Santa Barbara Earthquake: Three Episodes and an Epilogue

NOTICIAS Qqarterxy Magazine Of The Santa Barbara Historical Society Voi. XXXVI, No. 1

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Spring 1990

West Anapamu Street in ruins. 1925.

The events oflast October in the San Francisco Bay Area serve as a backdrop to our first article, Robert Easton’s recounting of some personal stories of those u/ho went through the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake. Then Marianne Babal and Patricia Cleek turn their attention to a Mission Can)'on artisan of the past, whose work is becoming more and more prized, the potter, Frederick Flurten Rhead. Back cover photo ofaRhead cameo vase in earthemware is from the Oakland Museum Kahn Collection. All other photO' graphs arefrom the collection ofthe Santa Barbara Historical SocP ety unless otherwise credited.

Michael Redmon,Editor Judy Sutcliffe, Designer © 1990 The Santa Barbara Historical Society 136 E.De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara,California 93101 Single copies $3.00

The Santa Barbara Earthquake: Three Episodes and an Epilogue Robert Easton Robert Easton,author and environmentalist,is a native Califor nian and longtime Santa Barbara resident. He is currently work ing on volume three of his Saga ofCalifornia series of historical novels which have the Santa Barbara region as their setting.

Julia Morgan was five feet high, lean, wiry, soft spoken but with an unmistakably no-nonsense manner.

She’d become a well-known archi-

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tea and was engaged, among other projects, in helping William Randolph Hearst design his "castle at San SimoDn, when I heard her

describe her experiences in the Santa Barbara earthquake of 1925.

On the night of June 28-29 coming down by train from San Francisco, where her office was located, to discuss

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At about 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning Julia got off The Lark at the Southern Pacific depot,the present Amtrak station.

It looked much as today except for an attractive lawn and flower garden between it and State Street, plus a general atmos phere of excitement and importance befitting railroad stations in those days before air travel.

At 6:2.2 she was standing i at the curb, suitcase beside

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her, a roll of wrapped Margaret Baylor Inn drawings in her left hand, waiting for the streetcar to come

eluding Pearl Chase. The com- ^ mirtee was overseeing design and construction on behalf of a group of publie spirited citizens, many of them associated with the nearby Recreation Center, who wished to honor Margaret Baylor, Baylor, a veteran Santa Barbara social worker and women s rights advocate, had conceived the idea of a residence for

H along from West Beach.

V Idly looking up State W Street, she noticed puffs of i 'fine white dust spurting from the fronts of buildings, 'hey instantly reminded her of the dust coming from the chimney near her room at the moment of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The next she knew she was on hands and knees in the street, her suitcase beside her. Subsequent shocks moved her and the suitcase farther toward the tracks at its center, From there she had what amounted to a

working women, but died before the project could be carried out.

ground-zero view of Santa Barbara’s greatest natural disaster.

plans for the Margaret Baylor Inn—now the Lobero Building at 924 Anacapa Street—with a committee in-

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Wfest Cabrillo Boulevard sKou/ing pavement and streetcar tracks ruptured by the earthquake. The sea tvall is at left. Julia Morgan was waiting for a car to come along this line and take her up State Street when the quake struck.

"I fell the car tracks,” she wrote later, ”and then worked my way down [on hands and knees] through the blinding dust to a place in front of an auto sales room.... After the dust cleared it was a perceptible time before anybody came out of the buildings. When they appeared from lower State Street hotels and room ing houses, fathers and mothers were car rying children of eight, ten and twelve years. No children were walking. It was very touching. Evidently,in the great ca tastrophe the parents revened to protecting them as little children. At this time I be came self-conscious, and as my rule is al¬

Portrait ofJulia Morgan on preceding page courtesy Sara Holmes Boutelle, author ofJulia Morgan:Architect, Abbeville Press. 1988.

ways to protect my head...I took a gun ny sack from a hook on the back of an ice wagon standing near to make myselfa turban, when a voice from nowhere said, 'Hey, Lady, stop stealing my sacks.'

(Here begins the tale of looting.^) If that auto showroom has a single [structural] joint left, I am surprised. I could see those great plate glass windows quiver be fore every wave and shock and the con crete posts of the building move to an an gle of at least 20 degrees. I went up State Street...saw the[damage to the] San Mar cos Building when a sudden jerk sent me off State Street to Chapala by way of the Y [the Y.M.C.A. at the corner of Chapala and Carrillo] to the Carrillo Hotel. Then in around about way to the Recreation I There was some looting.

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1925 EARTHQUAKE

Damage much 05 Julia Morgan saw it immediately after the quake. Shown is the 300 block of State Street.

Center.^ I found it safe, worked my way to State Street, got my bag from the side walk where I had left it blocks away and my drawings unwrapped but safe.^ I spent hours among the buildings and saw ‘materials working.’ It was a great praaical experience.”

As she observed the damage, Morgan was almost certainly adding another "first” to her impressive list of unique ex periences. She was the first woman to graduate in engineering(the nearest thing to architecture available) from U.C. Berkeley (1894) and from the £cole des Beaux-Ans in Paris (1902), and the first licensed to practice architeaure in Cali fornia (1904). Her observations led to a warning and some high praise. "I was impressed with the fact that the great 2 The Recreation Center has sometimes been attrib uted to Julia Morgan. She may. in any event, have planned to meet Chase and the committee there.

