The Three *Raswans

*Raswan 607 (Skowronek x Rim)

With this post, I hope to shed a little more light on the story of the Arabian stallion *Raswan, who sadly died before he could realize his full potential. It turns out that a young sculptor visited *Raswan at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, and captured the horse's image for a  public display. It appears that there are only a few photographs of the sculptures, and as far as I have been able to tell, the sculptures and any sketches or smaller models of the images of *Raswan made by the artist are no longer with us.

In January 1926, cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg sent his stable manager, Carl Schmidt, to the renowned Crabbet Stud in England. Schmidt's mission was to purchase Arabian horses for Kellogg's ranch in Pomona, California. In April, Schmidt returned on the ship Minnewaska with fourteen Arabians and a Welsh Pony stallion. They were transferred from the ship to a Union Pacific train headed for Southern California, arriving in Pomona on April 10.

To indicate they were imported to the US, the horses' registered names included an asterisk ( * ); their American registration numbers follow their names.

The imported herd included four stallions foaled in England and two that arrived in utero and were foaled at the Kellogg Ranch. The four adult horses were:

*Nasik 604 (Rijm x Narghileh), an 18 year old bay 

*Raswan 607 (Skowronek x Rim), a five year old gray 

*Raseyn 597 (Skowronek x Rayya), a three year old gray half-brother to *Raswan

*Rimal 599 (Hazzam x Rim), a bay yearling

*Raseyn and *Nasik became internationally famous sires;*Rimal was gelded and sold. But at the time of the importation, the stallion who showed the most promise for Mr. Kellogg's breeding program was *Raswan. (He had already sired three purebred Arabians in England.)

Equine historian Carol Woodbridge Mulder observed:

A very high quality, beautiful horse of outstanding classic type, he was the better of  the two Skowronek sons....

*Raswan, with Carl Schmidt in "desert garb"

But that promise was never realized. Schmidt and Kellogg had a bitter dispute over who really owned *Raswan. On May 7, 1926, Schmidt rode the horse off the Kellogg property across the hills to an isolated house in Walnut, tying him by his bridle to a fence. *Raswan broke loose and ran into a hay mowing machine in a field, grievously injuring one hind foot. Veterinarians tried to save him, but they ended up having to put *Raswan down on June 12, 1926. (For details of this complex story, please see Mary Jane Parkinson's detailed description in her book Romance of the Kellogg Ranch. Mulder does a good job of summarizing the story in her article "The W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch, Part VI -- 1926 Crabbet Purchase Males" in The Crabbet Influence, November-December 1987.)

Sadly, there are very few known photographs of *Raswan, and only one, very short, film clip of him that I could find on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Pa6qWvq31JU

*Raswan, in a screen grab from Lonny Hitchens' film clip on YouTube

But that isn't the whole story of *Raswan in California. It turns out that, a couple of weeks after *Raswan arrived at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, a young artist sketched him and created three sculptures of *Raswan. And thanks to the resources of Cal Poly Pomona Special Collections' W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, we can connect the art and the artist to the horse. 

The artist was the renowned California sculptor L. P. (Lorraine Preston) Prescott, later known as Preston L. Prescott (1898-1988). Born in Iowa, Prescott studied art in Minnesota, New York, and Los Angeles. After serving in World War I, Prescott lived at an American Legion post in Southern California for disabled veterans for a few years. Prescott worked in the film industry creating components for movie sets, and creating wax portraits of celebrities. In the 1930s he moved to Ojai, in Ventura County, where he had a well-known art studio, and in 1945 he moved to Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz in Northern California. Prescott went on to have a distinguished career as an artist and arts educator. 

What's less well-known is Prescott's work creating components for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce's massive displays of citrus fruit for local agricultural exhibitions in the 1920s. And that's where the Arabian stallion *Raswan comes in.

In April 1926, the LA Chamber had reached out to the Kellogg Ranch, asking permission for their sculptor to visit the Ranch and make sketches of one of the horses. W. K.'s son, Dr. Karl H. Kellogg, gave his permission for the artist to sketch one of the recent imports: *Raswan.

From the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library,
Cal Poly Pomona

April 23, 1926

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce

Los Angeles, Calif.

