The major corridor of life in Santa Barbara has always been State Street.
Prior to California’s statehood, there were no streets, just paths, or “byways” between random adobe houses.
There was no actual “town” during the “Rancho period,” just a collection of about 200 small mud buildings scattered around the Presidio area.
An early visitor to Santa Barbara wryly observed, “The town was laid out by means of a large blunderbuss (shotgun) loaded with adobe houses and discharged from the top of the hill …”
After California was admitted into the Union in 1850, things changed. The Legislature declared that all towns had to be surveyed, with the town limits and boundaries set.
Sea captain Salisbury Haley was the only individual who applied for the job of surveyor (with no prior experience!) and he set out the streets and grids as prescribed by the Common Council (essentially the City Council of that era).
Haley laid out a grid of streets 60 feet wide (blocks of 450 feet by 450 feet) with the two main axis being 80 feet wide.
As he marked out the grid overlay, the existing adobes would be found in the middle of the street, such was the haphazardness of the early settlers here in creating their community.
While Haley was working out the street grid, another committee of three men set about naming the streets.
The two main thoroughfares would be named State and Carrillo — State Street in honor of California joining the Union, and Carrillo after José Raimundo Carrillo, a former Presidio comandante, one of the leading men of the community and whose house was coincidentally at the northeast corner of State and Carrillo.
So far so good.
The first stagecoaches came to Santa Barbara in 1861, and by now the town had some semblance of organization and structure.
Soon, the word got out that this incredibly pretty little town had nearly perfect weather plus mountains plus seacoast … and in-migration of the wealthy from the East Coast started up along with the trying-to-get-weathy argonauts from the north who were heading south after the Gold Rush.
Once the Americans started arriving into town and looking around, they wasted no time setting up shop and establishing small businesses here.
And, of course, all this meant new buildings were needed …
John Stearns, a savvy businessman from Northern California came to Santa Barbara in 1867 to open a lumber company on the beach.
When he saw that a pier was needed to safeguard his shipments of lumber into Santa Barbara, he built Stearns Wharf in 1872 at the end of State Street. This essentially extended the street 2,000 feet into the Pacific.
Now large steamships could unload passengers and cargo directly onto the the wharf. The passengers then ventured up State Street, which was the essential artery of the community.
The town only had around 3,000 people, but even this early on, Santa Barbara was attracting wealthy clientele that sought the locale for its beauty and climate.
To accommodate these visitors, Col. William Welles Hollister began building a magnificent hotel. It was to be three stories high with 90 rooms, and would take up an entire block on State Street between West Sola and West Victoria streets and over to Chapala Street.
At this time, State Street was still an unpaved thoroughfare — a dirty, and at times muddy mess. The road would seem to be entirely out of character with the high-class hotel up the street.
So, while the hotel was being constructed, a mule-drawn street car service was launched in anticipation of bringing passengers from the wharf up State Street to the hotel.
From 1875 to 1895, this mule-drawn street car became the beloved mode of transportation for an entire generation to traverse the city center on State Street.
The Arlington Hotel opened in 1876.
We might think of it as the Biltmore or The Ritz-Carlton Bacara of its era for its design, décor, furnishings and service.
This was a fabulously elegant hotel — the only one of its kind between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Here is where the dignitaries from across the nation and world would be coming to stay. Among them were Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.
Just a year later, in 1887, an accomplished newcomer to town, Walter N. Hawley, bought the Arlington Hotel.
He was anticipating many travelers would be coming to town once the railroad was completed that fall.
Hawley carefully considered how unattractive the town looked — with ochre dust blowing up the street in the summer, while the winter rains would bring a sticky, ugly adobe mud clinging to shoes, boots and carriage wheels.
Therefore, to make things more civilized for those who would be transported from the wharf or train to the hotel, Hawley himself paid for State Street to be paved from the ocean boulevard (as Cabrillo was known then) up to to Sola.
Local residents who had been begging civic leaders for a paved road since 1851, cheered the newcomer for getting things done.
Then, inspired by the road improvement, the city rebuilt the 12-foot-wide wooden sidewalks all along State Street.