3 Shefound her drawings leaning against an auto at the curb.

menace was from electric wires. No mat ter what expense, all wires in public streets in California should be under ground. All wires in a radius of many blocks were down. Our engineer at the power plant by a great act of heroism, pulled the switch; but if that had not been done, fleeing people would have been in grave danger."

Morgan did not know that a few blocks fanher up State Street at the Ar lington Hotel, a sequence of events in their way as freakish—and moretragic—as those affecting her had taken place.

Late the previous evening,G.Al lan Hancock, prominent finan cier and philanthropist of Los Angeles and Santa Maria, checked into the Arlington with his only son Bertram, age 24.

Not recognizing the status of his guests, the night clerk assigned them two ordi nary rooms in the south wing. As they

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Above: The Arlington Hotel before and fright) after the quake. departed down the hall, a bellboy whis pered in his ear: "Don’t you know who that is?’’ The Hancocks were recalled and given choice rooms high in one of the twin towers at the center of the hotel complex. When the quake struck next morning, a tank containing 60,000 gal lons of water located over Bertram’s room crashed down, killing him instantly, but sparing his father in an adjoining room.

"It all happened in a minute,’’ the father said from a hospital bed where he was re covering from a broken collarbone, brok en ribs, and cuts and bruises."The crash of falling timbers and of walls of the hotel made an indescribable inferno of sound which dazed me. From the time I leaped from my bed until I was crawling from under the collapsed building seemed but a moment. Trapped nearby was a dining room maid. She and I crawled to the front lawn and a bellboy helped us to the street. My son probably never wakened from his sleep. His skull was fractured and his neck broken. It was best if he had to go that he go without suffering.’’

Guests in the south wing, where the Hancocks were originally assigned, es caped unhurt.

When word of the tragedy reached Genevieve Hancock, Bertram’s mother, she hurried to Santa Barbara by chauf feur-driven limousine. Bertram, she told reporters, was planning to carry on his father’s many business and philanthropic interests. Her reactions on viewing her son’s mangled body were not recorded.

She died a few years later of what friends said was a broken heart.

Pearl Chase said more than once that the earthquake caused "a ti dal wave about ten feet high to come over the West Beach sea wall and up State Street nearly as far as the railroad tracks.’’ She said this was common knowledge in the days following the quake, but later was largely forgotten. I find no written evi dence of it and have heard no one else mention anything like it except David Myrick, historian of Santa Barbara and the American West, who was living here at the time. Myrick recalls hearing of wa ter coming over the sea wall which was then bordered on its ocean side by a nar row beach—and sometimes at high tide by no dry sand at all—this being before con-

1925 EARTHQUAKE

struction of the breakwater and subse quent build-up of the beach we have to day. According to Myrick, the water was reported to have come up Chapala Street"a block or so."

Sandy floors If this happened on Chapala,one block west, as well as on State, it must have happened elsewhere along the waterfront.

Why didn’t it attract more attention? Per haps because water coming over the sea wall was not very unusual. I. A. (Ike) Bonilla, longtime resident, says water at high tide or during storms sometimes reached inland a block or more.'Tve seen beach sand on the floor of the Southern Pacific depot," he says. Though Ike wasn’t here at the time of the quake, he agrees with Chase and Myrick that a wave or tidal surge might well have reached the railroad tracks.

Pearl CKose in the mid-i92os. From Pearl Chase Collection. LJCSB Library Special Collections.

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TKe rupture of the Sheffield Dam released 40 million gallons of ivater down Sycamore Canyon.

Why didn’t Julia Morgan, on hands and knees near the middle of State Street, notice the encroaching sea water? Her oral account made no mention of it and her written one says she’d decided not to wait for the streetcar and walked several blocks uptown before stopping to rest at the curb, thus placing herself well beyond the reach of such a wave as Chase and Myrick describe.

What to believe?

Should the fact that written accounts make no mention of a seismic wave out weigh the oral record? Arthur Sylvester, professor of geology at UC Santa Barbara, says the wave might have been more in the form of a rising tide than a cascading wave."Many tsunamis take the form of rapidly rising sea level,” he says, "espe cially if caused by quakes of less than the 7.2 to 7.5 intensity needed to rupture the sea floor sufficiently to create a wave.”

If the wave took the form of a rising

The Margaret Baylor Inn, 924 Anacapa Street, now the Lobero Building.

tide, it would have been less likely to be noted at a time of more dramatic events.

Also it may have been masked by the 40 million gallons of water from Sheffield Reservoir which rushed down Sycamore Canyon and flooded much of the East Beach area. The tide at the time of the quake was decreasing from a high of 3.2 feet at about 3:00 a.m. and was therefore

1925 EARTHQUAKE

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not a major factor.

Apparently some dislocation of the sea did take place off Santa Barbara. Syl vester cites the ac count of two men in a small boat not far offshore at the time of the quake. They said the surface of the water divided and poured down ward "as over a wa terfall.”

