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The Pasadena Star-News | Mon 09/01 07:00am PST | Joe Blackstock
A shocking newspaper headline appeared in the Pomona Bulletin 100 years ago this month: “‘Naughty’ Book Filmed Here”
The article, Sept. 24, 1925, told of “The Plastic Age,” a motion picture filmed during the summer on the campus of Claremont’s Pomona College.
The silent picture, based on a racy novel by Percy Marks, would be banned in some places because of too many scenes of alcohol use and general immorality of college students.
Pomona College was the background for the campus of the fictitious Sanford College. Local students were extras earning $7 a day as spectators and players in the football game scene, as well as a few actors whose fame and fortunate were still ahead for them.
The movie featured the silent movie sex symbol Clara Bow in what became her first major film success.
It’s also worth noting a few actors who appeared in bit parts at the start of their careers, though none got screen credit for “The Plastic Age.” They included “co-ed” Janet Gaynor as well as future married couple, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable.
“Though the picture will be released on Nov. 5, it is doubtful it will be shown here,” predicted the article, perhaps a bit naively. Pomona’s New Belvedere Theater did offer it on three nights in February 1926.
Each winter early in the 20th century, the Inland Empire was regularly invaded by hundreds of transients who arrived by “riding the rods” on freight trains to escape the snows of the East.
Called “bums” or “hobos” by police, most were rounded up and put in jail for vagrancy — with a warm bed and a meal, courtesy of taxpayers.
And, as you might expect, came the all-too-often call to put those freeloaders to work, noted the San Bernardino Transcript of Feb. 1, 1901.
San Bernardino County at times operated what was known as a rock pile, where prisoners were given sledgehammers and ordered to spend the day breaking large rocks into small ones for various highway or construction projects. If they chose not to work, their meals were sometimes limited to little more than bread and water.
But the rock pile wasn’t always an ideal punishment, at least from the county’s point of view.
County Supervisor J.B. Glover noted that in 1901 it cost the county $6 a day to supervise prisoners breaking up the rocks. And the county was still up to its elbows in the 500 tons of rocks broken up by transients the year before.
“There is no return for the money put out,” said the frustrated Glover. “We have offered to give (the broken rocks) away in any amount to any taxpayer who would haul it off but there are no takers.”
The jailed temporary “tourists” were apparently able to briefly enjoy their stay in jail without working up much of a sweat, though most were soon put on the next train with a ticket back to all that snow and freezing weather.
The Sun newspaper Aug. 4, 1921, praised Ontario kids for skillfully taking advantage of an opportunity that fell at their feet.
A collision between a Euclid Avenue trolley and a truck full of peaches left the intersection at Emporia Avenue littered with fruit.
The paper said several enterprising boys grabbed sacks, filled them with peaches, and rushed over to nearby City Hall Park. There they sold them to the audience at a concert of the Ontario Municipal Band.
A prospective juror in a San Bernardino courtroom was questioned before a case involving a burglary of a Santa Fe Railroad train and he apparently knew just what to say to avoid having to serve on the jury.
“It was his opinion that it was all right to steal from any railroad company,” wrote the San Bernardino Evening Index, Oct. 24, 1907. “He was dismissed without further ado.”
A Chino poultryman offered his suggestion in 1921 as to how members of the Pomona Valley Poultry Breeders Association could protect their chickens’ health.
H. W. Boone said he gave his hens tobacco and snuff to protect them from various internal parasites. He told the audience he mixes tobacco in bran mash to get rid of worms in his young chickens, wrote the Pomona Bulletin of March 3, 1921.
“The captious critic may ask,” wrote a snarky newspaper reporter, “how a hen or any young chicken can chew tobacco inasmuch as she had no teeth. Others may inquire if the hens can spit tobacco juice, but these queries as yet remain unanswered.”
Riverside Police Chief Elmer Deiss admitted defeat in the Riverside Daily Press on Aug. 19, 1925.
He announced his department would no longer enforce the city’s law that prohibited girls under 18 from attending public dances.
The reason he gave was that his male officers just could not determine the ages of young women who wished to attend the dances. Clad in all that Roaring ’20s clothing and makeup, the girls made such determinations impossible, he said.
“Women of 50 look 30. Women of 30 look 20. Girls between 14 and 25 all look alike,” said the frustrated Deiss. “All women dress the same. We can demand birth certificates, but it is easy for the girls to borrow those as it is to get a party dress.”
The Historical Society of Pomona Valley on Sept. 10 will host my talk and book signing of my new book, “Haven to Hell.”
The free event will be at 7 p.m. at the Barbara Greenwood Kindergarten historic site, 332 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. Sips and snacks will be provided.
The Historical Society has also scheduled upcoming tours of two of its historic sites.
Tours of the Palomares Adobe, 491 E. Arrow Highway, Pomona, will be held this Sunday, Aug. 31, between 1 and 5 p.m. On Sept. 14, tours of the Barbara Greenwood Kindergarten will be held between 2 and 5 p.m.
Tickets for both events are $5 and must be purchased in advance at PomonaHistorical.org.
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at joe.blackstock@gmail.com or on X @JoeBlackstock. Check out some of our columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IEHistory.