By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
As this unusual summer ends, let’s look back at the summer of 1949 and see how people who came up the mountain enjoyed the mountains back then. What did the mountains offer to visitors, besides lakes and hiking, all of which offer a true escape from the blistering temperatures of the valley below, before the days of air conditioners?
Crashline Players in The Barn performing The Big Mother Lode (l to r): Maureen Nichols, Jerry Nesmith, Jim Huskey, Ann Holden, LaVonne Moss, Joyce Smirts, Liz Hendrick and Mary Tone. (Photos from the Crest Forest Historical Society calendars)
The mountain locals offered many activities to entertain themselves and amuse those vacationing in the post war years. In Valley of Enchantment, melodramas and vaudeville shows were being performed weekly at “The Barn,” which had an old lumber wagon hanging from the rafters in the high ceiling in the 1940s and 50s, while being used as a restaurant, bar, meeting hall and theater for the community.
The Barn was built during the sawmill days as a barn housing the mules, horses and oxen working the sawmills. The animals were “housed well” as they were the horsepower before steam, electricity and automotive power. (In fact, Job’s Peak in Cedarpines Park was named after a biblically named oxen, “Job,” from that sawmill era.) The Barn was remodeled into a church, now used by the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
In 1949, Friday nights offered performances of He Ain’t Done Right by Little Nell, which received rave reviews in the Courier newspaper, stating, “Hundreds who saw the show acclaimed it as the finest entertainment spectacular ever witnessed in Crestline.” That “over-the-top” review may have encouraged this theater group, as it evolved into the Crashline Players who performed for 20+ years, with original theatrical productions.
Sportland Amusement Center in Lake Arrowhead Village
Paul Craik, a retired professional actor, was the melodrama’s director and continued in that position at The Barn for many years for comedies, dramas and musicals. The melodramatic colorful descriptors set the scenes, such as Eileen Graham as Sweet Nell, “the fairest flower in the world,” Harry Lane as “a poor but honest lad,” while Alice Bender was “sweet/sour Granny Perkins,” Alice Baker as the “betrayed, beauty,” with well-known local resort owner Frank Ohrmund as “the mill owner who knew no better.” Dick Baker was the “villain Hilton Hays, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Also, at The Barn on Wednesday and Saturday nights was a comedic vaudeville show, which included local singing and dancing talent that rotated performances throughout the summer, with MC Eddie King or Oklahoma Bob Albright. who sang cowboy ballads between the other performers with funny banter and anecdotes. The King Sisters did a tight wire act, Carla Sue Jones and Elinore St. John alternated their soft shoe or tap-dancing acts, with songs and dance acts by many locals, which kept the visitors entertained all summer.
There were many other activities, such as public bowling at Sportland and Arcade in Lake Arrowhead Village, where visitors could call ahead (#8643) to reserve a lane. In Crestline, there were bowling lanes in the Crestline Village area (aka Top Town) on the lanes below the Rim of the World Bar in the amusements building. (The building burned in 2019 when it was Pazzo’s Pizza and Rim Sports Bar.)
Opening that July 2, 1949, in Crestline was a new, lighted softball field built across Lake Gregory Drive from Lake Gregory by American Legion Post 503. The Legion was challenging everyone to form a team and play. The community and service clubs formed teams and were challenging each other to a game and welcomed vacationers to watch and cheer the games. Some of the games that summer were the Blue Jay Merchants playing the Legion and Alpine (aka Twin Peaks), while the Running Springs Lions Club challenged the Crestline Merchants. The field was located where the skateboard park and Goodwin’s Market are now situated.
Ads for these and other events were found in the advertising brochures and newspaper stories, luring visitors to the mountains for the summer of 1949.
A then and now (1985) of the Amusement Center in Crestline Village. The building burned in 2019 when it was Pazzo’s Pizzas and Rim of the World Bar.
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