Phil G. Olsen, professor of geology at Santa Barbara City College, sent ques tionnaires concerning the quake to more than 1,200 paiple living here at the time.

Not one of several hundred who answered mentioned a seismic wave or high tide. Nor in years of researching the quake have Olsen or Sylvester come across reference to any such wave or tidal surge. But both respea Pearl Chase's ve racity and keen memory.

A hopeful rebirth I like to think of the wave as perhaps part of that tragic destruaion and hopeful rebirth the quake represented—baptism from the sea of the new community which emerged from disaster. Julia Morgan’sgracefulMediterranean-styleMargaret Baylor Inn building became in 1927, and remains today, pan of that rebinh.& did Pearl Chase's memorable work in fos tering Santa Barbara’s post-quake renais sance in architeaure and community consciousness.

G.Allan Hancock’s work has lived on, too, in Santa Maria and elsewhere. Boun tifully productive Rosemary Farms,just

G. Allan Hancock stands beside the "South ern Cross" at the Santa Maria Airport. He sponsored its pioneering trans-Pocific /light from San Francisco to Australia. ©ipS/ by Santa MariaVaUey Historical Society.

east of the city, is named for his only daughter. He created the original Santa Maria Community Orchestra—a highly democratic organization composed of lo cal butchers,bakers, housewives,business and professional people—in which he played first cello. He owned and operated the Santa Maria Valley Railroad. He esta blished Hancock Field—later Santa Maria Municipal Airport and a major training base for World War II flyers—where he flew his J-5 Stearman biplane, Lockheed Vega, Buhl Air Sedan, Bach Tri-Motor and others; and in 1928 he sponsored the flight of the "Southern Cross,” a Fokker tri-motor, from San Francisco to Austra lia, with stops at Hawaii and the Fiji Is lands. It was the first trans-Pacific flight.

Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, located on land where his airfield once stood, carries on a name that his son was not able to.

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EPILOGUE

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Anecdotes about the 1925 quake abound.

Foreshocks are said to have begun as early as 3:27 the morning of June 29 and con tinued intermittently until the main one.

At about 3:00 a.m. City Manager Herbert Nunn wakened in his home near Leadbetter Beach and smelled oil. He went down to the beach and found oil bubbling up through the sand.

Many people reported that immediate ly before the quake animals behaved in strange fashion. Dogs ran helter-skelter with a bewildered look, some howling mournfully. Chickens congregated in corners of their pens,cackling nervously.

Cows and horses snorted. Cats crouched in seeming fear of unknown danger.

Elderly Mrs. Charles E. Perkins’ maid was opening the door of her mistress’ room in the Arlington Hotel when the quake struck. She saw with horror the floor give way and the contents of the room disappear. Mrs.Perkins was killed,

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Fathers Engelhardt and Hobrecht inspect extensive damage to the Mission.

reportedly leaving $300,000 worth of jewelry which was later recovered from the debris. She was the widow of a for-

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1925 EARTHQUAKE

The Mission community ate, slept, woTshipped and held services outdoors follou/ing the quake. mer president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and mother of a subsequent one, Charles E. Perkins, Jr., who became owner of the Alisal Ranch near Solvang and author of The Pinto Horse and other books.

At the Southern California Edison Company power plant, W. N. Engle, night operator, the man praised for his he roism by Julia Morgan, dashed for the master switch as the ground rolled and bricks and masonry fell around him.

Engle threw the switch, cutting off all electric power in the city, probably pre venting disastrous fires.

The Board of Fire Underwriters of the

Left: The Edison power house, site of W. N. Engle’s heroism. Similarly, H. F. Ketz, night engineer at die Southern Counties Gas Com pany, braved die menace of wildly shaking heavy equipment as he passed through the en gine room and shut the large valve through which die city received its gas.

Pacific reported 618 Santa Barbara build ings destroyed or damaged.

Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, former presi dent of M.I.T., reported seeing ground waves ripple through his garden at inter vals of about 25 feet, the lawn rising and falling, shrubs and trees bending and straighteningas they passed.

J. W. Richardson, National Red Cross Director in the Western Distria, in charge of that organization’s relief work, reported that up to July 21, about a month after the quake, he handled 522 cases needing immediate relief.

Litti Paulding, veteran society report er, described how for days after the quake Santa Barbarans slept outdoors on their lawns, their patios, on sidewalks and "danced in the park” in front of the El Mirasol Hotel, which was situated where the Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens arc now."They did not think the earthquake was funny, nor a lark, but there was a great deal of laughter and

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dancing. The spirit of the town was as high as La Cumbre Peak.”

Mrs. Macaria Mlomar,

wife

of

Santiago Mlomar, was trapped on the second floor of the San Marcos Building, buried beneath crumbled concrete B and twisted steel. A steam shovel dug through the debris and she was saved. Not so fortunate was young Dr.James C. Angle, an orthodon tist. He’d risen early to treat a patient in his San Marcos Building office before go ing to Los Angeles on business. As the building crumbled around him he hustled his patient to shelter under a nearby table.

She survived. He was killed.

About $1,250,000 of earthquake insur ance was carried by buildings destroyed or damaged, including the San Marcos,

$160,000; the five-story Carrillo Hotel, $95,000; the eight-story Granada Build ing, $100,000. The six-story Balboa Building lost two corners off its top floor, where atuaaive terraces are today.

