The event came immediately in the wake of the great flood, when the Santa Ana River surged over its banks in the spring of 1938, wiping out wide swaths of Costa Mesa, which was described in the same article as “a region of small farms.”
Yet despite the tragedy, 5,000 people came out to the inaugural event, according to records of the Costa Mesa Historical Society. By the time the festival had its final hurrah in 1941, attendance had grown to 20,000 (five times the population of the town) and the Times reports that 150 entries were received.
Looking at old pictures you can tell that some of the entries were no small effort and others show impressive creativity.
In 1939, for instance, the owner of Costa Mesa Bird Farm and his daughter designed “flora,” a life-size replica of a woman covered completely in flowers. Another entry the same year, designed by a local plumbing company, was made from assorted pieces of metal piping and scraps of metal joined together to form a pair of men.
Even with its ever-growing popularity, the scarecrow festival died off at the onset of the war, and given Costa Mesa’s impending transformation from a farming town to an industrial and residential suburb, the festival was never reignited.
In perhaps a sign of the changing times, after the war ended in 1945 another summer festival quickly took its place around the city’s business center: The Lions Club Fish Fry, which would also grow in popularity and draw crowds of thousands from all over the region.
