Fast Digs: Freak Parade, Queer Vehicles and Stunts

 You might remember Los Angeles Agricultural Park where a one-mile oval track started out as a racing venue for horses, before serving double duty as the city's first bicycle racing venue. The first bike race on the dirt track took place in 1880, though another decade would pass before the first big bicycle boom hit the city and the track was pressed into more regular use.

As the city grew and pressed in around Agricultural Park, nearby residents petitioned the city to annex the property so that the illicit activities that had flourished along with the horse racing - gambling, drinking, and prostitution - could be banned. The track floundered for a while until the city decided on a plan to rehabilitate the grounds. 

The old track was moved a little to the south, with the site of the old track becoming the Museum of History, Science and Art and the current sunken rose garden. Both were officially opened to the public in 1913 and the area rechristened as Exposition Park. The relocated track, a one-mile dirt oval (just as the original track) was the site of automobile, motorcycle and bicycle racing. The first National Bicycle Day was celebrated in the city on 22 July 1916, with a parade ending at Exposition Park, and followed up with a full slate of bicycle races witnessed by some 8,000 spectators. 

Though the National Bicycle Day festivities were widely hailed as a great success, the Los Angeles Herald, which had provided an enthusiastic preview of the days' events largely pulled an about face with its follow-up, beginning with the headline: Bicyclers of all Ages in Freak Parade, Barney Oldfield and Other Officials Marshall Queer Vehicles at Exposition Park, and referring to the competitions as "stunts."

Aerial view of Exposition Park in 1918 - rose garden and museum at the left, with the relocated race oval to the south

Aerial view of Exposition Park in 1922 showing the construction of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the center of the race track

the original Agricultural Park track in 1900 with grandstand and "brothel" (on the left)

If this sort of bicycle and local history interests you, order your very own copy of Fast Digs: Bicycle Racing Venues of Greater Los Angeles, the Early Years, 1880-1899, and get ready for volume two covering the years 1901-1929 to be published early next year.