -technical subjects allied to the boys' work in the factory.

In Path of Growth and Development

ROSCOE SHARES IN PROSPERITY FLOWING FROM LOCKHEED INSTITUTION

Roscoe, Burbank's next door neighbor up San Fernando Road way, enjoys, with Burbank and other nearby localities, the growth and prosperity flowing from the big Lockheed industrial institu-tion.

As a result the community in a comparatively short time grew from a population of 500 to that of approximately 15,000. During the same period it has raised its rating in the eyes of the Post-office Department, from a poor third-class institution to that of first class, a rating given to it in July, 1944.

The postoffice was established in 1924 with a credit of $400 in postoffice merchandise and service. By 1935 it had reached an annual business of $35,000. For the year ending July 1, 1944, its business in postage stamps alone had reached 49,700 with a total business of more than a quarter of a million dollars.

During the period from 1940 to 1944, 1400 new homes were con-structed in the community, and at the time of this writing, 1944, at least 500 additional homes were in the process of construction. The homes are occupied mostly by workers in the aircraft industry, the plants and the Lockheed Air Terminal, operating headquarters for all of the Commercial Airlines being at its very doors.

While a part of the City of Los Angeles, Roscoe has an identity very much of its own in numerous respects. It boasts of five school units and five churches. A commodious and beautiful park with all the needed recreational equipment and facilities. A fine business section and above all plenty of room to grow.

Roscoe is the operating headquarters of the Union Supply Com-pany, one of the biggest feed institutions in this section, under the efficient management of Ray R. Sence. Much of the stock and poultry food it processes in its Roscoe plant is grown on the company's own ranches in the Antelope Valley.

According to Fred Jacobsen, Roscoe's wideawake Postmaster, Roscoe is the coolest place on a hot day in San Fernando Valley. This, with him is not hearsay or guess-so, but a scientifically demonstrated fact.

To satisfy his own curiosity, and as a basis to back up his belief on the subject, Mr. Jacobsen on an unusually hot day secured a number of thermometers of identical make and type and had his collaborators to register the temperature in all sections of the valley - Burbank, Orange Cove, out Sunland way, North Hollywood, Van Nuys and Canoga Park. The thermometers were

placed five feet above ground and other precautions taken so as nearly as possible to duplicate the circumstances in each lo-cality, with the recordings taken at the same time in the day.

The verdict gave Roscoe - at San Fernando and Sunland boulevards - -the best of it by four degrees. That is, four degrees cooler in Roscoe than at any other point in the valley where the tests were made. Mr. Jacobsen attributes this to that ocean breeze which comes through Cahuenga Pass and finds its way through the Roscoe district.

Exciting Election

SCRAMBLE FOR CONTROL OF CITY UNDER NEW CHARTER

Probably the warmest contested municipal election the Burbank community has ever indulged in was the first one under the new City Charter in April, 1927. Putting into effect the new Charter meant the expiration of the terms of the existing elected officials. It provided a clean sweep of such officials and precipated a grand scramble among various groups in an effort to get control of the city.

The members of the Board of Trustees going out of office at the time were Russell B. Mullin, H. E. Bruce, J. T. Lapsley, J. D. Radcliff and Roy Campbell.

One group styled themselves as "Good Government League." An-other, "Federated Community Clubs." Another as the "Charter Pro-tection League," and still another known as the "Nielsen Ticket."

There were twenty candidates whose names appeared on the ballot, the list being as follows:

P. M. Anderson, J. H. Barnum, Edward Barras, H. E. Bruce, Roy Campbell, Frank L. Carson, W. W. Collette, L. A. Dymond, W. M. Ham-ner, Lewis N. Hart, Richard Hill, Don Jolley, J. T. Lapsley, L. H. Morgan, David S. Preston, John D. Radcliff, S. B. Bunyan, A. B. Somerville and Clarence A. Thompson.

Most of the groups and some of the individual candidates made quite a splurge in a hip, hip, hurrah fashion in their campaign. However, the ticket known as the Lapsley group made up of Mr. Lap-sley, H. E. Bruce, L. H. Morgan, Guy L. Miltmore and Frank L. Carson, indulged in a "still-hunt" for votes, holding meetings at private homes and keeping their activities largely in the dark as far as publicity was concerned.

Furthermore, the strategy of the latter group seemed to have won the day, at least as far as gaining control of the Council was concerned, the count of the ballots on the night of election showing the winners and their vote as follows: J. T. Lapsley, 1581 votes; H. E. Bruce, 1435; J. D. Radcliff, 1239; L. H. Morgan, 940, and Clarence A. Thompsom, 887 votes.

And Then Came Pearl Harbor

BURBANK SUDDENLY CHANGES FROM PEACE TO WARTIME ACTIVITIES

While the Lockheed Corporation was already deeply engaged in building warplanes for the British, the Burbank communality did not take on a real wartime complexion until the news of the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands, that fateful Sunday morning, December 7, 1940. The question of whether or not our country should enter the war, which up to

that time provided the main issue for discussion, came to a sud-den end, the question of how long would it take to whip Japan taking its place.

Not knowing what means the Japanese would take to follow up their advantage, Burbank joined with the rest of the cities along the coast in preparing for what might happen. The evidence of Japanese submarines up and down the coast indicated some kind of an attack was possible at any moment at any point along the coast.

The "blackout" was the first protective measure to be put into effect, the theory being that the usually brilliantly light-ed cities up and down the coast would be easy marks for enemy planes, ships or submarines. The first blackouts caught the automobilists napping, with the result that numerous accidents -- some fatal - took place.

Then came the organization of the community into protective units to take care of anything that might happen in the realm of catastrophe. The city was mapped out into sections and blocks, with an air warden appointed to each block, whose business it was to take charge of affairs for his respective block at any time there were warnings of possible danger.

One corner of the basement in the then uncompleted new City Hall at the corner of Olive and Third Street, was fitted up as air-raid headquarters. The quarters were made as light and bomb-tight as possible. A large battery of telephones were put in and a special group of citizens selected to man the headquarters, with certain ones to look after certain phases of the setup.

Sirens of considerable weird and shrieking capacity were estab-lished at strategic points throughout the city to arouse the populace when danger appeared.

The Red Cross, which had already been functioning in a gen-eral way, increased its activities until today it is one of the most active chapters in the locality.

It wasn't long until the womenfolks had a strenuously wide-awake Ambulance Corps operating in full force, while the men- folks were rapidly whipping a company of home guards into functioning status. Buckets of sand with shovels near by began to appear in the business houses along the boulevard, and some of the homes, as a protection against fire bombs. Special fire-fighting apparatus procured from the government appeared on the scene with a collection of gas masks for those who operated them. Occasional rehearsals were indulged in by combinations of all groups to get their brains and hands in working order to meet whatever the enemy might have up its sleeve for the community.

The city painted the top of its street lights black and cut down the extent of the lights so as to protect the city from enemy bombers in the skies.

The war plants throughout the city were blacked out and otherwise camou-flaged by one of the most elaborate systems of camouflage, in all probability, ever attempted any place. It was understood that considerably more than a million dollars were spent in this way by the government.

Likewise an equally elaborate system of smoke-screen apparatus was in-stalled, surrounding the war plants. This consisted of smoke producing and heating apparatus of the orchard heating type, connected with drums of oil particularly developed for its smoke-making proclivities. An army of soldiers trained in their use were stationed in the community to man them.

Additional contingents of soldiers were stationed in the community to be ready to handle anything that might happen in the catastrophic line. Search-lights and anti-aircraft equipment were stationed at strategic positions through-out the city and surrounding hills.

Miles and miles of substantial concrete air-raid shelters were constructed in the vicinity of the most important war plants, enough to have provided shelter for the thousands upon thousands of workers in the plants.

However, it was only on a comparatively few occasions when the situation reached the need of air-raid alarms, and these only when suspicious planes flying overhead were detected. These usually turned out to be friendly.