Like the Granada and Carrillo Hotel it was repaired and strengthened. The San Marcos was almost completely rebuilt.

Ole Hansen, visiting mayor of Seattle, said that the ground seemed to rise up with a sound “like a million dogs crunching bones.” There was a tremen-

Below & right; the San Marcos Building at State and Anacapa streets. In the aerial photo the post office(now the Museum of Art) can be seen to the left. Our Lady of Sorrows Oiurch is at the top of die photo.

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Photos at left and above show Santa Baiharans h’ving and dining out of doors. dous explosion followed by a rocking and twisting motion of the earth, accom panied by the rending of buildings.

When the quake struck, mass was be ing conducted in the Old Mission by Fa-

iher Raphael Vender Haar. Another of the fathers kept worshippers from rush ing from the building and thus saved them from being struck by masses of ma sonry falling from towers and walls.

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Chumash Indians under supervision of earlier padres built the church to with stand quakes, with walls three feet thick, braced by powerful buttresses and tied to gether above by heavy rafters. In the near by cloisters where the fathers lived,falling debris crashed through the floor of the main second-story corridor. Father Au gustine Hobrecht,superior ofthe Mission, fell through this hole to the floor below but was unhurt."At that moment I felt the

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earth tremble again and one of the bells in the nearly ruined towers tolled from the shock,as if in mourning," he said.

When Sheffield Reservoir collapsed and the 40 million gallons swept down largely uninhabited Sycamore Canyon, they carried 17 milk cows out to sea and damaged a number of dwellings on the Lower Eastside. The wall of water was described as 20 feet high. Miraculously, no human lives were lost.

As part of the architcaural renaissance that followed the quake,the name of State Street was changed to its original Spanish "Estado;"and "it will be characterized,” as one account said, "by low buildings, arched entrances and windows, decora tive grill balconies, red tile roofs, patios and warm tints.” After a few years the name was changed back to"State.”

There were 264 shocks and tremors recorded on the Tycos Recording Ther mometer at the Southern Counties Gas Company during the week of the disaster.

On the day of the quake,90 were record ed; the two big ones, nine that were pow erful, and 79 slight ones.

Lookout More on La Cumbre Peak said his lookout station swayed violently and the mountains "looked like the sea tossed by a storm. They were swaying back and forth like gigantic waves.”

J. M. Orella was sweeping the side walk in front of the Dreyfus Building at

1225 State. He saw the Granada Building across the street rocking wildly and the San Marcos, at the nearby intersection of Anapamu and State, crashing into ruins.

He kept on down the sidewalk plying his broom.

The quake killed 13, injured 65 and caused about $15,000,000 in propeny damage in 1925 dollars.

1925 EARTHQUAKE

When the Margaret Baylor Inn was completed, it cost $245,000, up consider ably from the $180,000 originally bud geted, largely because of striaer post earthquake building codes.

As for seismic waves, though tliere is no firm record of one caused by the 1925 quake, there are generally accepted oral accounts of one caused by an 1812 quake.

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also centered offshore somewhere in the Channel, estimated to have registered 8.0 on the Richter scale. That wave is said to have been 50 feet high at Gaviota, 30 miles west of Santa Barbara, and to have washed a sailing vessel inland and back out to sea at Refugio Canyon.

Arthur Sylvester thinks it may have been caused by a submarine landslide

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triggered by the quake. Such a landslide did apparently occur, modern research shows.At Santa Barbara the big 1812 wave is reported to have reached almost to the presidio located near the junction of Santa Barbara and Canon Perdido streets.

Though no written evidence of such a wave has appeared. Dr. Jarrell Jackman, director of the Santa Barbara Trust for HistoricPrcservation,saysitmay,because hundreds of documents from early presidiodaysremaintobeexamined.Sylvester estimates the wave to have been about 25

Left: De la Guerra Plata served as headciuarters for numerous businesses and tHe Red Cross. Right; PeO' pie slept on cots outside the puhliclihraryhutallbooks survived intact. Beloiv; Our Lady ofSorrouis Church at the northwest comer of Figueroa and State was r^ilt at Sola and Anacapa. A U.S. Marine is on hand to prevent looting.

feet high at Santa Barbara, which would havebroughtitnearlytotheprcsidio.

Wouldn’t such a wave have caused remarkably heavy loss of life and property damage in the lower town ? Not necessarily. The Chumash village at AVest Beach no longer existed and there was probably little or no Spanish settlement outside the presidio’s walls. Peter Howorth, expert on Channel lore, recalls Chumash stories of huge fluctuations in sea level, perhaps orally recording ancient tsunamis. More recently, in 1927,a quake estimated at 7.5

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sent a wave approximately six feet high ashore between Point Arguello and Surf.

The wave did no recorded damage along the bluffs of that largely uninhabited coast, but the quake toppled chimneys and otherwise damaged buildings in near

by Lompoc and buckled a railroad bridge.

