Historic newspaper images of Old Spanish Days create a journey through the past of Santa Barbara’s biggest event
John Palminteri
SANTA BARBARA, Calif – For the first time, Old Spanish Days in Santa Barbara can be viewed through a collection of newspaper images and preserved pages.
Project Fiesta! is the latest exhibit at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
It dates back to the Morning Press and Daily Independent papers in the 1920’s and continues through the detailed history of the Santa Barbara News-Press in the 1930’s up until the paper stopped publishing in July 2023.
The archives were recently obtained by the museum and specific Fiesta images were curated for this event.
Santa Barbara Historical Museum Executive Director Dacia Harwood said, “the quality is amazing. This is very much this a photo journalist exhibition what you see here is about a thousand photos of the 20,000 that we brought into our collection.”
This exhibit is a selection from the includes thousands of images captured by photojournalists who’ve documented Old Spanish Days Fiesta for generations. They had unique access to the upclose shot locations.
“The photo journalists at the time really captured the joy and the splendor if you will, of Fiesta,” said Harwood.
The photos are in displays sorted by events including El Desfile Historico, Fiesta Pequena and the Fiesta Children’s Parade. Some of the lost memories come back live through this exhibit.
Harwood said, “guests coming in and recognizing their parents on the walls of the exhibit or their friends and reminiscing on these events that have really stayed the same for 100 years.”
The Museum Director of Education Emily Alessio showed some behind the scenes images that may be part of the exhibit another time. “You can look and see people hanging out of the windows, we have some photographs of people sitting on the roofs which would never happen today.” That was when the spectator numbers were estimated to be 115,000.
Through the years, a special collectors edition program was inserted in the paper.
Alessio said, “you could pick up a program that Old Spanish Days Fiesta put out or you could pick up one of these programs that the News Press would put out.” They were larger than pocket-sized programs and considered a full-size guide with pictures. In the early days there were “garden tours” as part of Fiesta and those were featured as well.
The exhibition is dedicated in memory of the late historian Erin Graffy de Garcia. She was called, “a tireless advocate for illuminating and preserving Santa Barbara’s incredible Fiesta history.”
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday. More information can be found at: Project Fiesta!