JAUNTS : Ventura Tour Takes Mystery Out of History : During two-hour walk, guide conveys flavor of 1920s during oil boom and livens his talk with anecdotes of those days.

Ventura was an oil boom town in the 1920s when Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, practiced law from an office at Main and California streets.

You can find out which third-floor office window was Gardner’s during a walking tour Saturday that touches on the history and mystery of Ventura’s California Street.

Historian Richard Senate is leading the two-hour stroll that starts at majestic City Hall on the hill overlooking the coastline and ends at the beach promenade. He’ll paint a picture of vintage downtown Ventura--relevant these days because downtown is undergoing another renovation that will give it another look.

The tours are part of a series that the city provides about the historical quirks of Ventura, and, according to Senate, the city is full of them.

How did the picturesque old building that houses City Hall end up where it is? First of all, it wasn’t originally a city hall. As Senate tells it, in 1911, local officials were scouting for a spot to build a courthouse. A Los Angeles lawyer scanned the hillside above Main Street.

“Why not there,” he suggested. The local newspaper backed the idea, and it became a reality--but not before workers moved a house that was already on the site.

The dirt that was removed to build the courthouse was hauled to the Ventura County Fairgrounds to become the Babe Ruth Baseball Stadium--only to later become a parking lot.

In front of what is now City Hall stands the statue of Father Junipero Serra, who established nine California missions in the 1700s. The bronze statue replaced an earlier cement monument erected there in 1936.

It seems that the earlier version couldn’t withstand the salt air. But a more interesting footnote is that the sculptor, Pablo Kangas, whipped up statues of two other padres for Riverside and Bakersfield, and they all looked alike.

“This one doesn’t look a bit like Father Serra,” Senate said. “When he finished the mission here, he was 70--he was a determined, stubborn old man.”

Senate said the intersection of Main and California was the hub of the city’s booming financial district during the 1920s when the oil fields along the Ventura River were gushing. The city’s population jumped from 5,000 in 1922 to 11,000 in 1926.

Despite the prosperity, the city was dry from 1903 until 1933, when Prohibition ended. “The train came in loaded with beer and, in one day, they drank a month’s supply of beer,” Senate said.

During World War II, the city’s first blackout was a flop. Downtown was dark--except for the large illuminated clocks along Main Street that couldn’t be turned off.

“If the enemy had come, they would have had a beautiful target up Main Street,” Senate said.

When the war ended, people in Ventura went wild. “They drove around honking their horns for six hours,” Senate said. “Bars gave away free drinks. People walked up and down the streets. They hugged strangers.”

The tour will take the group past the site of the city’s first volunteer fire department, which acquired its firefighters by invitation only, thus attracting the wealthy, who could also afford to help pay for fire hydrants.

Also on the route is the home (now a shop) of William Van Deaver, a Civil War general who became the first congressman from Ventura.

The tour ends at the beach, where Senate tells the story of the famous Halloween prank of 1908. At the time, there was a push to pave the city’s streets. But the owner of two mule-powered trolley cars resisted the idea.

On Halloween night, some of the sons of Ventura’s most influential families dressed as Indians and gathered at the big bathhouse that was then near the pier.

“They pushed the two trolleys down the tracks into the ocean,” Senate said. “It was a little akin to the Boston Tea Party.”

Details

* WHAT: California Street Mystery and History Tour.

* WHEN: Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m.

* WHERE: Tour starts at the steps of Ventura City Hall, Poli and California streets.

* COST: Adults $6, children and senior citizens $4.

* INFORMATION: 658-4726. Reservations recommended but not required.

* FYI: Tours make a stop at Cafe Bella for coffee.