Now & Then: A memorable picnic,
It was a beautiful spring day on June 4, 1898, for the first picnic of the year sponsored by Sonora’s Young Men’s Club. Even getting to the picnic at Marengo Park was an event in itself.
Members and guests assembled at 10 a.m. Saturday in front of the group’s second floor clubroom on the east side of South Washington Street about midway between West Bradford Avenue and Linoberg Street. Founded in the mid-1880s, the club was well known for putting on a variety of hometown entertainment, such as picnics, masquerade balls, professional and amateur theatricals and musicals at the Opera Hall and Turn Verein Hall in the days before radio, television, movies and Netflix.
Everyone was assigned a place in the 10- to 15-minute walk or ride by horse power north to Marengo Park, now part of the Sonora High School campus. Leading the procession was the Tuolumne Cornet Band. Children were next, followed by clubmen, honorary lady members with white parasols and then a contingent from the Young Men’s Club in Angels Camp. After the Sonora club’s drill corps performed maneuvers, off they went.
The streetscape they passed included Horace H. Rowell’s gun and sports shop, Leonard’s soda works, The Tuolumne Independent’s office and the C. H. Burden furniture store and undertaking business. Up ahead was St. James Episcopal Church and its neighbor across Snell Street, the exuberant Victorian home of Frank and Ada Bradford Street, various other homes, the Bonanza Mine, the Macomber brothers’ apple cider and vinegar works and Bauman’s Brewery.
The fun began upon arrival and went on until the wee hours of Sunday morning. In addition to the meals put together for the day, there were children’s and young ladies’ races, egg races, and tug of wars on the grass. In other contests, the prettiest baby was given a prize, and Miss Etta Trewartha was voted most popular young lady.
As night fell the drill corps, under the direction of C. H. Burden, performed in the dancing pavilion, which had been in use all day by enthusiastic hoofers. Then came the highlight of the evening, a waltzing contest. Miss Georgie Price and her partner, Arthur Dean, were judged the best waltzers. Choosing a winner turned out to be difficult as there were so many talented participants. As a result, a second prize of a woman’s hat and six packages of chewing gum were awarded to Ed Landers, a Sonora druggist, and Mrs. O’brien.
The club had some fun with the good-natured Harry Medlicott, a professional dancing teacher, who they named the poorest waltzer and the homeliest man present. Medlicott went along with the razzing and was given a harmonica for his congeniality.
The gathering was written up in the Tuolumne Independent, which called it “the most successful picnic given in Sonora for many years.” It must have been as the last dancers did not leave the pavilion until 2 a.m. Sunday.