What's in a Name?

Our blogs here at The Tribune/SanLuisObispo.com are undergoing redesigns and Photos From the Vault is on deck.

When the blog was launched it was an experiment in seeing if other people were curious about what was in the dusty negative boxes in the back room as I was.
Turns out you are. I was surprised to learn there were page views from every continent except Antarctica.
Stupid penguins.

Thanks for all your comments and page views.
If you have any ideas for improving the content as always feel free to post a comment or send e-mail. Several of the posts have been updated in response to your questions and comments.

I went with the first title idea that hit me, but you may have a better one.
The idea to get across is that these are old photos from the files of The Tribune, formerly known as the Telegram-Tribune. The photos range from the nostalgia of yo-yo contests to historic memorial services for national leaders.

I like to think of it as thinly sliced, well aged moments of time from the Central Coast wrapped in a warm, freshly made blog and seasoned with a few snarky comments.

Trust me, it's hard to get it into a short snappy title.

I can't offer you any more than the lasting satisfaction of knowing you have changed the Internet for the better. If I get enough entries I can post an online poll in a week, but keep in mind that I will use my powers as super delegate to make the final decision.

Send me your ideas at dmiddlecamp@thetribunenews.com

Nominations close at noon May 19, 2008.

November 1963 - Kennedy slain by assassin

November 22, 1963

As promised in the last post, here is coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination. There are no local photos but the mythology that has since surrounded the event makes real time coverage interesting reading. Click on the newspaper pages to view a larger image.

There were trivial stories, like the jinx that all presidents elected in 20 year intervals died in office since 1840. Ronald Reagan broke the streak by surviving an assassination attempt. (Gerald Ford survived two attempts but his story won't fit the framework of this trivia.)

As the days pass more questions come to light and by the time the president is buried there are front page stories headlined “Was there a plot? Investigations start” and “Clouds of suspicion, criticism over Dallas”. The last story was datelined from London, papers overseas were quicker to look for a plot rather than the lone gunman stories circulated in the United States.

Lastly an apology to the loyal Photos From the Vault readers, I have not been able to post as often last week due to a combination of vacations, sick days, spot news and training new folks. The goal is give you three posts a week but it may be less than that for the next couple of weeks while we work on getting things back in stride.

1963 ATT Building

BURIAL SITE…Workmen of Millie and Severson, Long Beach contractor on the American Telephone and Telegraph’s “hardened” transcontinental cable base in Los Osos Valley, are getting well along with their work. When completed next summer, this great underground structure providing 43,000 square feet of space will be buried as a measure of national defense.

November 30, 1963

My grandmother was still sharing a party line with her brother at this time, but ATT was working on building the network.

You may not notice this two-story building, driving by it on Los Osos Valley road. It’s the one buried underground. This was the last link in a transcontinental cable system connecting Japan and the United States.

Over 1,300 tons of steel and 6,600 cubic yards of concrete went into the building. It included air conditioning and two 500-kilowatt electric generators. The installation cost about $200 million. In the era before satellite communication and during the Cold War it was considered “prime military importance.” It was designed to withstand a nuclear blast short of a direct hit.

Sorry San Luis Obispo.

When fully equipped the new system would add about 9,000 circuits to the 15,000 now spanning the nation. It was scheduled be operational in 1965.

During this same time period the front pages of every newspaper in the nation were filled with news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Those pages will be the next post.

1965 Cayucos Highway 1

June 2, 1965

Everywhere you looked in the 1960's, highways were being built. Eisenhower administration pushed to build highways in the 1950's and that tradition continued into the '60s. In the summer of 1965 the Cayucos bypass was half finished.

The project included three bridges and a huge earth moving operation. Resident engineer John Robertson said that 90,000 cubic yards of dirt and rock had to be moved after April rains caused slides in the construction area.

One of the quirks of the California highway system is that money seemed to be easier to get for north-south roads than east-west roads. Highway 46 is still two lanes for most of the Paso Robles to I-5 corridor though construction has begun to widen it.

Compare prices, today 5 miles of highway between Airport and Geneseo roads costs 35 million dollars to build. The Highway 46 project was more than 10 years in the planning process. Budgeting started in 1997.

In the mid-1960's 2.6 million dollars built the Cayucos bypass over much more difficult ground.

1965 Sandspit Seeding

Crop dusters dropped 9,000 pounds of barley grain on the sandspit from a souped-up World War II Stearman biplane. (Telegram-Tribune photos by Jack Wilson)

April 28, 1965

This is one of those stories from the past that would never happen today.
The brand new city of Morro Bay was involved in squabbles with the county over ownership of mudflats and the sandspit. The state park system we know today was in a fledgling state. Enter developers, mostly from the Bakersfield area, who had a lease from the county for a development on the sandspit.

Quoting the story:

MORRO BAY—Nine thousand pounds of barley seed was air-dropped over 96 acres of the sandspit across from Morro Rock Tuesday, a pretty odd and barren ground to plant anything.

If it sprouts and grows, it will serve to secure thousands of square yards of sand dredged up onto the sandspit this summer during the course of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Morro Bay harbor dredging operation.

Operation barley seed was carried out early Tuesday morning by Jim Delara and Jim Brickey, crop duster pilots from Warren Crop Duster Service of Santa Maria operating from a base set up at the foot of Morro Rock.

The project was sponsored by Green-West Acres Corporation, holders of a dubious lease from San Luis Obispo County on the sandspit acreage.

Six years ago the corporation first entertained its idea for a major marina development on the Morro Bay sandspit opposite the Rock, but yesterday’s barley seeding was the most evident activity of its marina dream to date.

A lawsuit by Morro Bay homeowners had halted the development but the stockholders had high hopes. They wrote a check to the Greater Morro Bay Harbor Development Association for $1,000 though membership cards only cost $6.

The California Coastal Commission would be brought into existence by California voters in about 7 years.

I am told that some of the sandspit is still in private ownership.
Today there would be warning flags on so many levels, how many reasons can you come up with for why this would not be allowed today?

1965 Obscene Books Confiscated

Sgt. L.S. Mosinski and deputy Donald Allen sift through the tattered remains of more than 3,000 obscene booklets found on Highway 1.

May 31, 1965

About 3,000 obscene booklets fell off a truck on Highway 1 about sixty miles north of San Luis Obispo and were recovered by sheriff’s deputies. They put the value at $75,000 based on the $25 price on the 37-page booklet. That is a big price tag in an era when the newspaper is selling for 10 cents a copy. The booklets were printed in France and in an attempt to give the pamphlet authority the author was listed as Dr. Carlton Farquhar. If it fell off your truck, the deputies would like to talk to you.

1965 Cal Poly Enrollment

January 5, 1965

My first two quarters at Cal Poly, class registration was held in Mott Gym. Hopefuls would walk in with a penciled in wish list of classes and walk around from table to table picking up punch cards.

The arena was filled with hundreds of students and every half hour another group would be let in. It was a Darwinian exercise in trying to fill your schedule before all the cards were pulled from the classes you wanted.

As the day went on more and more students could be found sitting in the sawdust on the floor erasing holes in their paper grids trying to fill them with enough units.

No one missed it when the 1980’s ushered in the computer age with CAR, computer assisted registration.

Here in 1965 the fees were an amazing $25.50. With all the bells and whistles you could get out for less than 30 bucks, provided you could pull your cards without losing your sanity. If you want health insurance that’ll be an extra 6 bucks, pay at the door.