Pasadena’s New Year’s Day parade has come...

Pasadena’s New Year’s Day parade has come a long way from the day when rose-covered horses and buggies lurched along rutted dirt roads to amuse hometown crowds.

Today, ever-larger and more elaborate floats entertain millions.

But the Tournament of Roses has stayed true to its founders’ intention: to celebrate and flaunt Southern California’s warm climate against the striking backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Charles Frederick Holder began the parade campaign in 1888 when he stood before the gentlemen of the Valley Hunt Club in Pasadena and waved news clippings that detailed the miseries of New York’s blizzards.

Did club members consider sending blankets or rations?

Not exactly.

They decided to show those Easterners the error of their ways.

“Gentlemen,” intoned Holder, “in New York, people are buried in snow. Here, our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s have a festival and tell the world about our paradise.”

Thus began sunny Southern California’s annual tradition. The first parade, in 1890, made a profit of $229.30. (Today’s Tournament of Roses is nonprofit.)

Before football took hold, chariot races followed the parade. Fans flocked to what was then Tournament Park in Pasadena -- the southwest corner of California Boulevard and Wilson Avenue, now part of Caltech’s campus -- to see toga-clad “centurions” driving horse teams.

Later, there were auto and ostrich races and, in 1913, an elephant-camel race (which the elephant won).

The Tournament Assn. tried football in 1902, but the contest was abysmal: Trailing 49-0 in the third quarter, Stanford surrendered to Michigan.

In subsequent years, the game was replaced by polo and chariot races. Football returned in 1916, when Washington State beat Brown, 14-0.

Here’s a look at the Tournament of Roses’ rich history, with rhinestone-bedecked rose queens and celebrity grand marshals.

cecilia.rasmussen@latimes.com