Heritage Park Celebrates the Gay ‘90s

When a stranger knocked on her door 30 years ago, Nadine Hathaway had no idea that he would lead her to Heritage Park in Santa Fe Springs.

At the time, the Heritage Park area was mostly weeds. But, thanks to that stranger and a book of photographs he brought with him, Hathaway, 76, helped turn the park into what it is today: A turn-of-the-century replica of a rural Los Angeles citrus farm.

On Saturday, Hathaway will join hundreds of others to celebrate the history and traditions of life in the Gay ‘90s (1890s, of course) when the city of Santa Fe Springs opens “Old Fashioned Fun Day” at the park. Hathaway said she’ll be around to tell stories of the days when Santa Fe Springs actually had a Little Lake--with water in it. (All that’s left is the name of a school district.)

Hathaway lives not too far from Heritage Park, in the Santa Fe Springs ranch house where her husband was born. And her husband, Richard, was the reason the stranger came to visit in the first place. The man arrived to sell Richard Hathaway art and brought with him, as an afterthought, a book of photographs. Those pictures later became a model for Heritage Park.

“You see, my husband was known to have a great interest in all things local,” Hathaway explained.

The man had a couple of paintings he was trying to sell that had once hung in a neighboring ranch house. That house, built by Eli Hawkins in 1880, was a huge Victorian estate, with a gabled carriage barn, manicured gardens, a glass-roofed conservatory and windmill.

By the time the stranger visited the Hathaways, all that was left of the Hawkins’ great estate was rubble. The oil boom in the 1920s had reduced most of the region’s grand old farmhouses to shacks, Hathaway said. “They put wooden oil derricks as close as you could plant them. There were fires, mud and disreputable characters all about,” she said.

“Anyone with oil on the property had to get up and go. They were glad to have the money, but they couldn’t live with the oil.”

Most everyone who remembered it thought the Hawkins’ estate was gone forever. And then the stranger appeared at the Hathaways’ door. To lure buyers for his paintings, he brought an old book of photographs showing where the art had hung.

“The book was a 60-page picture album with script, all of the old Hawkins place,” Hathaway said.

The album didn’t mean anything to the stranger, Hathaway said, “but it meant a lot to my husband.”

Richard Hathaway, who died in 1986, made copies of the book and gave one to the city. From those photographs, and with the help of many of the city’s citizen-historians, came Heritage Park. Every building is a replica of life on the Hawkins’ farm, with displays of period farm life.

The park is a place out of time in Santa Fe Springs, which is now largely an industrial city, crammed with warehouses and factories. On Saturday, though, it will reclaim its past. Families may wander the grounds, take self-guided tours, seek out Hathaway for stories or simply lounge about on lawns and benches.

The celebration will begin at noon and continue until 4 p.m. Admission is free; vendors will sell hot dogs, popcorn and chips. Turn-of-the-century games will be taught. The festival also will include pie-eating contests, ice cream making, square dancing lessons, clothes washing on a scrub board and cow milking.

The park is located at 12100 Mora Drive, in Santa Fe Springs. For more information about the park or the festival, call (310) 946-6476.