Boxcar Mike writes, "Recently you posted an early picture of Dana Point... If you look at the right side... you can just barely make out the old Richfield Oil Company tower that stood on P.C.H. for many years... On the sides facing north and south, the company printed the word RICHFIELD in about five foot high block letters. Just below the Richfield sign was the word SERVICE, printed horizontally. The tower was quite a landmark, but at night that thing was spectacular. Blue neon outlined each letter and the supports of the tower. It was so bright you could see it long before you got to the gas station. Even boats and ships could see it out at sea. When Richfield merged with Atlantic Oil to form ARCO, the tower remained for several years, although the original station had been enlarged and was now an ARCO station... I was wondering if you might know where I might get a picture of it.".
This 125-foot tower appears in a number of photos in Doris Walker's recent book, Images of America: Dana Point. I've posted details from two of the photos above. The image on the left is from about 1930, and the one on the right is from the 1960s. This landmark was one of 36 such towers which Richfield constructed 50 miles apart along the California coast. It was removed in the early 1970s. See Doris' book for more great Dana Point landmarks.
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Do you remember the 1968 Newport Pop Festival? Don't feel too bad. Most of the people who attended can't remember it either. Even if a few attendees weren't stoned, I suppose they worked hard to forget the sweltering heat, mud, lack of fresh water, thousands of sweaty/smelly hippies, and performances by Tiny Tim and Sonny & Cher. Sunday's Register featured an article about this mostly-forgotten event, which took place at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, and also featured the Grateful Dead, the Byrds, Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish.
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The same section of the paper also featured an article about past Olympians from Orange County.