A fishing spear used by Buck Atmore and seized by Fish and Game authorities.
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The Fillmore baseball team circa 1911.
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The Fillmore High School football field circa 1927, which ran east and west next to First Street, and was surrounded by Cedar trees.
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Excerpted from “An Anecdotal History of Fillmore, California” compiled by Ken Fine. Copies are available at the Museum Gift Shop.

“Remembered Trivia”
By Ken Fine

The Sespe River was noted all over the southland for its native trout and steelhead. On May 1st, which was the opening of trout season, Fillmore got pretty crowded. No rooms left to rent, no empty stools in the restaurants and you had to “take your own rock to stand on.” The limit was 25 fish.

Steelhead were not too interested in biting, but most everyone had a spear of some kind. It was illegal, but locals figured they had to catch you. I’ve seen my grandfather, Mose Fine, and older brother, Westley, spear them. If it was a pretty big one, it was pretty easy to get wet.

None of the real sportsmen of Fillmore ever took a job where the opening days of fishing and deer hunting weren’t legal holidays. If they did, they just quit the job.

Pole Creek and a few of the oil properties were the only places you couldn’t hunt. Packing into the back country, Alamo Mountain and the head of Piru Creek on the other side of Alamo, were all favorite hunting spots.

For quail hunting, you just went to the foothills most anyplace in the valley and started up the mountains. Limits of 10 were common.

Dove hunting was enjoyed at Sprague’s pasture on the land owned by Jack Beekman’s uncle. You reached it by going up Grand Avenue to Ira Case’s place and turning left for about a mile. Certain spots on rivers were good too. The reservoirs over in Moorpark were hot spots in the evenings when the doves came in to water.

Ducks were hunted on the Santa Clara River. Rancho Sespe built ponds below the ranch headquarters but they weren’t open to the public. The Basolos diverted part of the Santa Clara into a pond below their ranch for hunting by invitation only. The dikes around Point Mugu’s Duck Club was another popular spot.

All the avid fishermen and hunters had no trouble with gates in the hills, as the all carried a duplicate key to the government locks.

Charlie Law, his studio was at 114 First St, [?] was ranked as the third best taxidermist in the United States. One at Abercrombie and Fitch in New York was #1 and one in Denver was #2. I read his rating in a sports magazine but never could find it again for him. At one time, Lawrence Hinckley worked for him. In the 1940’s Charlie mounted a deer head for me for $17 and tanned the hide for $4. I spent many an hour with him. He used to give demonstrations on mounting animals to the Boy Scouts.

Telephone lines were completed to Fillmore and Piru, August 12, 1892.In the 1930’s when the telephone office had good looking women operators instead of computers, it paid to listen in on Santa Paula’s long distance calls. Many a gay blade from Fillmore went to Santa Paula to place their calls to someone else’s wife. They did not think about all of Santa Paula’s long distance calls coming to the Fillmore office as Santa Paula had an independent phone company.

In 1903 a bad fire destroyed most of the Fillmore business section, including Harmonson’s two-store store on the northwest corner of Central and Main Street was rebuilt as one building.

Bowie’s was run by a Scotsman who had a big mustache and always wore a hat. He was a small man who like kids and kept a good supply of cheap candy. It was not uncommon for the first package of cigarettes purchased by underage boys to come from there.

Servoss’ barber shop was well patronized. He was an old-timer in Fillmore. His son, Rex, was quite a baseball player in high school. He also held #2 badge in the California Highway Patrol for many years.

Bert Halstead’s radio shop at 523 Santa Clara had a full house the night of the Dempsey-Tunney fights when Tunney won the heavyweight crown. The fans spilled out on the street so Burt put a radio out on the sidewalk for the overflow crowd.

Ben Klotz, who had a cleaning shop and sold radios, sponsored and pitched for a baseball team. He was a finesse pitcher with a curve, drop, etc. His team’s claim to fame was a win over Pironnes Night Hawks, a pro team from Los Angeles. Albert Fine, first base, Orley Mosbarger, second; Pinky Elsworth, shortstop (My brother said he never threw a straight ball to him, always a curve); and Clarence Mayhew, third base.

The high school football field used to run east and west next to First Street. It was surrounded by cedar trees and the west end made a good lovers’ lane.