Gentlemen:

    I am giving Mr. L. P. Prescott permission to go ahead and make sketch of Arabian horse Raswan, to be used in Grecian exhibit at Anaheim Orange Show.

    Yours respectfully,

    [KHK]

Sometime between April 23 and April 26, Prescott came to the Kellogg Ranch to sketch and model *Raswan.  On the 26th, Chamber Secretary and General Manager Arthur G. Arnoll wrote his thanks to Mr. Kellogg:

From the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library,
Cal Poly Pomona

April 26, 1926

Mr. W. K. Kellogg

Box 207, Pomona, California

My dear Mr. Kellogg:

    I want to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for your kindness in allowing our sculptor to make drawings and models of one of your fine Arabian stallions.

    I presume he has told you that the finished product will be used in the Anaheim Orange Show where our exhibit will consist of three white horses hitched to a chariot.

    Again expressing our appreciation, I am

        Yours very truly,

            LOS ANGELES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

                (signed) A. G. Arnoll

            Secretary and General Manager

The "Anaheim Orange Show" in the letters was formally known as the Sixth Annual California Valencia Orange Show. It was held in Anaheim from May 13 to 23, 1926.

 I haven't been able to find any evidence that Prescott's drawings and models of *Raswan survived, but there are a few photos of the final result of the artist's time with the stallion. These images show three larger-than-life-sized horses pulling a chariot driven by a mannequin, atop a display of fresh ripe citrus fruit, forming a sort of "orange brick road" for the chariot. 

The next photo shows us the scale of the sculpture. Ruth Henle, a secretary at a local medical clinic and member of the Anaheim Business and Professional Women's Club, posed next to the three *Raswans in a photo that appeared in a number of Southern California newspapers. (In reality she was Mrs., not Miss, Henle, meaning that she continued to work after her marriage, which was not all that common in the 1920s.)

A full page spread in the 23 May 1926 Los Angeles Times showed just how over-the-top the display entries at the Orange Show were.

Prescott's work, featuring the three *Raswans pulling the chariot, won a major award.

Anaheim Gazette, 20 May 1926

Prescott had to turn around his finished work rather quickly; I haven't found any mention of what medium/media he may have used. The 27 May 1926 issue of  the Anaheim Gazette reported that the three horses were dapple gray (as was *Raswan).

Prescott did another, perhaps more realistic, horse statue for the Chamber; it appeared in the 1928 Valencia Orange Festival in San Bernardino, above an even more impressive display of oranges. But the horse wasn't an Arabian this time. There are two photos of the statue in the Los Angeles Public Library collection. You can see the photos here:  

https://calisphere.org/item/ceaded88f2d4fe0d4ddbc07b69476399/

The caption reads: "L.P. Prescott is sculpting "Joan of Arc" on the Ambassador Hotel grounds.  His model is Mrs. Mildred Perlee ("Aarai"), a dancer, who is posing on Dexter, a light cavalry jumping horse owned by Maj. A.L.P. Sands of the 82nd Field Artillery, Ft. Bliss, Texas."

https://calisphere.org/item/ecfc219fe479c826f5f959965703b551/

Here's the near-life-size version of the statue at the San Bernardino Orange Festival display.

Seeing these images gives us insight into the way Prescott worked in the 1920s. Because the final version of the Chamber's 1926 entry in the Orange Show in Anaheim shows three horses in action, I surmise that Prescott saw *Raswan running at liberty in a paddock or field at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, and made "sketches and models" of him on site, as noted in the Chamber's thank-you letter to Mr. Kellogg.

Preston L. Prescott is probably best known today for his statue of the Hugo Reid family. It's currently located on the grounds of the Gilb Museum in Arcadia.

Los Angeles Times, 27 July 1937

Photo by the author

Prescott died in Santa Cruz in 1988. I reached out to the artist's family through an online ancestry site, but they are not aware of any of his papers or drawings that would show us his impressions of *Raswan. (If only...!) 

*Raswan's story is indeed tragic, but I find some solace in knowing that, for the brief period of time when the young artist visited the Kellogg Ranch, *Raswan personified the beauty and grace of the Arabian horse.

___________________________________________________

*Raswan's half-brother *Raseyn was the subject of several works of art. Here's a film clip of sculptor Annette St. Gaudens with *Raseyn at the Kellogg Ranch in 1929.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZhqxVdSnI

This smallish headstudy of *Raseyn was created in 1934 by Lawrence Tenney Stevens. It's part of the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library.