Was our 1925 quake, rated at 6.3, our Big One for this century? No one knows. Though predictive techniques are advancing, they are still not much more reliable than that used by Mrs. Donald Myrick’s maid. On the morning of June 29, 1926, the first anniversary of the quake, she told her employer, "There's going to be an earthquake today.”"Why do you say that, Anna?” "Because the preacher said so.” At 3:21 p.m. a sharp shock from somewhere offrhore did in deed hit Santa Barbara, killing three-yearold Colin Orr under a collapsed chim ney,damaging buildings and sending res idents into the streets.

Whenever our Big One comes, it will likely be centered offshore—because the Channel is one of the likeliest places for earthquakes in California—and will proba bly create, among other things, a seismic wave that will unmistakably be on the record.

Acknou/Iedgments 1 am especially indebted to Pamela Post for her article "Recreation Center and Margaret Baylor Inn" in NOTICIAS, Spring 1968 and for her help, and Lori Ritchie’s, in find ing Julia Morgan's account of the earthjuake among Pearl Chase's papers at the UCSB Li brary Department of Special Collections. I am similarly indebted to Michael Redmon, li brarian at the Santa Barbara Historical Soci ety. and to its Santa Barbara earthquake file.to David Myrick; and to Bob Rivers of the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society who provided many additions to my memories of G. Allan Hancock.

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Frederick Hurten Rhead Marianne Baba.

Marianne Bahai is a member ofthe 13th class in Public Historical Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She is currently completing her M.A.thesis and lives in San Francisco. This article resulted from research she conducted for PHR Associates ofSanta Barbara.

Mission Canyon has long served as a sylvan sanctuary in the midst ofthe city; where Santa Barbarans of a century ago walked and pic nicked along the waterfalls of Mission Creek. Although the cas cades of Fern and Seven Falls now usual

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ly run dry, Santa Barbarans still enjoy the serene beauty of Mission Canyon as they stroll through the Mission grounds or the Botanic Garden. Mission Canyon is home to many of the city’s landmarks

such as St. Anthony’s Seminary and the Woman’s Club; but one former Mission Canyon landmark has disappeared. That landmark was the 30-foot high kiln marking the studio of Frederick Hurten Rhead, an influential artist in American art pottery early in this century. Rhead operated a studio pottery at the corner of Foothill and Tornoe Roads in Mission Canyon from 1913 to 1917 and there created pottery prized for its elaborate de sign and unique glazes.

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Frederick Hurten Rhead was born into a

H fine detail.^ In addiH tlon to his design genH ius, Rhead proved

family of potters who ■ had labored at com mercial potteries in Staffordshire, Eng-

^ that American mass production tech niques could success fully merge with high quality artistic workmanship.

At Roseville, molded

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land, for six genera tions. Educated at the Wedgewood Institute

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and Government Art f School, Rhead became || art director at Wardle Art Pottery at the age of 19.In 1902 he emigrated to America and became

Earthenvyare bowl produced at Arequipa, c. 1912. Photo; The Oakland Museum, gift of estate of Helen Hathaway White.

manager at Vancc/Avon Faience,a small art pottery in Tiltonville, Ohio.Two years later, Rhead took a posi tion at Weller Pottery in Zanesville, Ohio, where he developed a popular style known as Jap-Birdimal.^ In 1904 Rhead became art director at Roseville Pottery where his design genius found outlet. He engaged innovative shapes and decoration in his Roseville creations and established himself as a major figure in American art pottery with the creation of the style known as Della Robbia.^ Nature inspired Rhead, who incorpo rated trees, flowers and landscapes into decoration of his work. In Della Robbia ware he revealed his affinity for nature and the influence of the An Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements in his deeply carved and detailed designs. Della Robbia pottery was unique among American art pottery of the time in its bold design and

Photo of Rhead on page 16 was captured by Santa Barbara photographers Carolyn and W. Edwin GleAill, c, 1917. On page 17, the scarab bowl with Mirror Black background dates from around 1915. Photo from The Oakland Museum, gift of the estate of Helen Hathaway White.

shapes designed by Rhead were intimate ly decorated by a troupe of trained young workers. The combination of Rhead’s

designs implemented by skilled techni cians made Della Robbia an aesthetically pleasing and commercially successful design.

Rhead left Roseville in 1908 for a fa culty position at Peoples University in University City, Missouri, where he flourished in the company of distin guished ceramists of the time. After a lec ture tour to California in 1911, Rhead joined Arequipa Pottery in Marin Coun ty, where he and his wife, Agnes, taught pottery to tubercular patients at the Arequipa Sanatorium. Rhead acclimated himself to California by experimenting with native clays and testing glaze for mulas. The artist envisioned a full-scale commercial pottery at Arequipa, but san atorium officials viewed the enterprise chiefly as therapy for patients. Perhaps due to these divergent goals, the artist left Arequipa Pottery in July 1913 to establish his own studio pottery in Santa Barbara.^ Rhead founded the Pottery of Camarata, soon to be incorporated as Rhead Pot tery, in a rustic studio in Mission Can yon. Establishment of this Santa Barbara enterprise marked a period of artistic in dependence for the artist and a departure

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FREDERICK RHEAD from a lifetime of work in commercial

a decorating and display room and offices into the wood frame structure. Wares

potteries. Rhead settled in Santa Barbara not because the area yielded particularly suitable materials or markets, but because

were displayed in the front room, where the artist often worked at his own potter’s wheel. Highly detailed pieces were fin ished in the adjacent decorating room.