Short Summary

Due to time constraints and data availability, a full report must be postponed to next week's Gazette edition.
8- A AWARD OF CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE GENERATOR INSTALLATION AT ACTIVE ADULT CENTER AND VETERANS MEMORIAL BUILDING AND APPROVAL OF A LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH THE FILLMORE-PIRU MEMORIAL DISTRICT FOR THIS WORK, was approved by Council.

8.B AUTHORIZE PAYMENT REQUEST NO 7 TO HEARTHSTONE MULTIASSET ENTITY C, LP FOR WESTERLY AND EASTERLY LEVEES FOR HERITAGE VALLEY PARKS COMMUNITY FACILITIES DISTRICT (CFD) NO. 5 WITH BOND, was approved by Council.

8.C STREET NAME TO RECOGNIZE MAX PINA
MAX PENA STREET NAMING.doc, was approved unanimously.

PUBLIC HEARING FOR THE ANNEXATION OF MOUNTAIN VIEW APARTMENTS
(DEVELOPMENT PERMIT N0. 18-03) TO LANDSCAPE AND LIGHTING ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 2, (L&L NO. 2)
2021-01-11_SR_LLD ANNEXATION_PUBLIC HEARING.pdf, was completed.

8.E DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEE ANNUAL AND FIVE-YEAR REPORT AND FINDINGS FOR FIVE-YEAR UNEXPENDED FEES PER GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 66006 AND CONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTION NO. 22-3855 MAKING FINDINGS REGARDING UNEXPENDED FEES SR FY 2020-21 66006 DIF REPORT-FINAL.pdf. Approved.

ADJOURNMENT - Mayor Diane McCall adjourned to next regularly scheduled meeting, 6:30 p.m., Tuesday Jan. 25, 2022, City Hall 250 Central Avenue, Fillmore, CA 93015.

For the last few weeks, the line for the drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at Fillmore Middle School has been extremely long, with cars pulled off to the side of the road along A Street. With the rise in cases and the increase of people trying to get tested, the site has extended their testing hours: Monday–Saturday noon 4pm & 5pm–7:30pm. For more
information visit www.venturacountyrecovers.org/coronavirus-testing

At the first Lions Club meeting of the year, Sean McCulley was the guest speaker. He spoke about how he founded the non profit Mud Turtle Media LLC. And he also spoke about how he became the new owner of the Fillmore Town Theater and his ideas of its development. Some future plans for our beloved Town Theater include a venue for: Community theater, Arts Education (in collaboration with FHS), variety of live music, comedians, film festivals (with movie industry interactions), and Children’s workshops. Mud Turtle Media are planning a fundraising show in the near future. To help with a promotional video, they are asking residents to share personal stories about their experience with the Town Theater. For more information about the Town Theater, you can visit www.mudturtletheatrical.org.

Can you identify the boy in the park?
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Can you identify the man in bar?
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Can you identify the men on the picnic table?
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Courtesy Fillmore Historical Museum

We have been overwhelmed by the responses on the photographs that were published last week and the additional ones posted on Instagram and Facebook.

To answer a few questions that have come up:
Clips from the documentary, “Miles from the Border,” can be seen on Youtube. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the documentary, go to https://www.newday.com/film/miles-border.

Many people have requested to see more of the photos. There are some posted on our website at https://www.fillmorehistoricalmuseum.org/team. If you recognize any of these photos, please go to the “Contact” tab on the top of the page and send us an email with the information.

The Museum will be holding a free Zoom event to look at a portion of the photos on Wednesday, January 26 at 7:00 pm. The number of participants will be limited to 20. If you would like to participate, go to https://www.fillmorehistoricalmuseum.org/special-eventsto reserve your seat. Ellen Frankenstein who created the documentary is planning on participating.

Until then, here are some more photos to identify.

On Tuesday January 4th, students athletes from Fillmore High School were honored by the FUSD Board of Trustees for their First Team All League accomplishments in the Citrus Coast League. The presentation included coaches and athletes from Cross Country, Football, and Girls Volleyball. Athletes honored at the meeting included, Michael Camilo Torres and Niza Laureano for Cross Country. Anthony Chessani, Freddy Araujo, Nathan Ocegueda, Jarod Uridel, Joey Holladay, and Matt Magana for Football, and Nathalia Magana for Girls Volleyball. Coaches included Kim Tafoya (Cross Country, Charlie Weis (Football), and Alyssa Bennett (Girls Volleyball).