70th Anniversary Celebration: October 22, 2016

University Club of Pasadena
175 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena,  CA

Social Hour: 11:00 AM
Music Entertainment and Luncheon Follows
Festivities Conclude: 2:00 PM

Our Speaker: Elizabeth Pomeroy
Her Subject: The Illustrious Glen Dawson, His Bookstore and Press

Glen Dawson: was a Founding Member of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners seventy years ago in 1946 and served as our Sheriff in 1959. Dawson was a mountaineer, soldier, scholar, bookman, and publisher.  He was a family man, a church archivist and a loyal comrade to book-lovers not just amongst Westerners International, but a legendary and revered figure to all California historians.  A recent tribute declared “What a legacy!  To accomplish half as much would fill a life for most people.” Elizabeth Pomeroy’s presentation on this outstanding Los Angeles corral paragon is a fond retrospective of his life and accomplishments.  Highlights of Glen’s many activities and quotes from his own speaking and writing will shed light on his wonderfully productive, diverse, and very long life of 103 years.  As our Corral celebrates its 70th Anniversary, it is entirely appropriate that we honor the memory of one of our most illustrious founding fathers.

Elizabeth Pomeroy: is a California native, with a remarkable array of advanced degrees from the finest universities of our land.  Her Ph.D., in English, is from UCLA, her M.A. in English is from U.C. Berkeley, her M.A.T. (in the Teaching of English) is from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her B.A., also in English, is from Stanford University.  Dr. Pomeroy taught English in high schools and at Pasadena City College. She served on the Huntington Library staff for ten years, and is currently a School Board member of the Pasadena Unified School District.  Her publications include literary studies and books on Southern California history and natural history.  Among them are Lost and Found, Lost and Found II, John Muir: A Naturalist in Southern California, and Pasadena: A Natural History.  Her most recent book is San Marino: A Centennial History, which received regional, state, and national awards for local history writing. In the year 2000 Elizabeth established Many Moons Press, which publishes works on California history and nature, including new editions of classics long out-of-print. She is a frequent speaker on becoming a grassroots historian.  Her present writing project is a biography of Glen Dawson.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: September 14, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Phil Brigandi
His Subject: A Five-Foot Shelf of Westerners: Prominent Historians of the Los Angeles Corral

Prominent Historians of the Los Angeles Corral: Since its founding in 1946, the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners International has counted many of Southern California’s most prominent historians amongst its members. From Robert Glass Cleland and W.W. Robinson to Doyce Nunis and Francis Weber, scores of well-known authors, archaeologists, archivists, and academics have all been a part of our corral. For our September meeting, Phil Brigandi will discuss some of the men and women who are part of the rich history of our corral, their work, and their writings. “You probably already have some of their books on your shelf,” he says, “but if not, you had better get busy!”  The title of his talk refers to how wide just a small sampling of books from our illustrious roster of authors might be in a room-width bookcase.  And some of the titles incorporated by such a “five-foot shelf” would be works by prominent present members of our corral, Phil himself included.

Phil Brigandi has been researching and writing local history for more than 40 years, specializing in the history of Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties. He is the author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of articles, including histories of Orange, Temecula, and Borrego Springs. He is the former historian for the Ramona Pageant and former archivist for the County of Orange. He has been a member of The Westerners since 2001, and served as our Branding Iron editor from 2008 to 2010.  His most recent publications include scholarly works on Helen Hunt Jackson.  Phil is presently co-writing a history of Indian Agents in Southern California with Valerie Sherer Mathes.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: August 10, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Dr. Robert Chandler
His Subject: Grafton Tyler Brown: Racial Identity on the California Frontier

Grafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918) lived for art.  Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he traveled west, and reinvented himself in California.  Brown was considered Black in Sacramento in 1860, but managed to pass for White in San Francisco in 1861. Self-confident, talented, and aggressive, Brown seized all opportunities to advance his career as a commercial artist. So proficient that he outshone all of his California competitors, G.T. Brown & Co., Lithographers, produced an incredible amount of top-notch work: city views, maps, sheet music, advertising posters, mining stock certificates, and billheads (invoices) of great variety and consistent artistic excellence.  Over a twenty-year period, this uniquely talented artist, who began as a Black man back East while slavery was still the law of the land, became accepted as White out West. Dr. Chandler will introduce us to Brown the man, to his work in many mediums, and will compare it with that of his rivals.

Dr. Robert Chandler is one of the most gifted and productive of all California historians. His 1978 UC Riverside dissertation on “The Press and Civil Liberties in California During the Civil War” was followed by 32 years as Senior Research Historian for Wells Fargo Bank. Bob has published more than 60 articles on California during the Gold Rush and the Civil War, on civil rights, commerce, finance, gold, journalism, politics, the military, numismatics, philately, printing, stage-coaching, steamships, and Wells Fargo Bank. His books include an Illustrated History of California (2004) and Wells Fargo (2006). Dr. Chandler is a member of the Council of the Friends of the Bancroft Library; a Director of the San Ramon Valley Museum; and is a past and the present Sheriff of the San Francisco Corral of Westerners.  He is a member of the Honorary Order of Kentucky Colonels and a very active Clamper, being an X-Noble Grand Humbug of Yerba Buena #1, the Mother Lodge, E Clampus Vitus.  Bob’s lifelong fascination with G.T. Brown recently culminated in San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), the outstanding book his August, 2016, presentation will be based upon.

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.

Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: July 13, 2016

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speakers: Mark & Linda Nelson
Their Subject: “The Wire That Won the West”

Barbed Wire was a uniquely American invention that changed the face of the Old West.  More than 400 different designs were patented in the United States.  Historians and historical archaeologists can use different kinds of barbed wire to date historic sites and sometimes even to determine their specific function and the points of origin of the people who strung them.  Beginning in the 1880’s, Teddy Roosevelt began writing about “How the West Was Won.” A half-century later, this theme had become staple Hollywood fare, with dozens of “Horse Operas” – wild and wooly Westerns – cranked out year after year. But the Nelsons maintain that the most iconic image of Old West, that of the lawman with blazing sixgun, should be replaced by that of the ranch hand stringing barbed wire.  Come to our July 2016, Roundup and hear how barbed wire became the key component in settling the American West.  On display will be many samples of historic barbed wire, each with a different kind of functional and stylistic beauty. You’ll never think of “fences” the same way again after the Nelsons’ presentation.

Mark and Linda Nelson are amongst the world’s foremost experts on American barbed wire.  The newest members of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners, Mark and Linda (aka “Bob” and “Barb” Wire), come to us from the San Dimas Corral.  Mark Nelson is the President of the California Barbed Wire Collectors Association (CBWCA) and Linda is that association’s Secretary and Treasurer.   Linda is also the Librarian and Treasurer for the Antique Barbed Wire Society, the American national association of barbed wire collectors, headquartered in LaCrosse, Kansas. 

Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Deputy Sheriff

May 2016 Roundup Photos