Directly behind the studio building, Rhead converted a one-story stucco building adorned with rooftop battle ments into a production facility featuring a wheel room, glazing room, machine room and color room. An attached out-

”it was a beautiful place.”® The pleasant climate of Santa Barbara also allowed for much pottery work to be conducted out of doors. Rhead, who had been frustrated with the production demands and crea tive limitations of commercial potteries delved into his artistry. He found the sylvan setting of Mission Canyon a com fortable and inspiring place to work,"de lightfully situated just outside the town,” yet easily accessible to visitors.® Mission Canyon was home to other area artists such as photographers Carolyn and Ed win Gledhill and Christopher Tornoe, a silversmith, metalworker and carpenter, who built many Mission Canyon bunga lows. Tornoe also built Glendessary, the landmark Tudor manor home of news

South side of the showroom os it looked in 1989.

Note Craftsman styling. PHR Associates.

paperman RobertCameron Rogers.

Rhead adapted a craftsman bungalow located at the corner of Foothill and Tornoe roads as his studio, incorporating

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building held the pottery’s brick muffle kiln. In good weather, pieces were sold out ofdoors beneath Japanese umbrellas.^

Egyptian-influenced scarab design and fish were among his favorite subjeas.

His former wife recalled one instance

Rhead, although a brilliant designer, was not skilled at the wheel. The pottery

when Rhead delayed a dinner party be cause he was using the main course, a fish, as his model and hadn’t quite fin ished his sketches when the dinner guests arrived.

employed several throwers,including Joe Tira, who according to fellow artisan Loiz Whitcomb Rhead-Huyck, could His Mission Canyon pottery also pro produce 20 or more pieces a day. The duced architectural pieces such as fire throwers meticulously executed Rhead’s place tiles, fountains and lighting fix designs.The artist was a perfectionist and tures. Some of his craftsman-like fixtures would carefully examine the shape and adorned magnificent Montecito residen glaze of the pieces,smashing any not pcrces, while others were creat fea to his trained eye. He ed for his friends the Gleddid some of the decorating THE POTTER hills, owners of Glendes himself, although his wife A MONTHLY MAG AZINE DEVOTED sary A set of fireplace tiles Agnes, Loiz Whitcomb,or EXCLUSIVELY TO incised with a stylized fish students often completed decoration of the wares. THOSE INTEREST design was among his most ED IN CERAMICS whimsical creations, and a Nearly all the clay used in favorite of the artist, accord production was nativesome twelve varieties of ing to Loiz Rhead-Huyck.

While at Santa Barbara, clay came directly from the Santa Barbara area.^ One unique and popular design of the pottery was the Mirror Black style.

Rhead had always admired oriental design and after 15 years of exper imentation, succeeded in recreating a glossy black glaze of 16th century China, which he dubbed Mirror Black. He tested an estimated 11,000 combinations of glaz es before-perfecting his Mirror Black for mula.^’’ Mirror Black pieces were popular with wealthy residents of Santa Barbara and Montecito who visited the studio.

Rhead’s work won him a Gold Medal at the San Diego Exposition in 1915.

According to Loiz Whitcomb RheadHuyck, who married the artist in 1917, he would take one subject and make 20 variations of design on it, often choosing to represent intricate subjects such as a peacock. Along with the peacock, an

Rhead also launched a peri odical for clay artisans. The Potter. Although shortlived, the pages of The Potter re veal much about Rhead’s approach to art pottery and his willing ness to share advice with beginning art ists. In a series of articles,"Planning and Operating a Studio Pottery,” Rhead out lined the ideal pottery operation, using his Mission Canyon pottery as an illus trative model.

While his time in residence at Santa Barbara fostered creativity, the finer points of owning and operating a busi ness eluded the anist as the pottery strug gled under financial and managerial diffi culties. A number of commercial potteries recruited Rhead, and he accept ed a position with American Encaustic Tiling Company. He and his new wife, Loiz Whitcomb Rhead, moved east

21

FREDERICK RHEAD when Rhead became the director of re search in the company’s Zanesville plant.

American Encaustic’s chief products were porcelain fixtures, but Rhead threw his energies into developing tile as an ar tistic medium. Loiz Rhead, herself an ac complished artist, designed a series of zo diac tiles for American Encaustic and collaborated with her husband in creating 12

a number of other designs.

The designing partnership ended when the couple split in 1929, soon after Rhead became art director for the Homer Laughlin China Company. While at Ho mer Laughlin, which designed and man ufactured dinnerware for major retailers, Rhead created his famous Fiesta design.

Fiesta tableware, which incorporated bright colors with sleek but simple mod ern design, brought style to the masses and was sold in great quantities from re tailers such as Woolworth’s. Rhead en couraged consumers to set a multi-colored table and promoted "mix and match” col or combinations in place settings. The sales success of Fiesta ware made Rhead a darling of American industry and earned him a place in the history of design in America.Rhead continued his affiliation with Homer Laughlin until he died of cancer November 2,1942.