At this time the center of town was actually Ortega and State, as established by the City Common Council. This was where it was all happening for the commercial area.
On State Street everything needed for home life and even death (gravestones and markers!) was all available on State Street.
One could find saddles and shoes and saloons, butcher shops, wine merchants, grocery and crockery, grain merchants, musical instruments, printers, banks and bakeries.
Visitors could readily find drivers for hire and rooms to rent, and restaurants that served locals and tourists alike.
While there were some service businesses on side streets, or Chapala or Anacapa, any significant business or retailer was on State Street.
Once the wharf had been built, the availability of lumber and supplies meant the town could now … really go to town! Many buildings went up, some as high as three stories.
Over time, State Street became filled with Western false storefronts, and more elaborate Victorian structures.
Mortimer Cook built a magnificent three-story office building on the southeast corner of State and Carrillo. The Clock Tower building as it came to be known, had a lofty tower featuring — a clock!
So State Street was actually responsible for keeping the community on time, because most of the town could see Cook’s Clock Tower, and set their own timepieces by it.
In the days before telephones and radio, the only way to ascertain the time was to go to the wharf when ships came in and reset the family timepiece to the ship’s chronometer.
Once Cook started doing this with the clock on his building, people would no longer have to traipse down to the wharf and wait for their ship to come in.
Now the average citizen could look up at Cook’s clock and just reset his watch and clock.
In 1891, an unbelievable event occurred in Santa Barbara:
President Benjamin Harrison visited, the first such visit to the city by a president ever! Santa Barbarans were beside themselves with excitement.
The town held an enormous floral parade along State Street that proceeded elegantly through a tunnel of floral arches spanning the street.
The crowning arch of bouquets was the last one — 40 feet tall up at the Arlington reviewing stand, where Harrison sat.
It displayed a portrait of the president on both sides along with the words “Harrison in 1841, Harrison in 1889” — honoring both Harrison and his grandfather, President William Henry Harrison, elected president nearly a half-century earlier.
Leading the parade was a beautiful procession of pampas plumes — which were very popular at the time in decorating Victorian homes.
The front phaeton was occupied by Hermione De la Guerra and Teresita Dibblee, who were dressed in pale white dresses to match the profusion of white pampas plumes that covered their carriage, which was led by a coal black horse.
Carriages of every size were decorated spectacularly with flowers of every sort — adorning the body, the wheels and harnesses, and the horses with an amazing array of various blossoms.
The entire presidential party declared that it was the most unusual and charming thing they had ever seen in their travels. Let’s hear from the president himself:
The reception at Santa Barbara was the most unique that the presidential party experienced on their trip, and also one of the most enjoyable. It was a veritable flower carnival.
Leading the procession was a Spanish cavalcade, commanded by Carlos De la Guerra. The president’s escort was a cavalcade of children, marshaled by Mrs. Schermerhorn, with flower-decked saddles and bridles.
Then followed over 100 flower trimmed equipages, each displaying a different design and flower, and bespeaking the marvelous flora of Santa Barbara in the month of April.
The stand from whence the president reviewed the procession and witnessed the Battle of Flowers, was a floral triumph: 20,000 calla lilies were used in its decoration and as many bright colored flowers.
The battle scene occurred on the grandstand immediately opposite the reviewing stand, between several hundred ladies and gentlemen.
The whole was a spectacle to be witnessed but once in a lifetime.
It was interesting to note that the community not only dressed up in their all-American red, white and blue, but also that they proudly retained their Spanish roots and put them on display — as Harrison had noted with the Spanish cavalcade.
Later on, the reception and dinner at the Arlington featured community leaders dressed in Spanish costume who performed the local Spanish dances of the earlier part of the century.
The entire corridor of State Street was an extravagantly wonderful display of flowers and ferns.
This profuse procession of posies and plumes would become an annual event attracting thousands to Santa Barbara to see the magnificent State Street Floral Parades.
Interestingly, our floral festival parades ultimately became the inspiration for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade, which was first held in 1890.
In 1899, the State Street merchants, businessmen and community looked forward to the new year … and a new century!