The young Gladys Brown (later Edwards) painted *Raseyn, also in 1934.

* * * 

A print of the photograph of Ruth Henle next to the chariot is in the UCLA Library, Special Collections department: 

https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002cxbkc

* * * 

In 1927, Carl Schmidt had his name legally changed to Carl Raswan.

Los Angeles Times, 8 February 1927

As always, thanks to Tobi Lopez Taylor for her editorial assistance in preparing and editing this post. Her own blog is here: 

https://musingsfromthemaresnest.blogspot.com/

Many thanks to the staffs of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona: 

https://libguides.library.cpp.edu/wkkahl

and the Gilb Museum of Arcadia History: 

https://www.arcadiaca.gov/enrich/arcadia_public_library/gilb_museum_of_arcadia_heritage/index.php

for providing materials I reviewed for this post. 

Snow White's Handsome King: the Kellogg Arabian stallion King John

One of the great things about equine history is that it crosses the border into other aspects of history, the humanities, the arts, and sometimes pop culture.

A good example of this is the story of the Arabian stallion KING JOHN (desert-bred, foaled 1922), who spent most of his life at W. K. Kellogg's Arabian Horse Ranch in Pomona, California.

Here's a blog post I wrote about King John at The Estate Sale Chronicles in 2016, with a bit more information I've discovered about the Kellogg Arabians in subsequent visits to the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona.

When you think about Walt Disney's classic animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, what images come to mind?

Snow White. Check.
Dwarfs. Check.
Evil Queen. Check.
Huntsman. Check.
Cute Animals. Check.
Handsome Prince. Check.
Handsome King.

Pause. What "handsome king"?

Many months ago, I wrote a blog post about finding a vintage original program from the 1937 premiere of Snow White in Los Angeles. On the cover was a montage of all the main characters, including the Handsome King.

Do you see him?

No?

Okay, scroll down a little bit. 

There he is. The horse who served as the model for the Prince's steed was the Arabian stallion King John.

King John was one of a number of Arabian horses owned by cereal magnate W.K. Kellogg in the 1930s. Kellogg kept his large herd of Arabians at his ranch outside Los Angeles. Hollywood celebrities visited often and had their pictures taken at the stables. King John was one of several Kellogg horses that ended up in the movies. 

Actually, King John's life story sounds not unlike the plot of a film. Foaled in the desert, King John was taken to Cairo where he was a polo pony and later a race horse. He was imported to the U.S. in 1929, where he had a career as a show horse.

The W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library's Facebook page notes:

[King John] was sold to the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch in 1931. King John appeared in many Hollywood films, such as "The Scarlett Empress" (1934), "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" (1935), "The Garden of Allah" (1936), and "Suez" (1938), alongside famous actors and actresses like Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, and Loretta Young. 

King John and Marlene Dietrich.

As well-known and well-loved as he was, King John sometimes took a publicity back seat to other horses from the Kellogg Ranch. The most famous of the Kellogg Ranch movie horses was Jadaan, ridden by silent film icon Rudolph Valentino in The Son of the Sheik.  King John was listed as the stablemate of another Kellogg Arabian, Pep, in this April 1932 clipping from the Chino Champion newspaper. 

You may have noticed that the artist's rendition of King John and the other characters from Snow White don't look quite like the ones in the animated film. That's because they were drawn by concept artist and children's book illustrator Gustaf Tenggren. The website Filmic Light, source of All Things Snow White, tells Tenggren's story:

http://filmic-light.blogspot.com/2011/02/closer-look-at-tenggrens-snow-white.html

A YouTube user has cobbled together several classic film scenes that show Arabian horses. Some of the film clips are from The Garden of Allah, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Son of the Sheik.  (The latter features another Kellogg Arabian of the same era, Jadaan, ridden by Rudolph Valentino.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aO-o2uoA5s

King John spent many years at the Kellogg Ranch. Like the other Kellogg Arabian stallions, he was bred to both registered Arabian mares and other mares whose real names and bloodlines we will probably never know, as illustrated in this hand-written record from 1935:

This ledger is fascinating to researchers who are looking for details of the lives of famous Arabian horses in the era between the two World Wars. We tend to focus on offspring of horses who were registered as purebred or part-bred Arabians, because that's the information we usually have at hand. 

