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| Merle and Edna May Little participate in the 1935 Old Spanish Days Fiesta Parade in Santa Barbara. |
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to visit the Santa Barbara Historical Museum with friends. I spent a lot of time looking at the permanent Ed Borein Gallery, as well as the special exhibit "Project Fiesta!"
Ed Borein (1872-1945) was one of the few Western artists of the 19th and 20th century actually born in the Western United States. The Santa Barbara Historical Museum website summarizes his life and career (link to the website below):
...As a young man he roamed the western states and territories and much of Mexico, working as a cowboy and using his artistic talent to record these experiences. Developing a deep affection for the West, and nurtured by his free lifestyle as a cowboy, he soon became known as a facile and spontaneous recorder of cowboy and Indian life.
In his early thirties Borein decided to pursue a career as a professional artist and moved to New York City, where his studio soon became a favorite haunt for important figures such as Will Rogers, Charles M. Russell, Carl Oscar Borg and Buffalo Bill Cody.
Borein returned to his native California, married, and set up a permanent studio in Santa Barbara in 1921. His etchings, watercolors, and drawings quickly earned him a reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of the American West, and few artists have done so as accurately and skillfully as Borein.
"Ed Borein, the cow-puncher artist,"
San Francisco Call, 30 September 1900.
Apparently it was a tradition for the Fiesta to send out invitations to participants illustrated by Borein. This one, from 1933, is in another scrapbook that's part of the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. (It's under glass in the Museum, thus the glare from the overhead indoor lights.)
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| This is a photograph of the 1933 Fiesta invitation. It's in the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. |
Parades are one of the many ways humans use horses to build community connections. By 1935, the Santa Barbara Fiesta Parade was such an important equestrian event that the Pasadena Tournament of Roses committee agreed to refrain from making horses a major feature of the annual New Year's Day parade, "conceding that Santa Barbara's Old Spanish Days fiesta remains the State's outstanding equine parade," according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times, 20 January 1935
In an earlier post, I mentioned that Monrovia/Duarte horse rancher Merle Little kept a large scrapbook during the 1930s and '40s. It's full of newspaper clippings, photos, letters, Christmas cards, horse show programs, and other things related to horses and riding. Merle, often accompanied by his wife Edna May and sometimes by their daughters, took part in a wide variety of public events -- parades, rodeos, stock shows, trail rides -- all over Southern California, riding their Pinto and Morgan horses.
One of the most unique things Merle saved was an invitation to participate in the 1940 Old Spanish Days Fiesta Parade in Santa Barbara. It wasn't glued to a page, but rather just lying loose inside the large journal Merle used as a scrapbook. It, too, featured an Ed Borein illustration.
Many of the riders who received such invitations to take part in the annual Fiestas rode their horses to Santa Barbara, a journey which could take several days. Here's a photo from the Los Angeles Times of part of a group of 150, including some children, who made the trek from Los Angeles County to Santa Barbara in August 1940. When they got to Ventura, they were met by a party of 100 riders from Santa Barbara who finished the ride with them.
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| Los Angeles Times, 12 August 1940 |
One of the reasons for the ride, according to the Times story, was to promote the idea of an equestrian trail from San Diego to Santa Barbara.
I don't see photos, clippings, or other information in the scrapbook indicating whether he was able to attend in 1940. But a photo album from his estate contains an image of Merle, on the left, and his wife Edna May, on their Pinto horses in the 1935 Fiesta Parade.
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| The riders are identified in the photo as, left to right: Merle Little, Edna May Little, Russell Cotton, Leo E., and Mildred E. I don't have information yet on the last three. |
Newspaper articles said a thousand horses had been expected to take part in the 1935 Fiesta Parade.
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The Santa Barbara Historical Museum's Ed Borein Gallery is well worth seeing. This link provides information on the artist and many examples of his art.
https://www.sbhistorical.org/borein-2
Western Horseman magazine did an article on Borein in 2018:
https://westernhorseman.com/culture/out-west/roping-with-ed-borein/
Here's a link to the History of the Fiesta:
https://www.sbfiesta.org/history-santa-barbara-fiesta
And here's the Santa Barbara News-Press article on "Project Fiesta!"
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