World’s Shortest Parade Has Come a Long Way!
Parade Founder: Lucile Aldrich -by John Hibble
is America’s birthday and many communities have parades to celebrate that fact. The freedom to determine our own future was at the center of the founding of our country. The “World’s Shortest Parade” in Aptos is also about selfdetermination but it was not originally about America’s birthday. The Granite Rock Company, founded in 1900, has been an important part of the history of Santa Cruz County. The great construction boom in houses and highways in the late 1950s and ‘60s meant that Granite had to build new cement batching plants to supply the need for concrete throughout the region. Cement, sand, and aggregate are stored at the batching plant and mixed to order, then sent out in giant “cement mixer” trucks to the construction sites. In 1959, the last remnants of the apple industry in Aptos Village closed down. Aptos was an industrial town with no industry. Granite Rock Company purchased land in the Village and applied to the county for a zoning change to build a batching plant. That is why the street across from the Post Office is named Granite Way. There is nothing wrong with a concrete plant but no one in Aptos
Village wanted it in their back yard. Locals rose up against the proposal. Concerned women formed the “Aptos Ladies Tuesday Evening Society” and organized themselves to defeat the zoning change. The group included Lucille Aldrich, Anne Isaacs, Babe Toney, Peggy Marceron, Jessie Elliott, Birdie Jacobs, Beverly Palmer, Nola Gales, Pat Thompson, Joyce West, Peggy Hunter, Mrs. Harrison Smith, Dee Small, Betty Jo Jensen, and Nita Jellison. Their efforts were successful. To celebrate their victory, a barbecue was held on Memorial Day, 1961, in the field next to the railroad track. The event was so popular that a parade and pot continued on page 16
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