Berkeley planned to celebrate Independence Day a century ago with festivities “similar to the kind that was prevalent in every town in California years ago and will be revived on a larger and more interesting scale by Berkeley this year,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported July 2, 1924.
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The celebration included a morning parade up Shattuck Avenue, down University Avenue and back to Berkeley High School, where musical entertainment was to be provided on the school playing field. The parade contingents included local dignitaries, Berkeley police officers, firefighters and units of active-duty military including a “howitzer company and medical detachment,” followed by veterans, then Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girl Reserves and Camp Fire Girls.
Floats and units of “civic organizations,” businesses and fraternal organizations were to complete the parade, including a float filled with Berkeley High girls representing the 48 stars then on the U.S. flag. Speeches, athletic contests and an evening dance took place. One of the speakers at the festivities was Mrs. Anna L. Saylor, Berkeley’s representative in the state Assembly.
“She spoke chiefly to the naturalized citizens, the foreign-born, who, she said, were a vital part of the country’s organization, congratulating them for the fine work they had done.”
In advance of the parade the American Legion asked the public to make sure that flags were flown, not draped (“Bunting should be used for decorating where it is necessary to drape the material”). On July Fourth, only two fires were reported in Berkeley, both of them small roof fires apparently caused by chimney sparks.
Forest fires: “California is face-to-face with the most dangerous forest fire season in its history,” the Gazette reported July 2. More than 420 fires had already burnt an estimated 33,000 acres of national forest land by that date. More than half of them were believed to have been caused by human carelessness.
City growth: On July 1, 1924, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce released an estimate that Berkeley would have “a population of over 80,000 by the first of January 1925.”
This estimate was based on the city’s number of telephones in use. Remember that these were all “land lines” physically connected by wire. In June 1924, Berkeley had 18,388 telephones registered.
Air mail: Cross-country air mail service was inaugurated from San Francisco’s Crissy Field on July 1, 1924. The eastbound mail was expected to reach New York at about 5 p.m. July 2, while a westbound set of mail was scheduled to land in San Francisco close to 6 p.m. local time. The eastbound mail flight had reached Chicago at 7:14 a.m. local time, after flying all night. Pilots were changed.
An estimated 200 letters from Berkeley sped east on that first flight, posted by locals who wanted to have their mail be part of the significant journey. Mail deposited at the Berkeley Post Office by 11:30 p.m. one night would go out in the next day’s air mail flight. San Francisco had already put special red, white and blue collection boxes on the street for air mail.
Democratic convention: Democrats met in New York City’s Madison Square Garden a century ago to choose their U.S. presidential nominee. A hard-fought struggle took place between former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo and New York Gov. Al Smith.
McAdoo had won most of the state primaries, but his campaign was damaged by allegations of connections to the Teapot Dome scandal. Many delegates came to the convention with “favorite son” state nominees. On the 103rd ballot, diplomat John Davis was chosen as the nominee. He would lose in November to Calvin Coolidge.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.