Ed Langlo - Motorcycling in Santa Barbara County

IMAGES
of America

MOTORCYCLING IN
SANTA BARBARA
COUNTY

Isaac Walton Field was located on Foothill Road just west of San Marcos Pass. This is the cover of a program for a road race event held there in November 1940. Inside, the entrants are listed as Elmer Black, James Reinesto, Clarence Langlo, Ken Mullaney, Ernest Snow, Pint Wadell, J. Herkimer, Walter Docker, Bob Mullaney, Philip Cordero, Harry Smith, Jimmy Lee, Tom Smiley, Fritz Vier, and T. Hanson. (Courtesy of Phyllis Black.)

ON THE COVER: Several historic elements can be seen in the background as referee and flagman Clarence Langlo signals the start of a motorcycle race at Pershing Park. Behind him is the roofline of a garage once used to store Santa Barbaras trolley cars. Behind the eucalyptus trees was the former site of the Dibblee Mansion (demolished in 1932) and is now the home of Santa Barbara City College. (Courtesy of Ed Langlo.)

IMAGES
of America

MOTORCYCLING IN
SANTA BARBARA
COUNTY

Ed Langlo and Tony Baker

Copyright 2016 by Ed Langlo and Tony Baker
ISBN 978-1-4671-1723-4
Ebook ISBN 9781439657379

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939197

For all general information, please contact Arcadia Publishing:
Telephone 843-853-2070
Fax 843-853-0044
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For customer service and orders:
Toll-Free 1-888-313-2665

Visit us on the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com

This book is dedicated to all the members of the Alumni Club for their extensive contributions to its content.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I first want to offer my sincere thanks to someone who was there at the onset and at age 92 is still assisting me in assembling this book. Rutledge Putty Mills has been invaluable in my bid to preserve Santa Barbaras motorcycling history. And to all the members of the Alumni Clubmany of them posthumouslythank you for being there. Walter Docker, Tony Rios, Howard Mills, Bob Mullaney, Jim Mills, Donald Crawford, Bob Snow, and Paul Lopez, thank you for allowing me access to your photo albums, news articles, race programs, and especially the memories and firsthand stories of the way it was. A special thanks goes to my better half, Teri, for her patience and assistance with the page and chapter layout. Phyllis Black, for all of your and Buds history, thanks for the memories. Marsha and Maureen, thank you for all the Mullaney history. Bill Shalhoob and Michele Hoffman, thank you for all your help. My thanks are extended to Katherine McCracken for her close reading of the text. K.C. Kenzel and Dave Blunk, thanks for providing so many photographs. Gil Trevino, thank you for all your tech support. Trevor Dunne and Sheryl Schroeder, thank you for your enthusiasm and access to Mullaneys. Jeanne La Berge Rios, thanks for all your support. Michael Redmon of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, thank you for assisting in research. Thanks go to my coauthor, Tony Baker, for initiating this whole process. Special thanks go to D. Rocky for technical advice. I would like to express my gratitude to Matt Todd, Stacia Bannerman, and all the staff at Arcadia; without you, our book could not have come to fruition.

INTRODUCTION

The elderly gentleman with thinning white hair is sitting intently in an Adirondack chair on the covered wooden porch of Silver Crest retirement home. Hanging on his fervent words is a thin, bright-eyed lady resident in a motionless porch swing. I shifted all my weight to the kick starter, he said, and the engine roared to life. I felt the vibration through the handle-grips, then twisted the throttle beyond my comfort level, but the increasing wind in my hair urged me on to higher speeds. I hear that fading thunderous sound in my dreams most every night. If I had but one more chance, if I could go back and change just one thing, I would go back to my youth and buy that Harley-Davidson.

Most of us commiserate when reading such a tale. The people, places, events, and racetracks expounded on in the following pages are of the cut that lived that dream.

In the days before World War II, there were no computers or Internet to while away your time on. There were no televisions and most telephones were on a party line and permanently attached to a wall. America was in the midst of a depression, but the spirits of its people were on another course. People were often forced to improvise. You had to create your own activities, and on the central coast of California, fast motorcycles were an exciting means of doing just that. One of the first Harley dealers in Santa Barbara, located at 21 West Ortega Street, was operated by James Slaybaugh (who in 1947 would usher in the Carpinteria Thunderbowl). Slaybaughs establishment appears in the 1915 City Directory as Agent the Harley-Davidson. In the early 1920s, Harley-Davidson Sales Company was located at 102 East Haley Street. In 1931, Francis Arthur Mullaney would open the doors of his dealership at 223 Anacapa Street. He moved to 21 West Montecito Street and was followed in 1945 by John Gales Motorcycle Shop at 222 Helena Avenue, while Mullaneys transitioned to Indian motorcycles. Swedes Motor Sports Center emerged as the Harley dealer around 1949 at the northeast corner of State Street and La Cumbre Road before relocating to 19 West Gutierrez Street.

In 1924, Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycle enthusiasts united to form the Santa Barbara Motorcycle Club. The new club held American Motorcycle Association (AMA) charter number 35. To put that into perspective, the Los Gauchos motorcycle club, also of Santa Barbara, registered with the AMA on September 16, 1949, and was issued number 1566.

If you listen to the firsthand stories of the men who lived those times, they will tell you about the good old days. Imagine yourself for a moment sitting in a dimly lit steak house, in a booth with diamond-tufted red vinyl upholstery, known by most locals simply as Harrys. Its a gathering of old friends and surviving members of the original Santa Barbara Motorcycle Club, now known as the Alumni Club. The men at the table are 80 to 90 years old, with white hair and scars to prove that they rode motorcycles in competition, some professionally. Ninety-one-year-old Walter Docker is reliving an incident during the Gibraltar Dam Endurance Run in 1937, when a car came over the hill from the Santa Ynez Valley north of Santa Barbara and ran two competitors off the road. He says that in the early 1930s, the competition started at the base of San Marcos Pass, running several miles up the winding public road to Gibraltar Camp. Thats when 85-year-old Rutledge Putty Mills, a seasoned veteran, stops him and says, It started where? Its evident right then that someone has to preserve this part of history, or when these veterans pass away, theyll take with them the knowledge and stories of those early days.

The pages of this book are an effort to do just thatpreserve the good old days. What was it like to start up the switchbacks of the old stagecoach route (now San Marcos Pass) at the stroke of midnight in January in a timed endurance run to Gibraltar Dam? How exhilarating was it to ride at Pershing Park Stadium on a Harley-Davidson version of a speedway bike with the end of a Studebaker bumper strapped to your left foot for a skid plate? Didnt you need a permit to put on event of that caliber in a city park?