Portions of Rhead’s pottery studio re main in Mission Canyon. The converted bungalow where Rhead worked at his wheel and displayed his wares still stands near the corner of Foothill and Tbrnoe roads, but his kiln and other workrooms have been demolished. The legacy of Frederick Hurten Rhead’s artistry and the creations of Rhead Pottery, Santa Barbara, are preserved in museum and private col lections throughout the world.

Loiz Rhead-Huyck, whose energies and talents contributed much to Rhead’s success, is herself an accomplished and

acclaimed artist still practicing her craft at the age of 97 in Carpinteria. Her artistic career began at a young age, in Chicago, when family friend Marshall Field took notice of her collection of paper dolls she had drawn as imaginary playmates.Field commissioned young Loiz to create and tint a new plate of dolls and correspond ing outfits each week, which Field print ed and sold in his Chicago department store. Loiz studied art at the Art Institute in Chicago until the age of 12, when her family moved to California. She contin ued her art studies on the West Coast and also worked as a make-up artist for Santa Barbara’s Flying A Studios. When Rhead hired her as an assistant in 1914» she ably decorated small vases and pieces at the pottery, and, in fact, often was left in charge of the place when Rhead excused himself to play tennis or hobnob with u Santa Barbara socialites.

When Loiz Whitcomb and Rhead married and moved east to join American Encaustic Tiling Company in 1918, Loiz embarked on an artistic endeavor unique in American ceramic history. She re vived a delicate porcelain technique

22

known as pate-sur-pate, which had been pioneered in Europe from 1870-1890, IS but had not been produced for decades.

Rhead knew the process, and when American Encaustic gave Loiz her own studio, he introduced her to this lost an technique. Loiz was a skillful sculptor and carver and quickly mastered the deli cate pate-sur-pate technique which in volved carving layer upon layer of porce lain to create stunning cameo-like figures, and exquisitely painstakingly carved in multiple layers of fine porcelain. She was the only Ameri can artist working in this style at that time and to this day is the only American artist to create a series of

NOTICIAS

Fred Rhead and exhibits a studied grace and style which translates to her exqui site art. When asked to reflect on her ca reer and the acclaim garnered by her work,she states emphatically,'Tve had a wonderful time in my life—and I don’t mind poDple reminding me of it.”

NOTES 1. Sharon Dale, Frederick Hurren Rhead: An English Potter in America (Erie; Erie Art Museum,1986), 24-36.

2. Ibid., 53.

3. Ibid., 54.

4. Ibid., 85.

5. "Planning and Oper ating a Studio Pottery,” The Potter 1:2 (January 1917), 62.

6. Ibid., 62.

7. "Planning and Oper ating a Studio Pottery," 16 The Potter 1:2 (January pate-sur-pate work.

1917),62 and The Potter The artist did not i.*3(February 1917),95. create these pieces for 8. Loiz Rhead-Huyck, interview with author commercial release March 23, 1989. but for her own satis9. Paul Evans, Art Pot faaion in creating tery ofthe United States fine and unique (New York; Feingold work. She particular and Lewis, 1989), 235Lois Whitcomb Rhead-Huyck at ly liked to use dancers 236. her home in Carpinteria with an 10. C. M. Gidney, et. al.. as her subjects, perhaps example of the work she did with History of Santa Barbara, Rhead. Photo: Marianne Babal. because their grace and San Luis Obispo and Ven poise translated ele tura Counties, California gantly to the shining white on cobalt por (Chicago; Lewis Publishing Company,1917), celain pieces. The legendary ballet star 683. u. Planning and Operating a Studio Pot Nijinsky posed for her, and her porcelain tery,” The Potter 1:3,115. portrait of ballerina Karsavina now rests 12. Evans, 237, and Dale, 111. in the collection of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. To this day, Loiz Rhead-Huyck shuns the label "artist.” To her, art is an exis tence-life itself. At the age of 97 she still sculpts celebrity portraits and carves her own wooden sculpting tools. She flashes the vivacious personality which charmed

13. Dale,121.

14. Loiz Rhead-Huyck interview with au thor, August 2,1989.

15. Bernard Bumpus,"A Unique Late Flow ering,” The Antique Collector, 60:7 (July 1989), 26.

16. Loiz Rhead-Huyck interview with au thor, August 2,1989 and Bumpus,32.

23

FREDERICK RHEAD

Rhead in Santa Barbara

Patricia G. Cleek Patricia Cleek, a former Society Trustee, has been involved in local history research for some time. She is a Society docent and a volunteer interviewer in the oral histo ry programs of both the Historical Sodety and the Santa Barbara Museum 0/Art.

Soon after Frederick Hurten Rhead’s arrival in Santa Bar bara, he became involved in

THE

RHEAD STUDIOS

community aff^rs. He made connections with the Santa Barbara Normal School to teach classes. The July 15, 1913, issue of the Morning Press announced that "Chris topher Tbrnoe’s Art Metal Studio to be Scene of New

is of a high artistic character.”

Rhead may have been in spired to work out the for mulas for his best known glazes, such as the high gbss Mirror Black and a matte

it

black called Elephant’s Breath, by studying the oriental pottery in Nathan Bentz's shop on State Street. It was Mr. Bentz who promot ed Rhead’s work not only in Santa Barbara, but also in the

Enterprise.”

The Pottery of the CamaraBentz Art Rooms belonging to his brother in downtown ta... is about to be incorporat ed. The beginning will be a MISSION CANON SANTA Los Angeles. small one but it is hoped to BARBARA CALIFORNIA In December 1914, Rhead have the fires in the first kiln — had an impressive exhibition started during August. Mr. at the Bentz store with 200 people attend Tornoe is at present getting the property into condition.... Mr.Rhead will be giving ing the opening. It was highly praised in the project his entire attention. Only Cali the MornlngPress: fornia clay will be used and he is of the The reprcxluction of these famous glazes is opinion that there are three varieties close to really a renaissance of this branch of art for Santa Barbara that can be used. which Mr. Rhead is to be credited. For In the middle of December of the same years he had studied and experimented as year, Rhead had a gathering of interested had many other potters, in the effort to achieve the same result effected by the old visitors to see the opening of his kiln and Chinese artists in the same line without the removing of the fired pieces, which avail until a short time ago, when complete was still a novelty. There was avid curi success crowned his effects, until now his osity since Rhead pottery was"a compar reproductions are of as good quality in all atively new industry in Santa Barbara respects as are the originals. Since the best days of Chinese porcelain making, 150 to meeting with high success, as the product

24

NOTICIAS 200 years ago, no one heretofore has suc ceeded in producing these glazes—and par ticularly the mirror black—in any but the crudest fashion. The usual effect has pro duced only a mere lacquer or enamel fin ish—a surface application. In the specimens shown yesterday, as in the ancient objects in this line,the black is in the glaze. Every object within its range is outlined as in a mirror, and the natural colors reflected, making a most beautiful effect. Of this class there were over 30 specimens, all of different designs and sizes, a mirror black vase 15 inches high and ten inches in its greatest diameter being the largest objea.

This vase was the center of attraction in a display very admirable for its excellent fea tures.

A year later there was another"annual” exhibition at the end of November at the Nathan Bentz shop. There was an added attraction with Rhead’s assistant, Mr. Tira, giving a pottery demonstration in Diehl’s grocery window. Rhcad was praised for being a true craftsman using California clays, an early model of the potter's wheel and building the "finest possible muffle kiln.” Again his celebrated Mirror Blacks were featured.

Rhead exhibited elsewhere both locally and in California. In the fall of 1914, he showed three dozen pieces of his ceramics in the Santa Barbara County exhibit at the 6th Distria Agricultural Association at Exposition Park in Los Angeles. At the end of November, he displayed 50 pieces of his ^ttery at the Recreation Center in Santa Barbara with other local craftsmen who worked in decorated porcelain, metal work and illumination on parchment. W. Edwin and Carolyn Gledhill displayed some of their work in color photoraphy.

Rhead also showed his work in the lobby of the Arlington Hotel to the guests. Per haps his most noteworthy success in this period was winning a prize at the 1915 Panama-Cahfornia Exposition in San Diego.

The latter pan of January 1917, Rhead

sent out invitations to an exhibition of his pottery at his studio at Mission Canyon.

This was to celebrate the return of his "Gold Medal” vases and tiles from San Diego,as well as the opening ofa new stu dio. It must have been about this time that he purchased a large new kiln, according to Loiz Whitcomb Rhead-Huyck.

Despite the critical acclaim, the busi ness did not exaaly flourish and Rhead decided to lake a position with American Encaustic Tiling Company in Ohio. In July 1918 an auction was held at his pot tery plant in Mission Canyon.It marked the termination of"a business which has had a long and piauresque career in Santa Barbara and has been a center of keen in terest to tourists and curio seekers." The newspaper mentioned that Rhead was leaving Santa Barbara to take up commer cial pottery because of the wartime situa tion when arts and crafts were dispensed with as unnecessary luxuries. "Mr. Rhead came here Eve years ago and took over the pottery works which bear his name and his individually made pottery articles have been colleaed as souvenirs by travellers all over the world.”

Rhead remarkably spanned in his career Art Nouveau” characteristics in England,a short period of Arts and Crafts in California,culminating in Santa Barba ra, and finally a commercial period in Ohio for another quarter of a century. He had extraordinary versatility as adesigner, craftsman and ceramics director in indus try and was known as an expert in glazes.

Acknou/ledgments I u/isH to ackno\juledge Stella Haverland Rouse for her article on Rhead that appeared in the August 23. 1972 edition of the Santa Barbara N' e\/os~Press and to thank Loiz Whitcomb Rhead'Huyck for her cooperation in allowing me to interview her in July 1989.

Photos & art on pages 20, 21 and 23 courtesy of Clifton Smith and his copy of The Potter.

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NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine of the Santa Baiusara Historical Society P.O. Box 578 Santa Barbara, California 93102

Address Correction Requested Forwarding Postage Guaranteed

CONTENTS: Pg.i: Santa Barbara Earthquake

by RobertEaston Pg.i6; Frederick Hurten Rheac byMarianneBabal Pg.23; Rhead in Santa Barbara

by Patricia Cleek