Oxnard Marks 90th Birthday With a Low-Key Celebration

Oxnard officials will mark the city’s 90th birthday today with a low-key celebration that won’t drain the city’s coffers.

The Chamber of Commerce will present Mayor Manuel Lopez with a plaque this morning at Heritage Square observing the anniversary. In addition, the city is wishing itself a happy birthday on cable television spots. Council members adopted a resolution last week commemorating 90 years of cityhood.

“With the budget the way it is, we didn’t think it would be right to spend money on any big event,” City Clerk Daniel Martinez said. “It’s a challenging time. We’re working toward Oxnard becoming a healthy city.”

But the small celebration belies Oxnard’s rich history, which includes days of cowboys and cattle runs, times of war and tragedy, and a period of rapid development and growth.

At the turn of the century, the Oxnard brothers set up a sugar factory in the area because the land held the promise of great economic opportunity.

Henry Oxnard, whose grandfather was one of the four founders of the city, said Tuesday that his family “should have forgotten about the sugar and bought the land.” At the time, the brothers sold plots of the land for $25.

Oxnard, a Texas real estate developer, said his family founded the sugar beet industry after learning about the manufacturing process in Europe.

Teddy Roosevelt, an Oxnard family friend, came to town to speak at the factory’s opening in 1899. Shortly after the city’s founding, the brothers left, apparently because the elder Henry Oxnard sought and lost a bid for appointment to the U.S. Senate.

“He wore out his shoes and never came back,” Oxnard said.

During the early part of the century, Oxnard was very much a western town. In addition to the sugar factory, Oxnard native Roy Lockwood said the city had gambling, a red-light district and cowboys.

“It was a wicked little town,” said Lockwood, whose grandfather, Andrew Jackson Lockwood, also set up shop in the sugar beet industry. One of the best known stories, he said, is about Lucy Hicks, who ran a brothel in the 1930s. Lockwood said that Hicks had a reputation for being upstanding and honest, in spite of her trade, and was even known to cook meals for some of the prominent families in town.

But when the Navy ordered all of the women at the establishment to the hospital for examinations, the town learned that Hicks was a man.

Lockwood, who was born in Oxnard in 1920, and his sister, Marie Whatley, who was born here in 1917, said the citizens reacted with shock.

“But oh,” Whatley laughed, “it was very funny.”

The best-known cowboys were the Hobsons, a family who ran a cattle barn at 6th and A Street, Lockwood said.

“They used to drive their cattle right down Wooley Road,” Lockwood said. “One time, the Hobsons were bringing the cattle back from feeding on sugar beet tops when they got spooked. We had a stampede right through Plaza Park.”

Former Oxnard mayor, Assemblyman Nao Takasugi, said his most vivid memory of growing up in Oxnard was when he and other residents of Japanese descent were rounded up and taken to internment camps during World War II.

“That was a tragic page in our history,” he said Tuesday.

In the 1950s, Oxnard’s sugar beat factory shut down its operation and its fields became the site of fruit and vegetable farms.

Between 1970 and 1990 the population of Oxnard doubled, from 71,000 to 142,000, at a rate about 20% faster than the rest of the county. And, while development flourished, the city has suffered from problems that come with such rapid expansion.

“We are suffering from all of the growing pains, like crime and overcrowding and a lack of affordable housing,” said Bedford Pinkard, a member of Oxnard’s City Council. “My hope is that the problems don’t grow with the city.”

Added Mayor Lopez: “In 10 years this will be a prime location to be. I foresee great things for this city.”