 |
| A pic of the original stands and track circa 1908. All pics sourced from Wikipedia (link at bottom). |
These days, it seems that the Tanforan Racetrack is little known outside of older equestrian circles or people who have lived in San Bruno for a while, but it's a place that has some very significant and interesting history associated with it. Currently, there is no racetrack anymore, but rather a shopping center that has stood there since 1971, and is likely what most people today are familiar with. However, even that has closed this year as it will now be turned into a campus for tech companies and firms.
The history of it starts in 1899, the sole reason for the location of the facility was to circumvent a recent ban on gambling in San Francisco, which did not carry over to San Bruno at the time, to be as close to the city as possible. At the time of construction, the grandstands cost $35,000 to build, which in today's money would equal roughly $1,140,000.
 |
| A pic of the original electric railway leading to the stands. |
The project was devised by a famous (at the time) racetrack proprietor, Edward C. Corrigan and got his principal investment from a couple of brothers in law named William H. Crocker and Prince Andre Poniatowski provided a majority of the funding to construct. They decided to mane the track after a man called Toribio Tanforan, who was the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez, who was the one responsible for the Rancho Buri Buri Mexican Land Grant that comprises what San Bruno is made of today.
At the time, it originally had a grandstand with seating for 3000 and a total capacity for 5000 spectators, as well as a dedicated Southern Pacific train stop right in front of the grandstands. After opening, the facility had a rich history of racing not only horses, but was also host to dog shows and races, as well as car and motorcycle races, until 1911, when horse gambling was effectively banned state-wide.
 |
| A pic of the first flight to ever take off from northern California in 1910. |
Perhaps the most interesting thing to happen at the site was it's hosting to the San Francisco International Air Meet in late January of 1910, being the second ever such event in the United States, the first being held in Los Angeles just the week before. The festivities were delayed for a day because of storms, but upon the resumption of the meet, it was the first recorded flights ever in northern California. Influential aviator Ivan Gates was in attendance of that event and said it inspired him to begin his career in aviation. A subsequent meet was held the next year, with the military being enthusiastic participants with early warplanes, and the first ever aerial reconnaissance flight being performed there. The military also performed the first ever successful shipboard landing of an aircraft with a plane that had taken off from the 1911 exhibition at Tanforan. Afterward, a third exhibition was also held in 1912 as well.
With the advent of World War I, the grandstand and stables at Tanforan were dismantled in December 1918, not too long after being established as a United States military training center in 1917. It was marked by it being renamed to Camp Tanforan in 1917 and was home to the formation a unit called the "Grizzlies", a volunteer artillery regiment officially known as 144th Field Artillery of the United States Army that trained there until being sent to San Diego later that same year.
 |
| A pic of the training camp for the "Grizzlies", and I ain't talking soccer or hockey. |
The interwar period saw the track foreclose in 1918, but was then rebuilt in 1922 by Pacific Coast Jockey Club to see non-betting races return to the tracks. The reconstruction effort took a monumental $100,000 which equals out to about $1,620,000 in today's money. Later in September 1923, it was the host of a large barbecue and rodeo celebrating the Pony Express, saw horse relays from Stockton to Tanforan via San Jose and San Francisco, following the original express route. The 20s also saw additional car races, and there was even a boxing ring installed to host those events. Unfortunately, the facility could not be sustained without gambling and saw a continual loss because of operating costs, and there was a significant decline of events throughout the 1930s, the great depression likely not helping it's situation.
The darkest portion of it's history comes in 1942 after the start of World War II, when it was named the Tanforan Assembly Center. Executive Order 9066 created the internment camps for Japanese Americans and Tanforan was used as a detention center and processing facility for over 8,000 Americans of Japanese decent. The facility was reconstructed to intern 10,000 temporarily before the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah could be built to permanently imprison them. The US government spent $1,147,216 at that time to reconfigure the facility, which equals to about $19,030,000 today, and was ultimately only in use for about six months.
As mentioned, the detainees were ultimately transferred to the Central Utah Relocation Center by train, which was a two day journey, usually in groups ranging from about 200-500 at a time. After all citizens were transferred, the facility was then repurposed by the US Army for "commando training" until it was handed over to the US Navy in 1943.
 |
| The Mochida family wearing identification tags in 1942. |
At the time, an Army spokesman said, "there wasn't time—there literally wasn't time—to segregate the loyal from the disloyal." One administrative officer summed up his feelings about the detainees after three months of internment: "... no one can tell you what a Japanese is thinking. I know less about them right now than the first day I came here." You'd think that after saying that, the person quoted would realize the fact that the Army are the jackbooted, traitorous assholes in that situation, but common sense eludes so many people, even then.
As a personal aside, the generation that served throughout World War II (or born from 1901-1927), is often still called "The Greatest Generation", but despite the many sacrifices and achievements by those that lived in that time, I insist that they have also done just as many equally terrible things as well. They oversaw some of the largest curtailing of American rights and freedoms, oversaw some of the worst human right abuses, censorship, and misrepresentation of history to future generations as well as enabled the infiltration of the US by communists and then tried to cover it up, many of those things being the source of many problems today. Future generations have had to pay for their choices and try to repair the damage done by those same choices as much as possible. We are still feeling the effects of those choices today, and still have yet to undo some of the injustices perpetrated during those years. But hey, George Takei will still viciously defend and vote for the political party that perpetrated that, so it all good, right? <==Insert heavy sarcasm here.
 |
| A pic of the line to the mess hall at Tanforan in '42. |
In 1946 after the war, the site was again bought and reconstructed at a price of $2,000,000 (equivalent to $27,790,000 today), but was still retained as a training and staging area by the US Navy, which also caused some controversy and scandal at the time. Another scandal occurred in 1949 stating that corrupt government officials under President Truman used influence to help provide reconstruction materials illegally.
Ultimately, races did continue at Tanforan for some time until it's official closure by the California Horse Racing Board in February 1964 and was scheduled to be demolished. Before it could commence, a suspected arsonist caused an explosion and subsequent fire in July 1964, destroying the remains of the facility.
 |
| The shops at Tanforan food court circa 2020, right before it's closure. |
After the disaster, the Tanforan shopping center was erected in 1971 and was a major hub for the BART train as well. The shops there operated for 50 years until it's permanent closure in 2021. The land still houses a statue of Seabiscuit there and there are also two memorial plaques commemorating the victims of the relocation center that were erected in 1980 and 2007. Thankfully, despite new developments, it is planned to have a new, permanent statue to memorialize the relocation victims that is planned to be unveiled in May of 2022.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment