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For the past and present Lake Arrowhead crews

Taboma

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These are not mine, in fact all the many boxes of Lake Arrowhead pics and 8mm movies from the early 50's into the early 70's taken by my dad were lost in the 07' fire.
But being retired I enjoy searching the internet for old pictures of areas of interest and I happened across these, so figured I'd share a few I collected.
Most of these are from 1929, you'll notice a stark absence of any docks, homes and powered boats.

Race Day 1929, look at all the people and in1929, driving to Lake Arrowhead was an all day adventure from most So Cal destinations. I'm sure most Arrowheadians will recognize this as the Village Point.

Lake Arrowhead raceday 1929.png


Lake Arrowhead Raceday 1929.jpg


Lake Arrowhead Village 1929.jpg


Sikorsky S38-A "Flying Fish" ride anybody ?? I notice the sign on the plane states Los Angeles to Catalina Island --- Whoo Hooo, that would be fun.
Lake Arrowhead Sikorsky S38-A Flying Fish-3.jpg


Lake Arrowhead Sikorsky S38-A Flying Fish-2.jpg

Lake Arrowhead Sikorsky S38-A Flying Fish.jpg


Now before everybody starts hollering, where's all the women at --- here's the 1929 version of the Channel Crew 😁 Rowdy looking bunch if you ask me, but damn, those girls are hot 😘
Lake Arrowhead Beauties 1929.jpg


Now fast forward to 1937 and we'll do a bit of water skiing --- well OK, Aquaplaning, but any way you cut it, that's one wide single. 🤣

Lake Arrowhead water skiing 1937.JPG
 

rivermobster

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I miss the old Arrowhead Village. I haven't been since it burned down. Cool pics!
 

Taboma

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I'll share a few more that may be of interest, then I'll share a great link where I discovered this great resource of these very old Lake Arrowhead pics.
The few I'm posting I'm taking a few minutes to enhance a bit to improve the lighting and quality, these are very old pictures.

As a Blue Jay Bay, Lakeside Trailer Park class of 53' to 78', here's one I find really fun. This is 1929 taken from what the photographer is calling Blue Jay Hill. This is looking out at what I knew as Totem Pole point (Now really big friggin house point) on the left, Meadow Bay, out to Hamiltair Point (Or what we knew as the Judges stand point), way out center is the high bluff where my Dad's racing buddy's " Easy Way, Hard Way" house was later built, but the really cool feature is the very barren Island center right. Look how small the trees are !!!

Lake Arrowhead from Blue Jay Hill 1929.jpg
 

Taboma

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For Rivermobster, and those of us who remember how it was, and some of us who owe a huge, heartfelt gratitude to the place for ushering us into manhood. 😍

Three Cheers to the Old Village, 1922 to 1979, 🥳🥳🥳 these from circa 1947.

Lake Arrowhead Village 1947.JPG


Lake Arrowhead Village 1947-2.JPG
 

Taboma

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Here's a couple of circa 1929 & 1935 boating pics.

This is the same group I posted the close up of previously. The boat's name was Graceful, based on the windshield design I'm inclined to think it's possibly a 1925 Hacker Craft. Did more checking, and I now believe the boat is a 1928 22' Chris Craft Cadet.
Village side of what is today, Hamiltair in the background.

LA Motorboat Graceful 1929.jpg



Now this next pic, I think this boat is cool as hell, I'd love to own it just as it sits. Here's the caption.

LA Outboard Hydro Caption.JPG


LA  Outboard Hydro.JPG
 
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Taboma

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And last for today, the Ashbridge Flyer --- which other than this picture, remains a mystery. From what I can see if
the engine, it's for sure interesting. He's towing a guy on an Aquaplane, although nobody's paying him any attention. 🤣

Pretty cool boat and again this seems be roughly circa 1929.

LA Ashbridge Flyer.jpg
 

welldigger00

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I’d give anything to go back to that time up here. It’s a trip, the trees and hillsides and such still look like those pics in the unpopulated areas off the backside in places.
 

rivermobster

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For Rivermobster, and those of us who remember how it was, and some of us who owe a huge, heartfelt gratitude to the place for ushering us into manhood. 😍

Three Cheers to the Old Village, 1922 to 1979, 🥳🥳🥳 these from circa 1947.

View attachment 1081558

View attachment 1081559

Holy chit...

I would drive up there by myself on the weekend nights. Cool bar. Great bands. Easy women. Good times!!!

Thanks for bringing back the memories...

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
 

Taboma

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Holy chit...

I would drive up there by myself on the weekend nights. Cool bar. Great bands. Easy women. Good times!!!

Thanks for bringing back the memories...

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
You talking the Village Chalet ? The Sportsman up in Cedar Glen was always fun as well.
But long before that, us teens were rockin to ole Dick Dale and the Deltones at the outdoor Village Pavilion.
How cool is that, borrow Dad's boat, you and your buddy park that right out front at the village docks. Meet some flatlander gals and treat them to a night cruise and eventually over to Totem Pole bay. Silently drift and watch the girls freak out when the resident Beaver smacked his tail next to the boat, protesting our intrusion. Good Lord they'd scream in terror 🤣
If God granted me the opportunity to revisit a period on my timeline, that would surely be my choice. 🥰
 

Taboma

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Great pictures! Where is the link?
Here ya go


This same site has so many other collections of vintage and historical pictures it's almost overwhelming.
As an example, the Otis Marston Colorado River Collection, which chronicles the Colorado river from it's source to the Gulf of Baja, from the first Powell Exploration, up to and shortly after the completion of Glen Canyon Dam (1963). That one collection is 1502 pages, with a total of approx 36,000 (Yes, Thirty Six Thousand) images to scan through. In that collection, I found pictures of an old family close friend, Eddie Jaun who successfully ran the Grand Canyon in a Chris Craft, from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead in the early 50's, and he never mentioned it. He owned the North Shore Marina during my youth and after his retirement his son Wilmer took the reigns.

No worries, the Lake Arrowhead collection isn't nearly as large, maybe 20 pages if I recall, many of horseback riders and fires.
Also, when you click on a picture, often it links you to a different digital library, usually there it will allow you to expand it.
There's a few that link you to USC Digital Library, a great site, but a pain in the ass compared to Huntington Library as an example.

Anyway, have fun !!!!

Found and watched that older Huell Howser video this morning, where he's guided by a group 185' down into the Tower Tunnel, very cool.
 

Taboma

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OK, let's see a show of hands if you caught any of the Saturday Midnight "Spook Night" movies at the Arrowhead Village Cinema ? 👻👻 😱


My buddy and I were probably 14, the way we'd "Game" our parents is, we'd arrange an overnight campout on the island. Parents would drop us off in the boat around dusk, then we'd set up camp. But hidden in the reeds, we had nailed a couple of 2x12's together and before midnight we'd float our clothes across, change, then hike the lake trail from there into the village. We'd goof around the village a bit, then head into the midnight spook show.
When it got out, we'd hit Dennys and grab a bear claw or some yummy pastry, then hike the lake trail back to the island. Of course the hike back was always an exciting adventure, because of course we couldn't help but re-tell the movie plot and imagine monsters jumping into our flashlight beams and hear things in the darkness behind us. First night we came across numerous illuminate eyes staring back on us, we liked to shit our pants. 😳 We jumped, the Racoon family jumped, it was complete chaos for a bit. 🤣

Minature golf, the Amazing Penny Arcade, that world simply no longer exists.

What an amazing place to spend our summers. 😘

Lake Arrowhead Village Cinema.JPG
 

Taboma

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Came across the pic, thought this was pretty cool. So I did some more research to find out more about it.
Looks like they were doing a promo up at Lake Arrowhead, I was there during that period (apparently 1960ish), but can't recall seeing one.
Socially, it looks FUN 😁 You might want to hit a lot of rollers 😜
Lake Arrowhead Powered Aquaplane-2.jpg


The Power Ski.JPG


The Power Ski -1.JPG
 

Taboma

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I thought this was a really nice winter scene of the Village circa 1952. I always thought Lake Arrowhead was so beautiful in the snow. Before I was old enough to drive, and even occasionally after, I used to love hiking up to Blue Jay in the snow to spend the evening ice skating or visiting a beautiful young lady who lived in Blue Jay.

Lake Arrowhead Village 1952.JPG


Hard to find vintage pics of old Blue Jay, but I did find a couple. This winter scene with the old Jensen's market and their amazing "Ole Country Bakery" brought back a flood of memories.
Spent many an early Sunday morning hiking up to Blue Jay to get a fresh out of the oven loaf of Sheepherder Bread for my mom, and donut for myself of course. 🥰
Not sure the year, other than a 54' Plymouth parked out front. I'm editing this to add ---- Somebody (Not me) previously added the Population sign onto this image, it was as I recall as you came into town up the road from the Skating Rink --

Lake Arrowhead Blue Jay Jensens Market mid-50's.jpg


Post card, again, only clue to the year is the 55' Desoto parked in front of the Café.

Lake Arrowhead Blue Jay 1955-56.jpg
 

Taboma

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I’d give anything to go back to that time up here. It’s a trip, the trees and hillsides and such still look like those pics in the unpopulated areas off the backside in places.
Even when I was a pre-teen at Arrowhead my buddy and I would motor over to Meadow Bay in his prow-bowed aluminum Arkansas Traveler and try to catch calves. Thankfully, we never actually caught one, I think the youthful folly was we were going to ride one, seemed to amuse the cows looking on. :oops: 🤣

Orchard Bay, over past the village, actually had an apple orchard. We'd stop in there, grab a bunch of hard little green mountain apples that had fallen, load them in the boat, so would the Purcell boys, then we'd head out and have apple fights, performed similar to Knights jousting.
Little fuckers hurt like hell when you got hit. 🤪

Take flashlights and go explore the Hook Creek tunnel at the back of Emerald Bay, I've often wondered if it is still there ? It had cart tracks running it's very long length, followed to it's terminus it ended at Hook Creek as the name implies. The almost ankle depth water inside was clear but very cold.
There was suppose to be another tunnel up the creek from Meadow bay over to Green Valley lake, but we never found it.

There were two awesome ski beaches. One was inside the Beaver bay (Named due to the huge beaver den on the northern shore of the bay) at Totem Pole point (The movie set Totem Poles had all rotted and fallen over by the 70's). Beautiful beach and away from most any boat traffic. The other was just on the north side at the end of Judges Stand point --- which is today Hamiltair Point. Used to be a large Judging stand on the end of the point for scoring the sail boat races.
The island had a nice beach on the west side as well, but it was shallow out a ways, not the best for beaching the boats. Of course the village had a huge well groomed pay beach, but only for swimming.
I'd be surprised if you could find any beaches that didn't have a dock on it now.
 

Taboma

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OK, last but not least, one of my favorite night time recreational venues, winter or summer.
Besides the village, if you were young and wanted to meet some fun young ladies, this was the place to do it.
I know later they tore this down and built the large indoor Ice Capades Rink, but I never went there, but then I was older by then. I'd been to the indoor rink in Anaheim by Disneyland, I thought it loud, cold feeling, I missed the open outdoor environment.
No idea the year, but I'm guessing the 40's, based on the attire. 😘

Lake Arrowhead Blue Jay Ice Rink.jpg


when I went it looked more like this. They put the shade tarps over it in the summer, wide open in the winter.

LA Blue Jay Ice Rink.JPG
 
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