The early history and founding of The Flower Fields
As you have probably heard by now, 2023 is the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce’s centennial year. To celebrate our 100-year heritage, I will use this column throughout the year to share the Chamber’s impact. Most of my research rides on the coattails of our own Chamber website, other legacy organizations’ websites and more.
You might think that the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce grew as the community grew – starting small and growing gradually over the years. Actually, the Chamber stayed small for only a couple of years before literally exploding. The Chamber began in 1923 but its history before 1926 is sketchy. At first there were fewer than 20 members and only three or four regularly attended meetings. That would change quickly, however. By 1926 – when the earliest editions of the Carlsbad Champion (Carlsbad’s local newspaper) are available – the Chamber was holding weekly Board meetings and monthly dinner meetings for the entire community. These dinners attracted crowds as large as 350 people.
With no city government – and county government 35 miles away in San Diego – the Chamber quickly became the voice of the community. The agenda for a community dinner meeting in April of 1926 included discussion of the following topics…
•Tree trimming by the electric company.
•Distribution of Chamber
membership signs.
•Opening Kelly Slew to the ocean – because it smelled.
• Building and painting of street signs.
•Lobbying the U.S. Post Office Department for daily Rural Route service.
•Producing a promotional pamphlet about the community.
As you can see, the Chamber was acting like our City Council nearly three decades before we had one. And because the Chamber was where the action was in the 1920s, reports on its meetings were at the top of the Carlsbad Champion front page every Thursday. In 1926, their weekly Board luncheons were held on Mondays at the Twin Inns. Monthly meetings were held on Friday nights at the schoolhouse with dinner served by the Woman’s Club. The price was 75 cents a plate, and 35 cents for children.
No doubt the early success of the Chamber was due to the inspired leadership of our first president, Roy Chase, who moved to Carlsbad with his wife Idella and family from the Midwest in 1915.
In a brief time, Chase became postmaster, railroad station agent and opened a small grocery story, all operating out of the Carlsbad Depot. Within a few years he expanded his store, became a sales agent for South Coast Land Company and started his own trucking and construction businesses. Among the buildings he put up were the Los Diego Hotel, the sanctuary of the Carlsbad Union Church and the town’s first theater. In his spare time he served on the school board and his wife was a charter member of the Carlsbad Woman’s Club and supervised the small beginnings of a public library in their general store. As if he didn’t have enough to do, Chase started the Chamber of Commerce, serving as president for the first two years and returning again in 1928.
The couple’s tradition of community involvement was carried on when their daughter Dee Chase married Dewey McClellan, a real estate agent who later became Chamber president in 1932 and 1946 and then became the first mayor of Carlsbad in 1952.
Another prominent citizen followed Chase as president of the Chamber in 1924: Luther Gage. Luther Gage was a flower grower who developed a new strain of a hard-to-pronounce flower called “ranunculus.” Today’s famous Flower Fields are descendants of Gage’s original bulbs. Today we celebrate nearly 100-years of floral heritage and agritourism in Carlsbad. Gage was also responsible for introducing the gladiolus to Carlsbad.
In 1926, when W.T. Hart was president, the Champion newspaper reported that “Carlsbad, with a population of 1,500, has a Chamber of Commerce membership of 350” and described a dinner meeting at the Twin Inns attended by 354 people!
In 1936 and 1937, during the depths of the Depression, the Chamber went on a hiatus, with very few meetings held. In 1938-39, Chamber president Sam Fraser helped revive the organization with a new twist. The group was called the Carlsbad Community Improvement Club in hopes that it would attract residents, in addition to businessmen. The Improvement Club continued in 1940 with Oliver Morris as president, but in October, the name “Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce” was reestablished.
Next month we will discuss the Chamber’s role in converting Carlsbad into its own incorporated city.