It gradually became evident that the enemy was having enough troubles nearer home to concern itself with those as far away as Burbank, and the tension gradually weakened until the danger was hardly given a second thought.

Burbank folks were proud of the precautions they had taken, even if they had proven not to have been needed. Proud on the theory that it was better to have them and not need them than to have needed and not had them.

Burbank's World Citizen

INTERESTING SIDELIGHTS ON THE LIFE OF JAMES J. JEFFRIES

Due to the fact that up to comparatively recent date Burbank's fame, outside of its own city limits, was due to being the abode of James (Jim, as he is popularly known) J. Jeffries, who came into the world lime-light through his prowess in the fisticuff arena, a history of the community would hardly be complete without some mention of his name and his local activities. For Jim's local fame has not been confined to his fighting days.

For instance, he operated for a number of years one of the most successful dairy stock ranches in the country. There is a measure of human interest in how Jim got into this kind of business after retiring from the prize ring. It was through a desire for helping a friend out of a trying situation.

This friend, O'Connor by name, came to him one day and told about his doctor telling him he had but a short time to live, and advising him to go to Arizona, which might prolong his life for a year or more. Said he had a ranch of 107 acres out in Burbank, upon which was a mortgage of $8,000; that the mortgage was past due and the holder of the note was on the verge of foreclosing. Pleaded with Jim to pay him $2,000 for his equity, assuming the other $8,000 obligation. This he said would help him get to Arizona and ease some-what his declining days.

Looking over the ranch Jim decided to take a $2,000 chance on the proposition, not so much that he wanted the ranch but he wanted to help his friend out. His friends charged him with being crazy to load himself with 107 acres of sand and sagebrush with an $8,000 mortgage on it. The ranch had a fine well on it, which Jim considered as the most valuable thing about it.

Only ten acres of the ranch was in cultivation. He had the rest of it developed and planted it practically all in alfalfa. There came a time when the market price of the alfalfa was so low that it didn't pay the cost of pro-ducing it.

Looking for an outlet for his predicament he decided to buy a bunch of cattle and let them eat up the alfalfa. At first his herd was made up of a nondescript lot of uncertain vintage. Concluding that it cost no more to raise a thoroughbred than a nondescript, Jim disposed of the stock on hand and started to develop a herd of thoroughbreds of the Holstein variety.

It wasn't long until he was sending thoroughbred bulls to Mexico and South America at $1000 per head. Twenty-five of them were sent to South America and 15 to Mexico. In the meantime he was raising heifers and cows of the record-breaking and prize-winning proportions, a cow producing 38 pounds of butter-fat a week in the former and grand championships at the fair and stock shows in the latter classifications.

All was not rosy, however, as there was considerable grief connected with it. Cows got sick and died which meant a loss of a thousand dollars in some cases. And then the inability of getting competent help provided a drawback. He imported expert help from some of the best dairy stock sections of the country.

And then, along about that time, the real estate boom struck the com-munity in the 20's and the land became more valuable for subdividing than for farming or stock-raising. About the time the Jeffries' subdivision got to going strong the boom collapsed and the subdivision soured on his hands. However, with the return of prosperity in real estate the subdivision staged an encouraging comeback and at the time of this writing was enjoying balanced accounts.

Speaking of his fighting days Jim said his first fight was with a negro by the name of Hank Griffin who had vanquished all comers up to that time, but took the count before his blows. He trained vigorously for eight months before his fight with Fitzsimmons from whom he took the world championship. Says that was a comparatively easy fight for him because of his perfect physical condition. Said that in all his fights he was never knocked off his feet or knocked out. His last fight which was with Jack Johnson, after six years of retirement, was stopped in the 14th round, with Johnson declared the winner. Jim held the crown for eleven years.

Burbank and the War Effort

COMMUNITY MEETS WITH PATRIOTIC ENTHUSIAM ALL DEMANDS OF THE EMERGENCY

From the first flash of the guns at Pearl Harbor up to the time of this writing - October, 1944 - the Burbank community had arisen with patriotic enthusiasm to all of the calls of the government for assistance in the war efforts.

Of course, the greatest contribution to those efforts have been the battle planes turned out by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and all of its sub-sidiaries - the latter with which the community has been fairly honeycombed. Every building which could be used for the purpose had been commandeered to house some form of activity contributing to the production of planes. The output of planes were numbered far into the thousands, the actual number still remaining a military secret.

As a matter of fact, the Lockheeds had been making planes for the British government long before this country was drawn into the war, this company being the first in this country to receive such an order, and this was before England was in the war. The first order called for two hundred planes. This was followed by larger orders from time to time.

The Hudson transformed to a war plane from one of the company's commercial planes was the first to see active war service. Then came the P- 38 -Lightning - a fighter plane which has taken a conspicuous part in the war since its entrance on the battle lines.

When rationing first appeared on the scene the Burbank public schools responded graciously and efficiently in registering the people and issuing to them the first rationing books. This was followed by the establishment of special rationing boards, the first being designated as Board No. 82-5-3, with Harvey R. Ling as chairman. Other members of the board who have served as volunteers have been Charles T. Anderson, Paul P. Brown, T. D. Buffington. Margaret L. Cate, Ralph O. Church, Wallace Connally, G. V. Cutler, Earl Dufur, Inez N. Ferguson, Mrs. Helen Henry, John L. Hey, Frank R. Hunt, C. B. Kahl, Elmer J. Jackson, Oscar Kalenius, the latter who followed Mr. Ling as chairman, the latter having resigned; Willis E. Mills, Wanda Irene Moffitt, Robert Omer, Forrest Payne, John D. Radcliff, Milton Reckseik, Homer Reed, Fred F. Scribner, John H. Steele, Walter A. Story, Clifford H. Thompson, Gladys G. Tucker and Thomas V. Walker.

The jurisdiction of the board took in Burbank, Roscoe, Pacoima and Sundland and operated on food and clothing, automobiles, stoves, tires, price, gasoline and enforcement panels.

War Era Ration Board No. 82-5-78 took care of the rationing needs of all war workers in defense plants in the San Fernando Valley, including Glendale, North Hollywood, Van Nuys and Burbank, a group numbering approximately 100,000 men and women, the duties of the board having to do with the ration-ing of gasoline, automobiles, tires, bicycles, shoes and rubber boots.

The board, made up of 30 volunteers, put in an average of 48 hours a week, its duties including panels for hearing on reported violations of used car ceilings by the dealers.

This was said to have been the largest district of its kind in Southern California, and had jurisdiction over 60 paid employees, with F. J. Pallauch as chief clerk. J. L. Norwood served a year as chairman of the board, and on his resignation was succeeded by W. S. Walker.

The personnel of the board included Mrs. Marguerite Baldwin, Mrs. Eunice Beal, Mrs. Ruth Clark, Mrs. Madlyn Coulter, Mrs. Elizabeth Chichester, J. C. Crawford, Mrs. Edna Collins, Mrs. Marie June Davis, Mrs. Edith Day, Mrs. Mary Dugan, Albert Erickson, Mrs. Doris Faust, Mrs. Nellie Henry, Mrs. Billie Johnson, Thomas Lloyd, C. L. Munro, Wm. G. Nyman, R. A. Powell, D. C. Seaman, Mrs. Amy Schlensker, Mrs. Gladys Stanton, Mrs. Loretta Summeril, Mrs. Marian Tillson, W. S. Walker, Col. E. W. Weeks, Mrs. Edith White, and Mrs. Dorothy Zinnen.

Up to July 14, 1944, Selective Service Board No. 180 had inducted into the armed forces of the country a total of 2402. The original board was made up of Frank S. Williams, J. A. Nesbitt and Paul MacWilliams. Williams and Nesbitt were later succeeded by T. V. Walker and Leonard Hamner.