The ledger from the old Kellogg Ranch shows that many, many members of the general public brought their mares to the Kellogg Ranch in the hopes of having a half-Arabian foal that would be both handsome and useful. Most of these mares were, as far as we can tell, not Arabians. Kellogg himself had said that one of his goals in establishing his Arabian horse empire was "helping to improve the saddle horse stock of the nation." He considered it "a contribution to the entire United States." 

So it isn't surprising to see that the ledger shows the breeding of "Old lady mare to King John" on March 28, 1935, and "Old lady bay mare to King John" on April 16, 1935.  (The ledger didn't always make note of the name of the mare's owner.) Other entries in the book show King John being bred to "Savage mare" on March 15, 1935;  "Josefho gray" on May 7, 1935; "J. E. Goodell mare" on May 11, 1935; and "Lady Godiva" on June 24, 1935. There are many more examples of this, and yes, I need to write a blog post (or a book!) on these little-known records of half- and purebred Arabians in Southern California. 

Whether as a movie horse, as a sire, or as a representative of the Arabian horse, King John's reputation was firmly established during the 1930s. And in October 1941, the city of Redlands, California, presented him with an appreciative resolution. The San Bernardino County Sun noted:

Now 19 years old, King John once was acclaimed the fastest horse in Egypt, where he was bred by desert tribesmen... His beauty and intelligence have earned great prominence....

King John died in 1946 at age 24. He's buried near the Rose Garden on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona.

http://www.cpp.edu/~library/specialcollections/history/rosegarden.html

And I have donated my copy of the original Snow White program to the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, to complement their archive of printed and photographic materials on King John, his travels and his career.

https://www.cpp.edu/~library/kellogg-arabian-horse-library/index.shtml

_______________________________________

Sidebar: You may not think you've ever seen Tenggren's art before, but you probably have, if you were born after about 1942. After he left Disney, Gustaf Tenggren illustrated many more children's books, including The Poky Little Puppy.

Here's a copy of my original blog post about the 1937 Snow White premiere program:

http://estatesalechronicles.blogspot.com/2014/12/repostingoriginal-1937-snow-white.html

"A Pair of Hopalong Boots"

Hopalong Cassidy and Topper

No matter where you go this time of year, you're likely to hear holiday music. One of  the perennial favorites of the last 70-plus years is the song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Written by composer Meredith Willson, it was first recorded in 1951 by both Perry Como (on September 18) and Bing Crosby (on October 1). Other artists including Johnny Mathis and Michael Buble' have since recorded cover versions. 

(Here's a link to the Perry Como version, if you need a some background music while you read this post: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmddeUJJEuU )

Younger readers might need a little context to understand some of the lyrics. One line in particular that relates to California's horse history is in the refrain:

A pair of Hop-a-long boots and a pistol that shoots
Is the wish of Barney and Ben
Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk
Is the hope of Janice and Jen
And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again...

"Hop-a-long" refers to the items marketed to kids under the brand of actor and entrepreneur William Boyd (1895-1972), better known as his cowboy character Hopalong Cassidy. 

And this isn't just a line in a seasonal song sung long ago. Hopalong Cassidy was part of the vanguard of Hollywood Western movie and television stars that dominated American pop culture in the years following World War II. As ceramic artist and historian Kristina Lucas Francis has pointed out, cowboys were as big back then, as "Star Wars," "Batman," and the Marvel Universe are today. 

AND the cowboys had horses. Hoppy wore black; his white horse was called Topper. Newspaper articles sometimes referred to Topper as an Arabian, but I see other examples of mostly-white movie horses billed as  "Arabians" that were Not Really Arabians. Topper had gray spots on the underside of his neck. Other sources say Topper may have been a Tennessee Walker. 

Boyd first played Hopalong Cassidy in 1935. His films were admired for having better cinematography and better-known supporting actors, than the usual low-budget "horse westerns" of the day. 

After World War II, though, movie producers and theaters were losing interest in cowboy films; Boyd produced the last twelve "Hopalong Cassidy" films himself. The series ended in 1948.

