Santa Anita Lawn Bowling Club

The Club's History

Arcadia County Park is the home of the Santa Anita Lawn Bowling Club and its four greens, built on the site where Lucky Baldwin's original Santa Anita Racetrack once stood.

This was a small part of a vast area of Southern California long populated by the Tongva Indians, followed by the Spanish Mission San Gabriel. Then, in the 1830s, Mexico deeded the mission lands to private “rancheros,” and in 1875 Lucky Baldwin purchased the 8,000-acre Rancho Santa Anita for $200,000. The towns of Arcadia, Monrovia, and Sierra Madre were created from Rancho Santa Anita.

The new town of Arcadia was said to be "Lucky Baldwin’s plaything, a gambling hell and booze pleasure park,” "a tough little debauched municipality," and "the only sporting town in Southern California." It's where Baldwin built the first Santa Anita Racetrack, in 1907.

(Did the "sporting town" also have a lawn bowling club? We don't know. But it was reported to have "eleven saloons running full blast, ... gambling, drinking, bowling, boxing matches, balloon ascensions, dog races, musical comedies, and fast women." They might not have had enough time for lawn bowling!)

Shortly after Baldwin's death California banned horse racing and then the track's grandstand burned down. So in 1918, several months after the U.S. entered World War I, Los Angeles County purchased the 185-acre racetrack property from Baldwin’s daughter Anita and donated the parcel to the U.S. Army for use as a balloon-reconnaissance training camp.

In 1935, through an act of Congress, the War Department redeeded the 185 acres back to the county with the provision that it be used as a park and recreation center. The conversion of the site from an army camp into a recreational facility was a WPA project that employed 600 men. Ninety percent of the work was done by hand, producing an 18-hole golf course, a swimming pool, a bath house, eight tennis courts, a baseball stadium, a softball diamond, a children’s playground, and ... two lawn bowling greens! The total cost to build this fabulous park was only about a million dollars!

The Club is Born

Bowling greens #1 and #2 were almost complete when a group of twelve local men got together to form a lawn bowling club. They met in the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce rooms on June 17, 1937. At the next meeting, five days later, the twelve founding members were joined by an additional eight, and the organization officially became the Santa Anita Bowling Green Club — today's Santa Anita Lawn Bowling Club.

The SABGC was strictly a male organization, and only three of the organizers had any idea how to play the game. Jack Stanley, who had moved to Arcadia from Oakland, California, where he was active in the club there, became the first president and agreed to teach the other members. He was joined by Ed Berry who also had some experience with the game.

The Early Years: 1937 to 1960

The club grew, and by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 there were about 55 members. The war took a toll on the club's membership, which dropped to about 40. With the return of peace, membership quickly rebounded to about 75.

During the first ten years of the club’s existence it was without a clubhouse. Then in 1947, after several years of lobbying, the club was able to persuade the county to appropriate $30,000 to build a clubhouse. The building was completed in 1948.

During this time, the club welcomed visiting groups of bowlers from Britain and Canada. A group of 30 British bowlers visited the club in 1947, and they were followed by a Canadian group in 1955, and by another British group in 1956.

The Ladies

In January 1949 several women formed their own club and began bowling. They associated themselves with the Southern California Women’s lawn bowling association and enjoyed bowling in tournaments throughout the state. The women's club was also active socially, holding parties and picnics to celebrate holidays.

By 1960, the membership of the women's club had dwindled to almost nothing. The men’s club decided to admit them, but only as Class B members, with no voting privileges. Class B memberships were eliminated in 1964 and the women became full members. The first women to join the club were Anna Bucher, Nellie Jerg, Susan Long, and Cathy Noren. The club elected its first woman president, Lilly Godfrey, in 1969.

The Sixties, Seventies, and Beyond

The years 1962 and 1963 were good for the SABGC. Up until about 1963 the club was almost the only organization using the clubhouse. Hardly a day went by that bowlers didn’t stay after their games to chat, eat lunch, and play bridge.

Other organizations wished to have a place to meet, so in 1963 a north wing was added to the clubhouse. The new wing included a room assigned to the club, to hold meetings, records, trophies, and other items. Construction of a third green was completed in 1963.

The County did not require any payment from the club for use of the greens, but the club nevertheless donated one half of all dues collected to the County. The County supervisors acknowledged the receipt of this money as a gift. In 1966, the club began collecting fees specifically for the care of the greens. The first fees were set at $18 per year for each member.

Construction of a fourth green was completed in 1977, in time to host the Women’s U.S. National Championships later that year. In the early 1990s lights were installed on the north greens (Greens #3 and #4), extending the club's bowling into the evening hours.

Training classes were organized in the 1970s, and membership increased from 86 members in 1971 to 244 members in 1979. As with other lawn bowling clubs, membership declined in subsequent years, reaching a low during the Covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and then sharply rebounding in the years since 2021.

Events and Competitions Over the Years

In 1963 31 men and 15 women from six Australian lawn bowling clubs visited the club. In 1996 eight SABGC club members embarked on a month-long tour of Northern Ireland and Scotland organized by club president Virginia Price, during which they visited several lawn bowling clubs. And on St. Patrick’s Day in 1998, the club hosted 37 bowlers from Northern Ireland.

In 1977 the club hosted the Women’s U.S. National Championships, and in 2013 hosted both the Women's and Men's National Championships.

The SABGC was one of the first lawn bowling clubs to stage charity events. The first project, started by Joe Zook in 1965, was a Halloween party for children with learning disabilities, It was a hit with everyone involved, but it had to be discontinued in 1978 due to transportation issues.

In 1975 the club began hosting an annual City of Hope Triples tournament to raise money for the City of Hope's cancer research program. In its first year the tournament raised $350. Soon bowlers from all over Southern California were bowling in the tournament; in 1981 it raised $4,000 and in 1986 it raised $6,000.

Since the early 1990s Santa Anita has competed in the Valley League, against the Alhambra, Pasadena, Glendale, and Friendly Valley clubs. The Valley League became dormant during the Covid pandemic and was not revived until 2025. In the years when Santa Anita is the Valley League champion, the club competes in the Waterbury tournament against the champions of the other Southwest Division leagues.

Throughout the 2010s the club hosted the Southwest Open every spring, an annual week-long event that consistently attracted bowlers from across the United States, as well as international bowlers from Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, and elsewhere — in all, about 200 bowlers every year, for men's and women's singles, pairs, and fours tournaments.

In 2022 the Santa Anita and Pasadena clubs inaugurated a new annual competition, the Route 66 Challenge. Both clubs are on Route 66, just seven miles apart. Each year on June 6th the two clubs get together to compete for the Route 66 Challenge trophy, pictured below with the clubs' inaugural teams.

 

The Partnership: Los Angeles County and SALBC

Over the years the club has enjoyed tremendous support from Los Angeles County and the County's Department of Parks and Recreation, and the club has provided valuable stewardship of the bowling greens at Arcadia Park as well as an important recreational activity for County residents, especially its senior residents. A great partnership! Support from County Supervisors Pete Scharbarum, Michael Antonovich and Kathryn Barger has been unwavering and invaluable.

Distilled from documents written by members Frank Jerome, Mike Eberle, and Gene Plunkett.