Selective Service Board No. 182, the jurisdiction of which included part of Burbank and part in Glendale, was officered by W. S. Sandison as president. J. O. Bishop, secretary and Joseph Friese.

In the five war loan drives Burbank far exceeded its quota. As an impres-sive sample of the extent of its success it can be noted that in the Fifth drive with a quota of $5,600,000 brought in a total of $8,321,369, or $2,721.369 more than the quota.

This drive was officered by J. L. Norwood as chairman; J. B. Brown, vice chairman; Horace V. Thompson, sales manager; Charles Compton, retail sales chairman; Art Thorne, fraternal organizations; James Lintner, publicity chair-man, and H. B. Clampett, J. L. Hey, J. O. Bishop, C. A. Monroe, Walter Long, J. J. King and Paul O. Martin, as executive committee.

The first war bond drive was handled largely by the banks and the figures involved do not appear in the records of the committee. The Second one was based on a quota of $1,000,000 as Burbank's share. The community exceeded the quota by $645,752, or a total of $1,645,752. The quota for the Third drive was $3,500,000 and $4,045,138 was subscribed. For the Fourth the quota was $4,500,000 and the subscriptions were $6,922,963.

In addition the community participated in a drive for a Cruiser with the name of Los Angeles attached, in which the quota was $600,000 and the sub-scriptions were $632,840.

Encouraged by their success in the previous year's drive Burbank's War Fund setup, at the time of this writing, was getting into motion for raising a fund of $119,500 to carry on the work for the ensuing year. There were 38 agencies on the year's program for support. With Walter Long as president and Russell J. Kliegel as chairman, committees were all ready to enter the drive.

War Insignias

DISNEY STUDIOS MAKE UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION TO WAR EFFORTS

Walt Disney, pappy of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Jose Carioca, Dumbo and an assorted collection of characters who cavort across the motion picture screens of the world, took on a part-time job before the war which has become an industry all its own. It recently turned out its 1600th job and was still going strong at the rime of this writing. The new "industry" was strictly non-profit, patriotic and a help to the morale of our armed forces.

It was the art of creating insignias gratis for the armed services of the United States. Many famous fighting units, on land, sea and in the air, went into action daily with these Disney characters as mascots. The first insignia created by Disney in 1939 ended its tour of duty when the aircraft carrier Wasp went down fighting. It was designed for the "Fighting Seven" Naval Air Squadron.

The 1000th insignia, which was created for a United States Field Hospital unit somewhere in the European Theater of operations, consisted of Donald Duck as a medical corpsman carrying a bottle of blood plasma on his rifle.

The Fighting French, Dutch, Chinese, British, Russian, Brazilian, Nor-wegian, and other units, as well as our own, of the Allied Nations have seen battle with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto and other Disney characters and animals painted on their ships, airplanes, armored and battle equipment.

Another early request, in March, 1940, for an insignia came from Lt. E. S. Caldwell of the Naval operations office in Washington, who asked that a design be developed for a fleet of high-speed torpedo boats being commissioned for the U. S. Navy. The fleet was known as the Mosquito Fleet. Accordingly, the studio forwarded a mosquito streaking through the water, a tar's hat on his head, a shiny new torpedo held by his many legs.

When word got around to other units, a big demand in requests were submitted. The studio later received so many requests that a long waiting list was established, and the Disney artists assigned to this work, a five-man art department, who for a time were snowed under. Tanks, torpedo boats, mine sweepers, pursuit, bombing and observation planes, uniforms, warships and other fighting equipment carried the art designs.

The Flying Tigers, Eagle Squadron, China Air Service, Royal Air Force, scores of famed American air units, the Alaskan Command, the Sea bees, Wacs and Waves were a few of the organizations designated by Disney characters.

To Brigadier General S. B. Buckner, commander of the Alaskan Defense Forces, at Fort Richardson, was sent a picture of a seal balancing the letters "ADP" on his nose.

"Since the arrival of the insignia," General Buckner wrote Disney, "all the seals in the Bering Sea have been out on the ice pack balancing our initials on their noses, sneering derisively at the polar bears, expanding their chests and cavorting merrily over being chosen to represent our defense forces."

When the then Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten of the aircraft carrier H. M. S. Illustrious, visited the studio, he was so captivated by the insignia being designed that he asked for one for his ship. Because Lord Mountbatten is probably among the highest-rating Donald Duck fans in the British Empire, this insignia shows Donald as a heroic-sized admiral standing astride the Illustrious.

Also from Great Britain came a request for an Eagle insignia for the 71st Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force which was formed by a group of American boys before this country entered the war.

Other insignia included a centaurette dressed in a military nurse's uniform for the Women's Ambulance and Defense Corps of America, and a seahorse with a patch over his eye, which was the emblem of the Survivor's Club, made up of those fortunate enough to be saved from a sinking ship in the world war.

The design of a perky, pipe-smoking Scotty dog, carrying two loaded bombs, was forwarded to the Seventh Bombardment Squadron, Langley Field, Virginia.

A flying tiger on a V background was the Disney insignia for the Flying Tigers of China fame, and it was the familiar mosquito astride a torpedo that rode with MacArthur when he roared away from the Philippines in a Navy PT boat.

The Army, Navy and Marine Corps officially recognized these unit in-signia. Walt Disney sums up this work thusly: "It seems that the designs find a lot of favor because they had a tendency to knit a squadron or battalion, or whatever organization they may be drawn for, closer together. The group is just a group until there is something to 'pin it together' and then it becomes a real machines. Other groups challenge it and the two get into fine competitive spirits. The design represents the same thing today that the 'kerchiefs' worn by General Custer's Seventh Cavalry did in the Civil War and later in Indian fighting. The General wore one, soon everyone was wearing one. The men were proud of the scarves, held those who wore them equal, and boasted that they could lick any outfit of similar size in the world. That's the kind of spirit which we need today. If the design can help foster it, there'll be designs."

United Service Organizations

BURBANK CHAPTER GIVE GOOD ACCOUNT OF THEMSELVES

During World War I there were several organizations functioning as individual units bringing cheer and relief to the service men in and near the war fronts, such as Salvation Army, Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., National Catholic Community Service, National Traveler's Aid, Jewish Welfare Board, and others of a similar character. This brought about much duplication and extra expense through lack of coordination. The United Service Organization was brought into being to consolidate these various institutions into one central organization.

The Burbank unit has given an unusually excellent account of itself in looking after the welfare of the service men who have from time to time been quartered in the community as one of the National Defense adjuncts. Every-thing has been done to make the soldiers feel at home in their off hours.

Prior to the formation of the local units the Y. M. C. A. and Traveler's Aid agencies established headquarters at 135 East Palm Avenue and worked with the Defense Council in taking care of the large number of defense in-dustrial workers in the various plants here, as well as the care of families and housing conditions.

At the breaking out of the war the U. S. O. was organized and took over the duties. The original board of directors consisted of W. H. (Pete) Arm-strong, chairman; Mrs. Earl Burt, secretary; Mrs. Joseph B. Harris, Jr., Mrs. Ruth Trout, Mrs. W. A. Staley, Mrs. Raymond C. Carland, Edward C. Arnold, C. A. Monroe, Mrs. R. E. Smith and O. L. Lewis.

With Mr. Arnold in charge a campaign for funds brought in $40,000, and temporary headquarters were established at 161 East Angeleno Avenue, later being moved to 433 North San Fernando Boulevard.

The activities of the organization have included many things, including tickets to the theatres and other attractions. Practically every one of the ninety-four organizations of the city have participated in serving the men through the U. S. O. Center. One concern donated 7000 quarts of orange juice at one time for both white and colored soldiers.

The organization maintained a U. S. O. lounge at the Lockheed Air Terminal, where service men and their families were cared for while passing through the city, in buildings erected by the terminal management.

