This month’s parade and Arcadia’s Best Patriotic Festival was the first of its kind since the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce created the Arcadia Peach Blossom Festival that ran three years from 1949 – 1951.
The first of three Arcadia Peach Blossom Festival parades in Arcadia in 1949 featured a team of horses pulling a stagecoach. Photo courtesy of the Arcadia Public Library from the Arcadia Historical Society's 2008 book Images of America: Arcadia.
The first event on March 26, 1949, was combined with the dedication of the then-new City Hall and civic center (the current one still used in 2011), according to a souvenir program provided to ArcadiasBest.com by The Arcadia Public Library, which also provided the picture from the Festival at right that was published in the Arcadia Historical Society’s 2008 book, Images of America: Arcadia. The name came from 46 flowering peach trees planted on a 30′ x 300′ strip of land behind City Hall as a World War II veterans memorial, according to a President’s Report by Carol Libby in the November 2007 edition of the Caminos newsletter of the Arcadia Historical Society. The parade route was lengthy, starting on Naomi east of Baldwin at the “west Arcadia car garden” and running to Baldwin, turning north to Huntington Drive, all the way east past Santa Anita to Second Avenue, and south to Alta Street.
The second Arcadia Peach Blossom Festival, held on Saturday, March 25, 1950, was tied to the dedication of Memorial Grove at the rear of City Hall. The schedule of events for the 1950 program began with a golf tournament at 7 a.m., followed by a tennis tournament at 9 a.m. and a parade at 10 a.m. Concessions sponsored by “various service, civic and patriotic groups” were available all day. A “chicken picnic” was held at 12 noon, followed by lawn bowling and children’s games at 1 p.m., an L.A. County band concert at 2 p.m., “Indian dances” by “Jim Pahawk – White Dove” at 3 p.m., a folk dance exhibition at 3:30 p.m., and the dedication of Memorial Grove at 4 p.m. The evening featured a Peach Blossom Ball at 8 p.m. at Santa Anita Park’s paddock room and grandstand area of the Los Angeles Turf Club, including square dancing, ballroom dancing, and entertainment. A listing of committee chairmen indicates there was also a Peach Blossom Queen contest.
In 1951 the event was held on March 31 and included most of the same elements, with the program including a photo of the Peach Blossom Queen candidates, a contest apparently organized by committee chaiman M.T. Watson of the “Jr. Chamber of Commerce.”
— By Scott Hettrick