Floral Festival - Santa Barbara, Cal. (1895)

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Photographed and PueLiaHco or N. H. RCED. 1895

N€TICIA5 SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Occasional Papers, No. 8

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Reina de LOS Flores.

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NE might as well attempt to tell a blind man, who had lost his sense of smell, what a rose was like, as to attempt to describe the Santa Barbara Flower Parade to one who has not seen it.

Right here in lovely Santa Barbara-by-the-Sea, is a festival in comparison to which, as regards amount of flowers and beautiful designs in decorations, the festivals at Nice or Florence, over which people have raved for centuries, are but as a country fair.

The moonlight upon a summer sea is not more ineffably lovely and more uplifting and more indescribable than this fair dream. But let the press speak the day after.

The Marshal and his men—pictures, every one of them—rode magnificent, sleek horses, gay with flowers, but no one cheered. The crowd was getting its long breaths ready. Then came the marines, 120 of them, all in spick and span sailor suits, drawing a great warship—a perfect model of the Olympia—in snowwhite roses. The band struck up “ Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” and then came the first cheer of the day. Then came a great wheeling of bicycles—bicy cles so covered with flowers that you wondered how the riders made the wheels go. There was one man whose wheel was all violets—deep purple violets. His hat was of violets, and his coat was belted with them. Behind him came a marigold wheel, then a Marguerite wheel, then one in Duchess roses, then a great slipper made of white Marguerites and, propelled by the rider, who sat inside the slipper, dressed like an old woman. Behind the bicycles came the float. Next, shut your eyes and think the song, ‘‘ I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,” think of that song and let your imagination run riot, and you may have some faint idea of the delicate sylvan beauty of these ‘‘ floats.’’ I hate to call them by that name, which has been made a synonym for hideously painted canvas monstrosities in every procession I ever saw, but there doesn’t seem to beany' other name for them. Picture a g^reat garden of dewy pink roses and in the garden a lovely dark-haired woman in a Grecian gown of pure white. At the entrance of the bower where the aphrodite sat were little pink-cheeked Cupids riding great swans of white roses. When you try to describe that it sounds artificial and hideous and Fourth-of-July paradish, but it was unspeakably dainty and ideal when you saw it. The float behind that was in heliotrope. There Music sat enshrined, not a great, beefy “Music” with red arms and powdered nose, but a beautiful, slender girl. Where do all the pretty girls come from here?

And then came a white rose float, and then one in yellow mustard, and then one in bamboo and nasturtiums—dreams of delight, every one of them. The attention to detail with which these floats were made was little short of marvelous. There was one carriage of red carnations, for instance. It was drawn by jet black horses, garlanded with glowing carnations and guided with shining ribbons the exact shade of the flowers. The long wreath of flower-laden vehicles moved in and out from two o’clock until the sun’s rays began to grow level upon the green hills.

The prizes were awarded, the bands played, the people rose in their seats and pelted each other with roses, and with violets, and lilies and purple wisteria.

The children laughed and ttie men and women sighed to think of the dreary old work-a-day world that lay beyond the end of the golden day.

Annie Laurie.

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The Golden Chariot—15,000 La Marque Roses.

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The Gondola.

Body of Float decorated with Wild Lupina and Wisteria—60,000 Lyna Savage RoSes.

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White Marguerites.

Decorated with Yellow and White Marguerites.

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Japanese Basket in Old Rose Color—Decorated with Pelargonium.

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Duchess Roses.

Calla Lilies.

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Yellow Marguerites.

Red Carnations.

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The Music Float-Decorated with Wisteria.

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State Street Arches.

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Wagonette Decorated with Mustard.

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15,000 Duchess Roses.

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Marguerites.

Decorated with Beauty of Glizenwood Roses.

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Duchess Roses.

Wild Mustard. i

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Spanish Farm Wagon Decorated with Brodi.-ea.

Marguerites.

Brownies.

Wild Mustard.

Marguerites.

QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 136 EAST DE

LA GUERRA STREET

Non*Profit Org. U. S. Postage PAID Santo Barbara, Calif.

Permit No. 534

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA

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