Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #62: A Real Photo Postcard of Tidwell Oaks, Sleepy Hollow, ca. 1940

It's humbling when information put out on this blog is wrong, but at least catching the mistake and correcting it can always be done in this format, which is the case with today's featured artifact from Carbon Canyon history.  Unfortunately, articles in the Chino Valley Champion from March and October 2019 relied on the false info from this source.  Hopefully, anyone reading those will come across this post and see this plea for historical redemption!

In this case, there were a number of posts that stated that Tidwell Oaks, the store, tavern and service station operated in the early years of Sleepy Hollow by David and Velma Tidwell, was situated at the east end of the community, south of Carbon Canyon Road, where some apartments, shuttered now for a couple of years, are located now.

Actually, the couple purchased their two large lots at the center of the neighborhood where Carbon Canyon Road and Rosemary Lane meet not long after the community was developed in the 1920s and built their compound.  This was recently verified by finding reference to their ownership of lots 2 and 3 in Block 5 of the tract and then noting that on copies of the original subdivision map obtained years ago from the county archives.

The last entry in this "Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact" series, from June 2020, featured a real photo postcard of folks sitting in a large patio, bordered with brick and rock walls, with large oak trees for shade—this presumably in the back or side of the structures, as well as some of the history of the Tidwell family.  Today's post takes us out to Carbon Canyon Road and a view of the main building, a log cabin-like structure, with a gas pump out front and other buildings off to the west, or right.

Rosemary Lane is at the lower left between the caption of "Tidwell Oaks / Carbon Canyon" and the light-colored car parked next to the "cabin."  A couple of other vehicles are off to the far right and some of the houses on the hillside in view—the one at the top center with the three windows at the lower portion and the span of windows going from one side to the other is still standing.

As for dating this unused card, the cars definitely look to be from the late 30s or early 40s, but the AGFA/ANSCO stamp box also was used in the Thirties and Forties, so we're just going to go with circa 1940 on this one.  Today, there are a few little remnants, including remains of concrete steps, from Tidwell Oaks and there is a parking area for the Sleepy Hollow Community Center and the bus stop that mark the location, as well. 

Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #61: "Tidwell's at Sleepy Hollow, Carbon Canyon," 1933

At the far east end of Sleepy Hollow on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road are some decrepit buildings, last in the news because they were red-tagged by the City of Chino Hills as not meeting basic standards of livable conditions by ordinance.

In the front, right up against the state highway, is one building, while a two-story home is at the very rear of the property.  In between the two are a variety of other structures, all of which were deemed in substandard condition.

The absentee owner and landlord was ordered to make repairs and upgrade the structures before they could be used again as residences and, though there was some initial work, nothing has been done there for quite some time.  Who knows if these buildings will ever be livable again at this rate?  At one time the front building was a store, one of a couple in the community in days gone by.

Tonight's post features a real photo postcard with the caption "Tidwell's at Sleepy Hollow.  Carbon Canyon."  This was Tidwell Oaks, owned by David and Velma Tidwell and which included a store and tavern further west where Carbon Canyon Road and Rosemary Lane intersect. 

David, a native of Alabama, and Velma, who hailed from Texas, were in the first census conducted in Sleepy Hollow when they were enumerated there in May 1930.  He was 39, she was 36, and they owned property valued at $3,000.  He appears to have come to California after 1900 and live with his parents near Pomona, where David was a hired hand on local ranches and farms. 

This real photo postcard of "Tidwell's at Sleepy Hollow, Carbon Canyon," has a message dated 18 June 1933, just as Prohibition was coming to an end, which seems to explain why the couple at the center, maybe David and Velma Tidwell, who owned the store and tavern on the property, have beer bottles on their table and why beer crates are stacked up in the right foreground.  Click on the image to see it enlarged in a separate window.

After he and Velma married, the couple lived in Los Angeles near today's Staples Center and he was a conductor for the Los Angeles Railway system of streetcars that ran all over the growing city.  By 1920, the Tidwells were in the Rowland township where La Puente, Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights are located now, and he was an oil well worker.

In that 1930 census in Sleepy Hollow were three of David's brothers: Henry, Harvy, and Andrew, who ranged in age from 23 to 33.  Henry was a rotary driller for an oil company and the others were general laborers and they may have rented places to live from their older brother.

The image shows a bucolic scene of seven persons seated at tables on a raised patio with an attractive curved low rock wall at the left and a wall of brick around the patio.  An opening in the brick wall in the front includes small pillars on which are potted plants and a few steps leading up to the patio, which was partially built around a sprawling oak tree.  Other trees are in view in the verdant landscape.

Notably, there are several beer crates stacked up at the right, including some marked "Eastside," the name of a popular Los Angeles-made brew from the Los Angeles Brewing Company, established by George Zobelein, who had a partnership with Joseph Maier from the early 1880s to the early 1900s.  The term "Eastside" came from the brewing company's location on the east side of Los Angeles' downtown industrial core right off today's U.S. 101 before it terminates and splits off into Interstates 5 and 10.

The reverse of the postcard with a short message from a woman named Esther who, according to a later ink inscription above, worked at Tidwell's, said to be "near Brea Calif."

There may have been a reason to have included those crates because, on the reverse, there is a message from a woman only identifying herself as "Esther" and who wrote "Hello Mom, Wish I could see you.  Can't this time."  Above that is what looks to be a much later ink inscription, "Where Esther worked near Brea Calif."

Esther's short and dry note is dated "June-18-1933," which was less than six months before the end of Prohibition, the fourteen-year "social experiment" in which most production and consumption of alcoholic beverages was banned.  Yet, in early April, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a repeal of the Volstead Act, the legislation which enacted Prohibition, and this allowed brewers to make up to 3.2% alcohol content brew. 

So, it seems like the photo at Tidwell's was taken to celebrate the availability of near-full strength beer just weeks after the president's repeal.  The folks in the table at the center, who might well be David and Velma Tidwell, have two brown bottles in front of them (the gent at the left, by the way, is holding a guitar, while a small child, a young woman and two young men (maybe two of David's brothers?) are the others in the scene.

This is a very rare early artifact related to Sleepy Hollow, which was established by Cleve Purington and fellow investors just a decade prior, and it gives a sense of the bucolic, rural nature of the community as the Prohibition experiment came to a close.