“Helen Gibson and The Rodeo Grounds”
by Pablo Capra
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| Cooper's Camp, "Beach cabins spring up like magic," c/o Acker Archives, circa 1921 |
The development of Topanga Beach happened quickly after Miller Cooper opened his campsite in 1919.
Musicians were the first group to see the potential of the new resort. In September 1920, members of the Los Angeles Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Society arranged to build cabins on the Salt Grass Lawn, as the flat land by the lagoon was called. They were George Leslie Smith, Caroline Estes Smith, William Edson Strobridge, Sylvan Noack, Mildred Marsh, Olga Steeb, and R. D. MacLean.
Olga Steeb (1890-1941) had one of her most famous performances half a year later, on March 19, 1921, when the Los Angeles Philharmonic called her from the audience to substitute for an injured soloist. Without rehearsing, she flawlessly played Camille Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto in G Minor. She was not only a gifted musician, but a great teacher with students who also became virtuosos like composer Harry Partch (1901-1974).
The cabins were first used for weekend parties, then for a summer camp, and still stand today as the abandoned Topanga Ranch Motel.
Abraham Franklin Frankenstein (1873-1934), who composed the music for the official state song, “I Love You, California,” saw a more ridiculous opportunity at Cooper’s Camp in 1920. Trying to collect evidence for his divorce trial, he hired detective John McCaleb to make out with his wife Gertrude at the beach. He also had them followed by a witness, Fred J. Lee, who testified in court that “Mr. McCaleb put his head in her lap—or rather, she pulled his head down in her lap.”
The following year saw 150 “beach cottages spring up like magic.” These houses were mostly for vacation use, making them vulnerable to break-ins.
The Smiths—George (1874-1943), who managed the Philharmonic auditorium, and Caroline (1877-1970), who was the first female manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic—had their beach house broken into every month for six months in 1922.
Deputy Sheriffs Archie Cooper and George Saunders (who also lived at the beach) thought they’d finally caught the culprits when they surprised four people dancing in the early morning hours: H. E. Gregg, A. E. Glencross, Evelina Cummings, and Jessie Courtney. However, the arrest turned out to be an embarrassment because Gregg was a police officer, and the Smiths had given him permission to be there. Incidentally, the Smiths were members of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the future owners of Lower Topanga.
At another break-in, Archie and Saunders discovered 20 men and women at a table spread with food and “indications of something stronger than tea.” This sophisticated “joy-riding party” was organized by 23-year-old F. S. Rubio of South Los Angeles, who fought with the deputies when they arrived.
The Cooper brothers romanticized the Wild West, and tried to recreate it on their Topango Ranch, which extended back into the Canyon. Therefore, they were more excited when the next group of people discovered their resort: cowboys!
…the famous Cooper’s Camp north of Santa Monica, today boasts of an honest-to-goodness, rip-roarin’ bunch of cowpunchers: also some of the niftiest cowgirls that ever wielded a wicked six-shooter or roped a roarin’ bronc’.
—“Topango Ranch Has Truly Western Color,” Santa Monica Evening Outlook, 1921-09-02
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| Helen Gibson in The Black Horse Bandit, 1919, c/o Larry Telles Collection |
They were especially thrilled by cowgirl actress Rose “Helen” Gibson (1892-1977), who had brought along this posse to film her new Western. Archie proudly reported,
She can ride high and fancy; bucking bronchos are her matutinal pastime and she can bulldog a steer as good as any man that ever flung a rope.
—“New Movie Outfit Permanently at Topango Beach” Santa Monica Evening Outlook, 1921-08-30
Archie recalled a film shoot two years earlier, when “a famous English actress had to be lifted onto her pony for equestrian scenes.” By contrast, Gibson brought a real rodeo culture that would later give the area the name The Rodeo Grounds.
Gibson’s origins were unusual for a cowgirl. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she’d been a city slicker until she was 17.
During the summer of 1909, a real “Wild West” show came to Luna Park in Cleveland. Rose went to the show and took her girl friend…. [They] were enthralled with all the cowboys, Indians, bronc riding, bull dogging and girl trick riders. After the performance, they went down to the stable area… and asked how they could get a job with the Wild West Show….
Rose took to her basic training as if she was raised on a horse…. But, Rose’s girl friend… didn’t qualify for the job.
—Helen Gibson: Silent Serial Queen by Larry Telles (Bitterroot Mountain, 2013)
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| Helen Gibson in No Man's Woman, 1921 |
Gibson’s first acting role was in Ranch Girls on a Rampage (1912), in which cowgirls visit a Venice amusement park and become so rowdy that they have to be chased out by police. The film was directed by Pat Hartigan and starred Ruth Roland, one year after they’d made A Chance Shot(1911) at the Topanga Beach Native American burial mound.
Gibson’s greatest fame came from starring in The Hazards of Helen (1914-1917), the longest film serial in history with 119 episodes. She played a telegraph operator who turned into a kind of superwoman when problems arose, saving the day with incredible stunts like leaping onto moving trains, jumping motorcycles, and standing on galloping horses. The studio named her “Helen” after her character.
In August 1921, Gibson decided to make the Topango Ranch the permanent headquarters for her films, and began working on a Western with actors Bob Burns (1884-1957) and Jack Ganzhorn (1881-1956). Unfortunately, the financiers, IXL Productions, went bankrupt during filming and didn’t pay the actors. Even worse, riding horses in the film irritated Gibson’s recent appendicitis surgery and put her back in the hospital. Other studios saw that she was unfit and stopped hiring her. A difficult period followed, during which she had to sell all her possessions to survive.
The working title of her Topango Ranch film was Going Some, but the film appears to have been released by a different studio the following year as Thorobred (1922). It is one of the estimated 75% of silent films that are lost.
For the next five years, Gibson supported herself by performing at rodeos and Wild West shows again. When she returned to acting at age 35, she was only given small parts and stunts, yet she forged a career out of this that lasted until the 1960s.
One cowboy actor who remained at the Topango Ranch was Wallace Jones Willett (1898-1970), who went by “Jonesy” and doubled for star Ken Maynard (1895-1973). In July 1922, like a scene from a Western, Jonesy helped solve a crime by recovering a stolen safe from the bushes with two other Topango Ranch cowboys, Clarence Ditman and William “Red” Steeb (1885-1967). Bandits had pried open one side of the safe, then given up and thrown it away. Inside were several thousand dollars in stocks, bonds, and checks stolen from the Bellflower Post Office.
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This is an excerpt from the book Topanga Beach: A History, 1820s-1920s. Author Pablo Capra is a former Lower Topanga resident, and continues to preserve the history of that neighborhood on his website, www.brasstackspress.com, and as a board member of the Topanga Historical Society, www.topangahistoricalsociety.org.