There are 500 registered Senior and 300 Junior Hostesses in the personnel of the institution, and were rendering important service in connection with the work. The big Saturday night dances were particularly popular features of the organization's program and were greatly enjoyed by the service men.

The officiary setup at the time of this writing included the following: Edward C. Arnold, chairman; Mrs. Joseph B. Harris, vice chairman and secre-tary; C. A. Monroe, treasurer; Mrs. Edward C. Arnold, chairman senior host-esses; Mrs. W. A. Staley, chairman junior hostesses; Miss Lillian McDermott, house chairman; Mrs. E. B. Alderman, canteen chairman; Max Eckerman, recreation chairman; George G. Trout, publicity chairman; Mrs. Esther Nasitir, U. S. O. - Traveler Aid Service representative.

In the Catholic Realm

ACTIVITIES HAVE BEEN EXTENSIVE IN NUMEROUS WAYS

The story of the Catholic Church in Burbank begins with the coming of the Spanish Franciscan, Friar Francisco de Lasuen, the first pastor of the Mission San Fernando. With Catholics "it is the Mass that matters," as Carlyle would say.

He offered the first Mass on the eighth of September, 1797, in the cere-mony of founding the Mission at San Fernando. In the calendar of the Church it was the Feast of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Six months be-fore John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had been inaugurated as President and Vice President of the United States. Father Lasuen ministered to the Indians, not only in the Mission, but on his over-night visits to the Indian settlements and camps where it was the custom of the priest to offer Mass at day-break.

In the American occupation of this area the first to offer Mass in Burbank was a missionary priest who officiated in the Forrester Hall at Olive Avenue and San Fernando Road. This community was within the boundaries of Sacred Heart Church, Sichel Street, East Los Angeles. The pioneer families were Mr. and Mrs. Amazle Lamer, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lamer, Mr. and Mrs. John Sholces. Mr. and Mrs. Alphonse Brosseau, Mr. and Mrs. Herburger, Mr. and Mrs. M. Tuso, Mr. and Mrs. D. Morro, Mr. and Mrs. C. McConnell, Mr. and Mrs. James Madigan, Simon White, Mrs. C. B. Fischer, Mrs. Ed A. Fischer, Mr. and Mrs. M. Grangetto, Mr. and Mrs. B. Morro, Mr. and Mrs. J. Rivera, Mr. and Mrs. J. Ghiglia, and Mr. and Mrs. J. McLaughlin and Mr. and Mrs. George Stimolo.

Father Daniel Daly, attached to Sacred Heart Church, came each Sunday, after the successful visit of the missionary, to offer Mass from the Spring of 1907 until Burbank was united to Glendale as a parish by Bishop Conaty. Father James O'Neill offered Mass in Glendale and drove to Burbank for a later Mass. Forrester Hall was the location.

In 1908 ground was bought by Clementine Lamer, Alphonse Brosseau and Charles B. Fischer and donated to the Diocese on the corner of Orange Grove and Fifth Street. John Lawson of Glendale was the contractor of the wooden church which Cost $2,000. Bishop Conaty named the Parish in honor of the Holy Trinity.

During Monsignor Keating's incumbency, a beautiful church was erected. Upon the completion of the new church, Monsignor Keating obtained permis-sion from Archbishop Cantwell to change the name of the Parish to St. Robert Bellarmine.

On Sunday, September 17, 1939, the new church was dedicated with Archbishop in charge of the ceremonies. The Very Reverend James M. Gillis, C. S. P., editor of the Catholic World, preached the dedicatory sermon.

The architecture of the new church building is of the Colonial type. The facade is copied from the facade of Monticello, designed by Thomas Jefferson, as typical American. Beneath its arch is placed in terra cotta the features of St. Robert. The plaque is the work of a parishioner, Miss Maxine Parsons, who is also responsible for the attractive modeling of crucifix over the altar and the Mater Dolorosa on the frontal of Our Lady's altar. The front door is copied after the main door of the Gregorian University, Rome, of which St. Robert was president.

The pastors who followed Father O'Neill were Fathers E. Wright, F. C. Campbell, E. Leguyader, F. J. Dubbel, D. Meade, J. D. O'Donnell and Mon-signor Keating. Since 1933 the growth of the Parish has necessitated the services of an Assistant Pastor. These young priests have been Father Magnus, Hackett, Pick, McDonagh, and Hunt. In their Catholic Youth Organization they have done a fine work among the youth of the Parish.

Due to the encouragement of Archbishop Cantwell the first Parish school was dedicated to St. Robert Bellarmine west of the Mississippi, was established in Burbank, on Constitution Day, 1936. It was the three-hundred and fifteenth anniversary of the death of St. Robert in Rome. The First Company of Bel-larmine Guards was founded the same day as the school, there being ninety boys and girls in six grades under the direction of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother Mary St. Florence, Superior.

In October, 1936, the Company won national attention as the Guard of Honor to Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, Papal Secretary of State, on the arrival and departure of his Eminence from the Burbank Airport.

The Parish School has since grown to an enrollment of more than 450 with the addition of a High School department with an enrollment of thirty five. The day's activities in the school begin with an impressive flag-raising ceremonies under the inspiration of patriotic music by the Guard Band.

On Sunday, November 28, 1943, in the presence of Burbank and San Fernando Valley citizens and distinguished visitors from the outside, St. Joseph Hospital was dedicated at 501 South Buena Vista Avenue, with The Most Reverend John Joseph Cantwell, D.D., Archbishop of Los Angeles, in charge of the ceremonies.

The hospital, which was sponsored by The Sisters of Charity of Providence, who came to San Fernando Valley to bring their skill and kindliness to those in need of their ministrations.

St. Finbar's Parish, in the southern part of Burbank, was erected in No-vember, 1938, with Rev. John F. O'Brien as pastor. Pending the erection of a church, Mass was celebrated in a public hall. The new church building, recently completed is at the corner of Olive Avenue and Keystone Street. The Parish rectory is at 2103 South Oak Street.

Just across the Burbank city limit line on Glenoaks Boulevard, nestling closely to the foothills is located the Mother Cabrini Villa. Here an average of 150 girls are educated in seclusion and restful peace. The school was instituted by Rev. Mother Antoinetta Della Casa, Superior General of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. It has for its purpose, the moral, intellectual and physical education of youth. Since its opening in 1927, the school has prepared about 700 girls for First Holy Communion and Confirmation.

Parks and Recreation

MUCH HAS BEEN DONE IN THESE TWO DEPARTMENTS

If a man can be designated as the "Father" of any worthwhile community movement, it is assumed that when the person happens to be a woman, she can be designated as the "Mother" of such a movement. On this assump-tion it is quite befitting to designate Miss Octavia Lesueur as the "Mother" of the park movement in the Burbank Community.

Before Miss Lesueur came to the aid of the trees, anybody who took a notion assumed the privilege of yanking out a tree whenever and wherever the spirit moved him. It was in a controversy over whether or not a certain group of trees should be removed that the Burbank Park system came into being. The uncertainty as to who should have the say on occasions of this kind brought forward the proposition of some kind of a system to protect the trees.

In its earlier days Burbank was known far and near for its streets lined with pepper trees. Most of these were planted by the original Townsite Company, the pepper tree having, evidently been chosen as a sort of "theme" tree. Most of the avenues on the hill section of the city were lined with these trees and presented a beautiful appearance.

As a member of the Commission of Freeholders which drafted the City Charter, Miss Lesueur became an ardent champion of Parks and Playgrounds, and had an important part in mapping it out and establishing the Parks and Playgrounds Department. At first the two were operated separately, but later were joined together as Parks and Recreation Department.

