Santa Ana Drag Strip at Orange County Airport
by Steve
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Before it was called "John Wayne Airport" it was called "Orange County Airport", and during the 1950's it was the place for drag racing.
A man named C.J. "Pappy" Hart was credited as having built the world's first commercial drag strip, named "Santa Ana Drag Strip" or "Santa Ana Drags", and held races there every Sunday. The drag strip operated from 1950 to 1959, until the County of Orange forced it closed due to increasing air traffic.
When Hart passed away in 2004, several newspapers rans articles that documented his fame in racing circles and told the story of how he started the first commercial drag strip. A site called, "We Did it for Love" has archived them all...
http://www.wediditforlove.com/cj-2.htmlWhile going through the e-mails we received during the old days of OCThen, I found one that talked about the Santa Ana Drags...
Before it was called the John Wayne airport and before it was called Orange County Airport, it was just a sleepy little landing strip used by private planes, charters and the Martin Aviation Company. When I was a teenager in 1955 the airstrip would close down on Sundays and NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) sanctioned drag races were held on the runway. I remember seeing the "Green Monster", Art Arfons jet powered drag racer, screeming down the runway. It was probably the first jet to ever "land" at SNA. The drags moved to Lyons Speedway in Long Beach sometime in the late 1950's. They did return later on, for a few years, as the Orange County Raceway located at the I-5 and Sand Canyon.
By: Richard M. Cowan, 10 Aug 2002
If you can remember the drag races at Orange County Airport, click on "Post a Comment" at the bottom of this article, and share your memories with us.
Labels: Drag-Strips, Santa-Ana-Drag-Racing
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Fullerton in the 1950's and 60's
by Steve
Monday, July 02, 2007
An OCThen reader named "Tol Bert" submitted his memories of growing in Fullerton during the 1950's and 60's...
I moved to Fullerton with my parents in 1955 and still live in Orange County.
I remember going to Disneyland the first summer it was open on perhaps the hottest day of the year. The only place to escape the heat was in the movie theater on Main St. which I have forgotten the name of. I still have some of those 85 cent "E" tickets.
In the 60's cruising up and down Harbor Blvd was popular - from Hillside Drive in ( now a parking lot) to Taco Villa and back. Gas was 30 cents a gallon. You'd pass under the Welcome to Fullerton bridge where Berkeley street now intersects Harbor. I'd like to find a photo of that bridge. Sunny Hills High School would open soon.
Drag racing was popular both on and off the streets in the 60's . Lions Drag strip in Long Beach was great for Saturday night and then Pomona on Sunday. The eastern edge of the 91 freeway ended and began at Lemon street in Fullerton so it was a good place to start a short street race with no traffic behind you. I don't recall any accidents that occur ed from street racing. Perhaps that was because then everyone had to take drivers education in high school.
The Model Market was on the western side of Harbor Blvd off Valencia Mesa in Fullerton. It was an old wood floor place with hitching posts outside. Before Bastanchury road was built connecting Harbor and Euclid there were horse trails through the orange groves.
Going east on Yorba Linda Blvd you were out in the country by the time you got to the old Nixon House. Driving west on Artesia past Buena Park would take you through Dairy Valley and its aromatic cow pastures. To get to Newport Beach you had to snake along Newport Blvd and right by the old blimp hangars at the Tustin Marine base. Jamboree Road near the Santa Ana freeway could be a little slow at times when farmers were taking their sheep across the road.
Orange County was a nice semi-rural area then. Great to grow up in, but you knew it would change. Nothing that nice could avoid the inevitable urban growth.
Labels: Drag-Strips, Fullerton
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Duck Clubs of Orange County
by Steve
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Skip Fleming, who grew up in Orange County during the 1950's, shares his memories of "duck clubs", Disneyland, drag strips, and other stuff...
I found this site looking for info on duck clubs in orange county. I was born in orange December 1947. Went to Irvine elementry school.
I grew up on the Sprigg duck club. There were five duck clubs in a five mile area close to John Wayne airport. My uncle Clarence Jessee ran the Aliso duck club and farmed about 150 acres; some of land was where the Fluor corp. is now. Mostly he grew barley. The Irvine company had a ranch with cows and cowboys.
I had another uncle who ran a duck club on what is I think the San Joaquin bird sanctuary. I also had an uncle Paul Plavan farmer inventor who in the 1930s farmed land around the Santa Ana river, which flooded and was covered with silt making the land almost unusable. The land was covered with 2 or 3 feet of silt, and he built a giant plow to turn up the good soil it took three cat 60's to pull the plow. He restored a lot of farm ground back to being productive again.
My dad was a carpenter who worked on many projects including Disneyland. All of the employes and family got into Disneyland before the public. I remember going there in 1955. I also remember my dad saying Disney wanted to pay employees with stock in Disneyland but my dad wasn't about to take stock from a guy with his head in a cloud and trying to borrow money to pay the workers.
I remember the Santa Ana drag strip only a couple of miles from the duck club where I lived. I remember Oscars drive in, Merle's drive in on Jamboree, and the Coast Hiway Halls drive in on south main in Santa Ana, Lions drag strip in Long Beach.
I remember when you got into Knotts ghost town for free.
I remember meeting Andy Devine on my uncles duck club. I also met Andy Carey who played for the New York Yankee's 1957. A member of our duck club was Newt Bass who was famous for his part in Apple Valley.
We moved from Tustin in 1989, too many people, too crowded. My mother moved with us she was born in Santa Ana. Most of the old farmers and their families are gone or have moved. I went back 6 years ago I couldn't envision in my mind what it was like when I was kid in the fifties. The bus ride to school took almost an hour sometimes. We drove three miles between picking up the next kids.
What a great place to grow up we had the mountains, the beach, hunting, fishing, but it is all gone now.
Skip Fleming
Labels: Disneyland, Drag-Strips, Duck-Clubs, Farming
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