But Hopalong Cassidy would soon ride again. Boyd invested everything he had in buying the rights to his old films, then offered one of them to a local NBC television affiliate in 1949. The film's broadcast was so successful that NBC asked for more, and within months Boyd had released the entire library, starting the pop culture phenomenon of the TV cowboy that would be quickly followed by other major Western film stars like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and more.

1949 was the same year that Boyd's prescient marketing of All Things Hopalong Cassidy began. He held the rights to his image, and licensed Hopalong Cassidy products far and wide. 

We first see ads for Hopalong Cassidy-themed children's clothing and accessories in American newspapers in the autumn of 1949, just in time for children's Back To School sales. 

Richmond, VA News-Leader, 6 September 1949

But contrary to the line in the song that says boys wanted Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots, Hoppy's "merch" was originally targeted at boys and girls. In the ad above, we see a boy and a girl wearing Hopalong Cassidy-themed clothing, including "ranch pants."

By Christmas 1950, the craze for cowboy couture for kids was even bigger. This ad shows a version of a girl's Hopalong Cassidy outfit with a skirt.

Baltimore, MD Evening Sun, 19 December 1950

Some department store ads that featured Hopalong Cassidy merchandise also promoted similar Roy Rogers-themed wares: "Let Him or Her Be a Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers."

Delaware County (Chester, PA) Daily Times, 22 December 1950

Other advertising targeted boys as the primary recipients of Hoppy gear.

Columbus, Ohio Ledger, 20 December 1950

By 1951, when "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" first came out, "a pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots" would not have been cheap. This ad for the Pizitz store in Birmingham, Alabama offered the boots at $7.95 a pair; in 2023 dollars, that's just under $100 adjusted for inflation. "Pistols that shoot" cost between $3.29 and $10.95.

 

The Birmingham News, 16 December 1951

In this ad, girls' Hopalong suits were less expensive than boys'.

You just can't have a cowboy without a horse. Images of Hoppy's faithful white horse Topper decorated child-size riding chaps, pocket knives, towels, bedspreads, pajamas and sweatshirts. A vinyl record of "The Story of Topper" was released. 

Scranton, PA Times-Tribune, 8 December 1950

We see a metal toy Hoppy and Topper in this ad from 1950.

Nashville Banner, 15 December 1950

Here's a link to a YouTube video of the toy in action!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZfJlARMV9zM

Tiny buckaroos could aspire to own an inflatable Topper that neighed as the cowboy swung back and forth in the saddle.

Chattanooga, TN Daily Times, 21 September 1952

Ideal Toys issued a licensed plastic horse and rider set of Hoppy and Topper in the 1950s.

Source: Facebook Marketplace.

Boyd and Topper made countless personal appearances and rode in Pasadena's Tournament of Roses and New York's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades.

New York Daily News, 24 November 1950

 

The wide range of "Hopalong Cassidy and Topper"-themed merchandise in the 1950s is staggering: birthday cards, lunch boxes, toy chests, bracelets, woodburning sets, cameras, a canasta card game, watches, comic books, dishes, trading cards, trash cans, and more. Sources estimate the value of the licensed products at $70 million. 

Interactive Hoppy and Topper birthday card (author's collection).

So the next time you hear "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," you can think of Topper and his cowboy friend, Bill Boyd, and the phenomenal impact they had on American pop culture during their day. 

_______________________________________

Hoppy's old pal Topper died in 1959, and is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park, also known as Save Our Pets' History in Eternity, or SOPHIE, in Calabasas, California; Bill Boyd retired the character of Hopalong Cassidy not long afterwards. Boyd himself is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. 

You can read about Hopalong Cassidy films that were shot at the Iverson Ranch in Southern California here:  

https://iversonmovieranch.blogspot.com/search/label/Hopalong%20Cassidy

"The Story of Topper" recording, complete with cowboy song, is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erxOP8zn6Ec

Petrine Day Mitchum's book Hollywood Hoofbeats is a good resource for more information on TV and movie horses:

https://www.npr.org/2016/03/21/471283190/hollywood-hoofbeats-chronicles-the-horses-that-captured-moviegoers-hearts

Here's a link to my 2013 blog post on Hopalong Cassidy:  

https://estatesalechronicles.blogspot.com/2013/04/legends-of-cinematic-old-west-part-one.html