The first Park Board, taking their places April 19, 1927, was made up of Miss Lesueur, President; Mrs. Gertrude Soule, Secretary; George Kittenger, Guy 1. Miltimore and David Preston. Other citizens who have since served on the Board have been O. M. Morris, O. C. Lane, J. Frank Crockett, H. Wadsworth Cole, C. B. Lane, K. K. Simpson, J. D. Baer, Walter Melch, Stan Summeril, Henry W. Rouscup, Franklin M. Jones, Buel Enyeart, Dr. Karl Stadlinger, Ray C. Wilkinson, W. B. Frank, Carl Tomsche, Walter H. Long, Marshall G. Flora, Milton G. Recksiek and Leon E. Rope.

The members of the Playground and Recreation Commission, taking their places on the same date, April 19, 1927, were, Mrs. Virginia A. Dorr, Chair-man; Mrs. Lola Steiner, Vice Chairman; Mrs. Grace Lovejoy, Secretary; Porter Blanchard and J. J. Groebli. Later to serve on the commission were A. B. Pierce, Troy Meier, W. W. Collette. This commission was merged with the Park Board May 17, 1932.

The Park Board during Miss Lesueur's regime centered largely on plant-ing trees in the parkways throughout the city. The more than 30,000 trees planted in those days are well matured and make an important contribution to the attractiveness of the city.

The city's parks at that time consisted mainly of Stough Park in the moun-tains above the Benmar Hills section, and the twenty-acre Civic Center Park donated to the city by the Benmar Hills owners. The latter park was com-pletely set out in pepper trees, most of which have given way to the progress of making the park into a playground.

Then came Vickroy Park at Monterey and Lincoln Streets, and Mountain View Park at Riverside and Griffith Park Drives, on land both donated by subdividers in those sections.

Approximately thirty acres purchased and used as a "sewer farm" for some years at the corner of Hollywood Way and Empire Avenue was turned into a park after the city connected its sewer system with the Los Angeles outfall sewer. Considerable money was spent in the development of a park, which was designated as "Pioneer Park," but about the time it began to func-tion as a park the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation came along and purchased it for the expansion of their airplane activities. Mrs. Gertrude Soule Giffin, who succeeded Miss Lesueur as president of the Park Board, when asked the outstanding feature of her regime, designated the development of Pioneer Park - adding somewhat provokingly, "Now look at it."

During the Lesueur and Soule regimes Walter J. Price filled the position of Park Superintendent. For the past ten years the position has been filled by Dewey R. Kruckeberg.

The extent of the growth of the activities of the department during the past decade is indicated in the annual report of Park Superintendent Krucke-berg, indicating a jump in the budget from $17,600 during the fiscal year of 1934-35, to that of $135,447 for 1943-44. In inventory values in land, buildings, equipment and supplies, from $57,780 in 1934, to an estimated $265,000 in 1944.

With a comparative recent addition to the city's park lands there is an overall total of 213.40 acres distributed as follows: Stough Park, 126.81; Buena Vista, 38.04; Glenoaks, 17.80; Olive Avenue, 15; Verdugo, 8; Moun-tain View, 3.50; Vickroy, 1.50; Santa Anita Avenue, .25; Tenth Street, .50.

The growth in popularity of the parks is indicated by the attendance records which show an increase from 54,867 in 1943, to 144,047.

Supplementing the departments own Symphony Orchestra, Swing Band, Glee Clubs and piano groups, the Community Band and Choral Club are jointly sponsored by the Parks and Recreation Department and the School District. Full uniforms for the Community Band were provided by the 1943-44 budget at a cost of $1643.69. The Theatre Guild is likewise sponsored by the department.

Financed by the Community War Chest, and administered by the department, the Service Men's Recreation Fund has dispensed athletic equipment to outlying camps in the Burbank Defense area. Supplementing this service is a Service Men's Dance which has been a regular Friday night event at Olive Avenue Park.

Magnolia Park Section

BOASTED OF RADIO STATION, DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANK AND MORTGAGE CO. AT ONE TIME

At one time in its developing stage the Magnolia Park Section was about the liveliest place in the City of Burbank, with Hollywood Way and Magnolia Boulevard the center of activities, and Earl L. White as head of the development.

In its palmiest days the section boasted of a radio broadcasting station - KELW - a bank, a daily newspaper - the Burbank Tribune - and a Mortgage Company, all parts of the E. L. White institution.

Mr. White came to Burbank in 1915, engaging in the dairy business for a number of years on a tract of land comprising 400 acres. The milk was marketed mostly in Burbank and Glendale. Pooling his interests with the McMullin Dairy interests of Glendale the Glendale Creamery was established in 1916. In 1923 his dairy interests were sold to the Golden State Creamery Company, and the 400 acres of the White Ranch were platted into town lots and put on the market as a subdivision. That was before there was a Holly-wood Way as the name of a street. Included in the plat were three corners at what have become three important intersections in that section of the city - Hollywood Way and Magnolia Boulevard, Verdugo and Olive Avenues, respectively.

Streets were platted and improved, sidewalks laid and public utilities were put in. In order to get the connecting link on Hollywood Way between Verdugo and Olive Avenue opened and improved Mr. White put his own teams and equipment to work clearing out the underbrush along what was then a wash, grading the street, at a cost of $1200 with the Contribution of $500 from the city. At the present time this is one of the most travelled streets in the city, being intended as a short cut through Cahuenga Pass be-tween San Fernando Road to Hollywood.

At one time the White setup employed as high as 250 and 300 salesmen. While the depression which was precipitated by the financial crash on the stock markers on that fateful October day in 1929 robbed the development of some of its glory - such as the radio station, bank, newspaper and mortgage concern. This still represents one of the most attractive and active of the outlying sections of the city. Added to the 150 homes constructed by the White interests in the earlier days of the development have been many new homes coming with the increased home-building activities of these latter days.

All lots have long since been sold and are now held in private hands.

The Musical Angle

COMMUNITY HAS BEEN BLESSED WITH HIGH TYPE MUSICAL ORGANIZATIONS

The Burbank community has been long blessed with the highest type of musical organizations during a large part of its life as a city.

The organization of longest standing and still in existence is the Burbank Choral Club. It got its start in 1920, organized by Mrs. H. H. Horton, under the sponsorship of the Music Section of the Woman's Club. At the start it was made up only of feminine voices. This being an exclusive women's affair, the men were barred from membership. For this reason it was launched as an organization in its own right in the early 20's and has been going strong ever since.

At the time it became a separate organization Charles LeRoy Munro became its director and has held the position ever since. During its career the club has not only been active in its home community, but has been taking a conspicuous part in the musical activities of Southern California and through-out the state. For the years 1926, 1927 and 1928, the club took first place in the finals in the Eisteddfod competition taking in the entire state. It appeared in the last and, considered by many, as the best program given at the week's gathering of the National Federation of Music Club, at San Francisco in 1931. The club later gave programs at both the San Francisco and San Diego fairs with statewide credit to itself.

The club has given that masterpiece of religious oratorios, "The Messiah," the past four years in succession, with the present intention to make its production an annual event on the community's musical calendar.

For many years the club financed itself but now receives a part of its financial support jointly from the Park and Recreational Department and the Adult Department of the public schools.

In the latter part of 1923 a Municipal Band was organized with Hubert Snow White as director, the city as its financial supporter and Judge A. A. Crawford as its "guardian angel," as it were. At any rate, the Judge inveigled $125 a month city money out of the City Council for its support and a thousand dollars or more for new uniforms. The uniform contribution was repeated six or eight years afterward.

For many years the band bad a standing engagement for putting in a day playing at the Los Angeles County Fair at Pomona, marched at least seven times in the New Year's parade at Pasadena, participated in a number of special parades in Los Angeles and other localities throughout the Southland, giving an excellent account of itself on all such occasions.

After Mr. White had retired from the directorship, and an interim of a year or so, the band was reorganized under the directorship of Charles LeRoy Munro, who has since been directive head under the joint sponsorship of the Park and Recreational Department and the Adult Education Department of the schools.

During a number of years the community boasted of a small but excellent Symphony Orchestra with Mrs. Grace Lovejoy as its guiding hand.

In the early part of August a new musical organization bearing the title of Burbank Symphony Orchestra, made its debut at the Olive Avenue Recreational Center, under the direction of Leo Damiani, also under the sponsorship of the Park and Recreational Department. The orchestra boasts of sixty or more members, practically all citizens of the Burbank community. The enthusiasm with which the musicians were received at their initial concert bespoke a long and successful future.

Schools Show Interesting History

RISE TO ALL OCCASIONS IN THE GROWTH OF THE COMMUNITY

As with the other phases of community activities, the Burbank schools have arisen to all occasions having to do with the community's growth and development. While the earlier history of the schools is not available, the system started with a one-room school building out in the Burbank Boulevard section of the city where most of the early settlement took place.

In the course of time a more pretentious two-story frame building was constructed on the present site of the old Edison Building on San Fernando Boulevard between Palm and Magnolia avenues. Later a still more elaborate brick building was constructed on San Fernando Boulevard between where are now Cypress and Grinnell avenues, and used for the high school.

Later the first unit of the present high school building on Third Street between Grinnell and Walnut Avenues, was erected. The original unit has been added to and new buildings erected until most of the space between Third Street and Glenoaks Boulevard is occupied by substantial buildings, together with one recently constructed across Walnut Avenue. The old high school building was afterwards razed, all new buildings built to house the John Muir Junior High School.

Additional school plants have been added to the system in the various parts of the city until today the system now comprises thirteen separate planes made up of eighty-nine buildings, not counting four nursery schools which have been recently completed. With an annual school budget of approximately $100,000 in 1924, this item has grown to $2,400,000 in 1944. Plans for two new Junior High and one Elementary school plants were on the program as soon as the war closed and the necessary materials could be obtained.

There are 12 cafeterias connected with the system, doing a business of $150,000 annually. The total value of the system's buildings and equipment was placed in 1944 at $4,500,000. The equipment included fourteen cars and trucks and the administration of the business section of the system required 175 clerks, secretaries and a formidable crew of maintenance men.

Citizens who have served on the Board of Education as far back as the records available show, from 1908 to 1944, have included the following: A. G. Clabaugh, J. L. Scott, J. D. Radcliff, E. W. Cook, A. S. Robinson, H. H. Miller, T. E. Craig, W. M. Freeman, W. L. Pollock, O. R. Boyd, J. L. Robinson, S. Fairburn, .M. J. Groshong, T. D. Buffington, William Coryell, W. E. Kirkpatrick, A. Sence, H. L. Davenport, J. T. Shelton, E. F. Pomeroy, D. S. Nickerson, Duncan Forsyth, R. O. Church, T. B. McClintock, J. J. King, Edith Jones, W. P. Coffman, E. R. Butterfield, J. O. Bishop, Ray Sence, C. S. Hughes, H. W. Carter, Marion S. Jones, Roy Attwater, Marshall J. Flora, J. E. Blanchard, R. E. Johnson, E. A. Pendarvis, C. E. Irving, Cecil M. Schilling, William C. P. McKenzie.

Before the unification of the district under the charter Leonard Collins was superintendent of the Elementary schools and Stillwell Moore was super-intendent of the Secondary, or High School. Superintendents since serving the Unified Schools have been Frank Henderson, Curtis Warren and Dr. Buel F. Enyeart, the latter incumbent at the time of this writing.

Other phases of the school activities, which have been many, some of which have been precedent-breaking in educational circles, are treated else-where in these chapters.

Realtors Have Been Active

LONG LIST OF EARLY MORNING BREAKFASTS IN THEIR WAKE

Ever since 1923 Burbank has had a wide-awake, up-an-going Realty Board to look after the interest of the Real Estate Fraternity of the community. Their "up-and-going" status has been indicated by the fact that throughout prac-tically all of the time of its existence the meetings have been in the form of 7:30 o'clock in the morning breakfasts. Most of the time the meetings have been weekly affairs. Of late they have been monthly and at the time of this writing were twice-a-month gatherings.

The organization's annual meetings and other special occasions have been of outstanding community interest, from a social as well as business affairs. The influence growing out of the organization have kept the activity of buying and selling real estate on a high ethical basis. The membership has been more or less active in county, state and national real estate activities, membership in the local board usually including membership in the state and national organizations. Among the members who have served the board as president have been: W. A. Thompson, Charles B. Wood, Don Jolley, J. E. Newcomer, John Rosson, Earl L. White, Frank Wellington, Walter Igguldon, Frank Hunt, Harry White, Fred Scott, Don Ferguson, K. K. Simpson, A. R. Graham, Horace Thompson, Miss Octavia Lesueur. Miss Lesueur was one of the first women to be elected as president of the Realty Board in the state.

Among the women who have served as secretary of the organization have been Miss Lesueur, Mrs. Marie Conrad and Miss Louise Slettebak.

During its more than twenty years of existence, the members, either as a board or as individuals, have participated in many movements of wholesome community importance, inaugurating some of them.

Active Junior Chamber of Commerce

SPONSORED NUMEROUS WORTHWHILE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

Burbank boasts of a wideawake Junior Chamber of Commerce. Five years ago a group of young men, looking for channels to exert their energies in worthwhile community efforts, organized a Junior Chamber of Commerce. Since that time numerous projects of community service have been initiated and successfully carried out.

Arthur Powell was the first president, serving six months, that being the length of the presidential term. He has been succeeded in turn by Cecil Schilling, Dr. Harry Simmons, James Lister, Joseph Thompson, each serving two terms or a year. Gale Beatty was serving his second term at the time of this writing.

One of the first projects launched by the organization was the preparation of a float to represent Burbank in the New Year's parade at Pasadena. The framework of the float was completed, flowers arranged for and all ready to put on the finishing touches when the war came along, bringing about the cancellation of the parade, and the work done on the float proved to have been wasted.

In the early stages of the war the Chamber organized a coffee and dough-nut canteen truck, which visited the various camps of soldiers quartered in the vicinity as protective measures for the war industries. The canteen operated mostly at night and proved to be quite popular with the soldiers. The members of the Chamber who manned it were assisted by their wives, adding popularity to the service.

A troop of Junior Commandos was organized among the younger boys, which under the Chamber's leadership gave a good account of themselves in various phases of the war effort.

When a call was made for coffee jars the Commandos went out and rounded up 65,000 of the jars in one day. A second call some time later turned in 45,000 more jars, the drive bringing 45,000 more jars, the drive bringing to the boys the highest honors in jar- collecting activities in these parts.

The Commandos repeated the Stunt when it came to the paper drives, bringing in 207,000 pounds in the first drive, followed by 200,000 pounds in the second drive, winning first honors in these drives as well as in the coffee-jar campaigns.

In the Chamber campaign to get the voters to the polls the Commandos secured the names of 10,000 voters on a pledge promising to go to the polls and vote on election day.

In a campaign to secure donors of blood for the Red Cross blood bank the Commandos secured the contribution of blood from 171 persons, which was rightly considered as a direct contribution to the war effort.

Joining with the Y. M. C. A. the Chamber sponsored a "Recreation for Victory" program, to provide home entertainment to offset the lack of it by reason of the gasoline shortage.

The Chamber sponsored and successfully carried out two golf tournaments, one a full fledged affair and the other of the pitch and putt variety.

History From Postoffice Statistics

FIGURES INDICATE OFFICE IS IN THE MILLION DOLLAR CLASS

The statistics of the Burbank Postoffice reveal the same kind of a story of the marvelous growth and development of the Burbank community as do the statistics of the other departments of the community's activities.

As far as those who have filled the position of Postmaster are concerned the records in the hands of Postmaster Paul O. Martin goes back only as far as Charles B. Fischer. At that time the Postoffice was in the old brick building at the northwest corner of San Fernando Boulevard and Olive Avenue.

The list from then on included Charles R. Thompson, Ida M. Lawrence, W. P. Coffman, Leigh Rothenburg, Grove Ketchum and Paul O. Martin.

During the Fischer regime there were two rural routes. According to John S. Peyton, who was the carrier for one of the routes, the two routes covered the territory from Roscoe, Orange Cove and the then Lankershim community on the north and west to Pacific Avenue in Glendale. As a mail cart, Peyton said he bought a buggy, put a new bed on it and a canopy over the top, and called it a mail wagon. He gave the old horse which drew it credit for traveling 30,000 miles in the line of duty. The horse was sold to Charles Pomeroy, his substitute, when the latter took over the route at Peyton's retire-ment. An unknown additional mileage was credited to the old horse before it retired from the mail hauling scene. Peyton's mail carrying regime began in 1911 and ended April 26, 1915. Roscoe at that time consisted of a group of box-cars on the Southern Pacific switch, housing a crew of Mexican section hands.

The Postoffice was located at different places on San Fernando Boulevard, Orange Grove Avenue and Angeleno Avenue, until the completion of the new building at its present location on Olive Avenue on the site of the old $30,000 hotel originally known as "Burbank Villa," built by the original townsite company. It was later known as Santa Rosa Hotel, owned and operated by the late May Clarke, mother of Mrs. Clarence Thompson and Wm. Clarke.

The activities of the Postoffice followed the usual country town history until the subdividers appeared on the scene when it began to perk up, reaching the status of a First Class office July 1, 1925, when its annual receipts reached about $45,000. Its real growth in business began in 1933, which year showed a business of $60,789.48. From then for the ten years following its growth in annual business went up with leaps and bounds, registering a total for 1943 of $568,429.82, with the prospects for the succeeding year of going beyond the $600,000 mark.

The gain in personnel has grown from 22 clerks and carriers in 1933 to a total of 156 in 1943. The ordinary mail handled for the fiscal year, ending July 1, 1944, totaled 279,552 pounds, while the airmail for the period totaled 69,828 pounds.

During the process of the years many new duties have been placed on the Postoffice, such as selling bonds and postal savings stamps and a lot of other things connected with the war effort. The sale of bonds, postal savings, money orders, run up into the millions of dollars in the amount of money involved.

The new Postoffice Building which was expected, when built, to serve the community for many years, is already overcrowded, and if there was room it would be the local headquarters for other agencies of the federal government which have from time been knocking at the doors.

The new building was dedicated April 30, 1938. It is an attractive building of the Spanish type of architecture. There are two branch offices in the city - -one at Lockheed Aircraft plant and one in the Magnolia Park locality. Also a contract office at San Fernando at Alameda Avenue.

Two Sweepstakes in Rose Parade

BURBANK FLOATS TAKE HIGHEST HONORS TWICE IN SUCCESSION IN WORLD RENOWN EVENT

Burbank Floats have appeared many times in Southern California's out-standing festival event - the New Year's Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, each time winning some kind of honor.

On two occasions in succession -1938 and 1939 - the Burbank entrant took the Grand Sweepstakes honors, outclassing everything in the parade of any classification. The 1938 entrant was in the form of a merry-go-round in full animation after the fashion of such contraptions. The 1929 exhibit was in the form of a tally-ho drawn by four snow-white horses made of flowers. In private some of the long time tournament officials told members of the Burbank committee responsible for the float, that this tally-ho affair was the outstanding float of the all-time history of the Tournament of Roses.

Other prize-winning floats of the Burbank collection included one depicting a large ball representing the world with the form of a magnet drawing from the corners of the world people to Burbank. In the later series was a float bearing the title, "Let Freedom Ring," showing the Statue of Liberty in a beautiful floral setting. This took first prize for communities of 20,000 to 40,000 population; one entitled, "Sleeping Beauty," which took first in its division; another one had a Japanese setting.

All except the first one herein mentioned was the product-both in design and execution-of the Art Department of the Public Schools, under the efficient direction of the head of the department, Mrs. Alice M. DeHater.

The Junior Chamber of Commerce was in the process of preparing a float for the 1942 parade when the event was called off on account of the war.

Active Planning Commission

HAS DILIGENTLY KEPT THE CITY PROPERLY ZONED AND HOUSED

Since the adoption of the City Charter in 1927 the city has had an active City Planning Commission, whose principal duty has been to keep the city properly zoned to fit properly with the trend of activities in the various sections. During its existence the following citizens have served on the Commission at various periods:

Lou Love, Earl I. White, L. H. Boydston, Charles M. Stains, T. R. Mini, J. T. Lapsley, H. E. Bruce, H. I. Stites, Don Ferguson, George Hoffstatter, C. K. Bowen, John B. Davidson, J. L. Norwood, Mack Stanchfield, George N. Stone, Albert Glenn Tuttle. W. D. Millar, Neal D. Bruce, Frank C. Tillson, Mrs. Paul Palmer, Leonard Huntress, Hugh Williams, Val Bonney, John C. Gilbert, Walter R. Hinton, Elmer J. Jackson, Clayton W. Paige, Robert Omer, Harmon R. Bennett, Ray E. Stolper, and Horace V. Thompson.

History in Sketches

ODDS AND ENDS OF HUMAN INTEREST GATHERED FOR WINDUP OF STORY OF BURBANK

As this is to be the last chapter of the historical section of this volume, an effort will be made to gather up a few things not mentioned elsewhere in the book, but worthy of mention.

The community has been well blessed with the large variety of community welfare institutions, such as Service Clubs, Parent-Teacher Associations, Veteran Organizations, Lodges, Labor Organizations and the like.

For instance there are the wide-awake Service Clubs such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Optimist, Lions, 20-30 Club. Character building organizations such as Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Co-ordinating Council. Labor groups such as the A. F. L. Union which has given such a good account of itself in connection with the Lockheed setup.

Veterans organizations such as American Legion, Disabled Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Spanish-American War Veterans, United Veterans Council.

Burbank Recreation Club, largely made up of the elderly group of men, whom, with very little aid from the city, constructed an attractive club house where the members enjoy a free dinner once a month, and a variety of recrea-tional activities.

The recently organized Sterling Club, intended to bring recreation facilities to groups of children and youth who might otherwise be overlooked.

In fact it would be hard to figure out an activity of a welfare nature that is not represented in the Burbank community.

Burbank's Official Song

It fell to the lot of W. P. Coffman, at one time Postmaster, former owner and publisher of the Review, and still holding down an important position on that paper, to write what might be called the community's official song. It was originally intended for the Kiwanis Club, is sung to the tune of "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching," and reads as follows:

There's a town in Southern Cal

That we love just like a pal,

Where we work, and boost, and sing, and dance, and play.

There's no other place in sight

That can give us more delight,

And we're full of pep and ginger

When we say:

Bank, Bank, Bank, we bank on Burbank-

Bank on Burbank every day.

Nestled up against the hills

All our hearts with pride she fills--

Yes, we bank on Burbank and we're here to stay.

When this whole Kiwanis bunch

Gets the right and proper hunch

Everybody gets behind us with a swing.

All for one, and one for all.

That's what makes us want to get

Right up and sing.

He Didn't Look Up - And Lives

It is quite possible that if Dr. Elmer Thompson, Burbank's first physician and surgeon, had looked up in a tree on a certain occasion he would not be with us today. In the early days before automatic burglar alarms were in fashion, Ralph Church, the town banker, had an arrangement with Dr. Thomp-son to somewhat take the place of this lack. It was his habit to leave a kerosene lamp in a certain position at the cashier's window in the bank. As the doctor was on the go at all hours of the night as well as the day, he was supposed to note whether the lamp was in its usual position as he passed the building at night. If not, it would be taken for granted that there was something unusual going on. On a certain occasion the lamp showed symptoms of having been moved. Dr. Thompson noticed this and proceeded to investigate. Not finding anything wrong he passed on.

It developed the next day that at the time the doctor was investigating, there was a burglar in the bank in the process of blowing open the safe. In a pepper tree near the bank a boy with a gun was keeping watch, as an accom-plice of the burglar, to warn him of danger of being apprehended.

Later the boy was caught and through him the burglar - an ex-convict. In his testimony in court the boy told about being in the tree at the time Dr. Thompson was looking around the bank. He said he was expecting the doctor to look up in the tree at any moment, and if he had he would certainly have shot him.

The door of the vault not being locked the burglar entered but hadn't gotten into the safe before being scared away. He secured about $55 which had been in the vault but not in the safe.

Speaking of Dr. Thompson, he came to Burbank April 19, 1905, when the inhabitants were few and far between. In the early days of his practice in the community the bicycle was his means of transportation. It was a common thing to see him peddling his way to visit his patients. From this small be-ginning he built up a practice which drew the sick from many miles around. In fact, from a considerable part of Southern California.

Dr. Thompson is responsible for the Burbank Hospital, located on Olive Avenue and Fifth Street, the original setup with a capacity of sixteen beds being built and opened in 1907. It was enlarged in 1910 and again in 1925, reaching the capacity of fifty beds and fifteen bassinetts. Only recently the hospital was purchased by another group of hospital people.

Faithful Dog

In reply to the question of what stood out most prominently in the life of the Burbank community during the easy-going agricultural period in the eighties, nineties and the turn of the century, Dominic Morro tells this pulse- warming incident: The neighborhood was enjoying a picnic in what apparently was the grove of pepper trees now made up of Vickroy Park. The Morro family was there in full force, consisting of the parents and their brood of children. Early in the afternoon four-year-old Mamie became homesick and started to walk home by herself. Unfortunately she started in the wrong direction. When the rest of the family were ready to leave they were unable to find Mamie. The more they looked, the more the mystery of her where-abouts grew deeper. Darkness came on and searching parties with lanterns and blood-hounds, on foot, on horses and in buggies, scoured the country for miles around. The search was continued all night and most of the next day. In the afternoon of the next day - 24 hours after the child's disappearance - -she was found in the vicinity of Pacoima, asleep by the side of the road, with her arms around the neck of the likewise sleeping family dog, which instinctly had followed her in her travels in the capacity of protector. The searchers who found the two had quite a hard time to get the child from the dog, so intent it was in its role as sentinel.

Tree Planting Spree

If the devastated mountainside robbed of its foliage was all of the damage done by a mountain fire, it would be plenty bad enough. However, the after-math of mountain fires are havoc producing floods. Following the Sunset Canyon fires of December 3, 1927, recorded elsewhere in this historical treatise, were disastrous floods, some of which filled houses on the upper end of Olive Avenue with six feet of mud and debris. On one occasion a washed out tele-phone pole crashed through the home of W. O. Stumbo, leaving it a horrible wreck.

To offset the ravages of the fire from the flood angle a unique experiment was indulged in to hasten the regrowth of the flood, retarding vegetation on the mountain side above the city. An army of tree and vegetation planters was organized with the late George Kettinger as generalissimo. There were corporal of the guards, troops, companies, batallions, regiments and divisions led by corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels and com-manding generals. A considerable quantity and variety of seeds of quick -growing shrubbery and other vegetation were distributed to the different sections of the army. A day was set, the different groups alloted certain sections, none of which was supposed to be too large to cover in one day.

The plan was carried out without a hitch. The entire mountainside above the city was supposed to have been planted during the one day alloted. That was about the last ever heard about it.

This writer has inquired from those who ought to have known, what was the result of the experiment. Did it accomplish what it was intended to have accomplished? As far as is known nobody seems to have taken the trouble to learn if any of the seeds developed into foliage.

That Famous Street Railway System

That famous $10,000 street car line from the Southern Pacific depot up Olive Avenue to Eighth Street which functioned laboriously on the opening day of the Burbank Townsite Company on May 1, 1887, seems not to have been a roaring success as a transportation proposition.

"Billy" Ludlow, who with his partner, Albert Erickson, were shouldered with the responsibility of getting the car and the passengers up the hill to the end of the line and safely back again, put in a hard day's work at it. The grade was so steep and the car so heavy that it took a team of eight horses to get the car to its destination and return. "Billy" says that the job back down the hill was almost as big a job as it was to get it up. Coming down the eight horses had to be hitched on behind to keep the car from coming down too fast. Furthermore, it was intimated that only about six passengers braved the risk of making the round trip.

About the only thing left of the transportation system seems to be some railroad ties which Orville Myers says he has at his home at 819 East Olive Avenue.

Honor Roll, World War I

In the archives of the Burbank Historical Society there is to be found a patriotically decorated scroll bearing the tide: "Roll of Honor City of Burbank, California - Our Citizens in the Military and Naval Service of Our Country," the same referring to World War I. If the roster is complete, there were 88 Burbank citizens who cook a fighting part in that war. The roster is as follows:

Chester Allen, Alfred Ackerley, Donald Barrager, Paul Brown, John Bennett, H. B. Beatz, William Bush, Claude E. Brown, Ernest A. Brown, Lewis Cantrall, Kenneth Current, James Chappel, Major H. X. Cline, Carl G. Carlson, William Clarke, Cornelius Clark, Wylie A. Cole, Clarence E. Dawson, Lee Duncan, Ray Enos, Webster Faxon, F. Cecil Forbes, Ben Farley, Gordon Farmer, Oscar Gille, Lesueur Gower, William Gates, Ernest Gehm, Ralph Hoover, Sam H. Hicks, Harper H. Hood, J. Lyman Kaust, G. F. Kahl, Raymond Kahl, Fred Luttge, H. Fred Lehman, Dominic Morro, Henry Mum-ford Rodman, J. Mears, William Nickerson, James Peterson, Joseph Prosner, Percy Paxton. Chas. Pomeroy, Roy Polhemus, Ashley Petty, H. A. Rudin, Ralph Rogers, Earl C. Robinson, R. L. Roe, Chester Stevens, Paul Seward, Ralph Swain, Ward S. Shelton, Oscar Switzer, J. Donald Smith, A. E. Thedaker, Harry Turner, Jake Scholtis, Martin Martin, Cecil Roy Stevens, Joseph Tusso, - Tusso, C. E. Wickersham, Frank Burns, De Los Wilbur, Chas. Wood, Major S. W. Williams, Archie Wilbert, Edw. Radcliff, Harry Colton, Fred Rain, Capt. C. K. Bowen, Wayland Woods, Hale Kirkpatrick, Raymond Swain, Walter Guibert, Willard Stark, Leslie Booker, - McCreary, Floyd Farley, Glen Craig, Abe Ayers, Gesford Thompson.

Burbank Historical Society

The Burbank Historical Society functioned for a number of years, gathered together quite a lot of historical lore but suspended animation some years ago and left their work incomplete. The material has been turned over to the Public Library for safe keeping until such a time as it may be resurrected. The membership list included C. B. Fischer, Howard Martin, Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. George Luttge, H. S. Sprinkle, T. D. Buffington, Edna May Thompson, W. H. Rouscup, Ben Ludlow, Mrs. Howard Martin, George Lunge, Mrs. Gower, Orville Myers, Mrs. Anderson, Elizabeth Ripley, Emily Brown, Clifford Smith and Minna Norris.

Relics From Mission Days

There are three unusually large sycamore trees on Lake Street near Cedar which are of particular historic interest. The fourth one seems to have been sacrificed on the altar of progress before the despoiler apparently knew not what he was doing in cutting down the tree to make way for paving the street. They were known as the "Compass Trees," dating back to the Mexican days. They were planted by the Mission Fathers and were intended to function as guide posts for the weary travelers going from one mission to the other, particularly between the San Gabriel and San Fernando Missions. It is said that a spring bubbled up near the trees providing cool water for the thirsty traveler in the shade of the sycamore trees.