Prologue -- From Darkness...

For most of the United States -- and, indeed, the world -- the year 1940 was a dark moment in history. After more than a decade of the Great Depression, the nation was only just emerging into a more hopeful future.

Around the world, things continued to look bleak. Just months after invading Poland, Germany overwhelmed many small European countries and then marched into Paris, forcing France under the jackboot. The Japanese were making ominous noises in the Orient, although most Americans paid little attention to that nation's military buildup.

America itself was, at best, sharply divided over the conflict in Europe. The horrors of war were still in the minds of many who had fought in the so-called "War to End All Wars" or those who had lost loved ones in Europe. So fragmented was the nation that the "Lend Lease" bill in 1941 to send war material to England in exchange for leases on military bases passed the Congress by a single vote. Not until December 7, 1941 -- a date which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the following day "would live in infamy" -- would Americans full embrace the crusade that would become World War II.

...to Light

Southern California struggled through the depression years but the outlook here in 1940 was more positive. The burgeoning military-industrial complex (a phrase that would be made famous by President Dwight D. Eisenhower nearly two decades later), the area's rich agricultural bounty, the motion picture and entertainment industry and the long-held belief that California was a "Shangri-La" became a magnet for millions of people from across the nation and around the world.

While the nation's population grew just 7.28 percent in the decade from 1930 to 1940, California's population grew what seemed like an astounding 21.6 percent. The city of Los Angeles' population alone grew 20.9 percent during the decade, to 1,496,792. But that was but a foreshadowing of things to come.

From 1940 to 1950, while the nation's population was expanding at a 14.5 percent rate, California's population increased a staggering 52.8 percent, from just under seven million in 1940 to 10,558,223 a decade later. The growth rate barely let up as the state grew another 48.8 percent in the 1950s; altogether from 1940 to 1960, California saw its population grow 127.5 percent to 15,717,204 people.

The other seminal shift in Californians' lifestyle was the emergence of the automobile. Unlike eastern metropolises, which were building higher and higher buildings, Californians were spreading out. A 40-mile trip, which back east would have been considered an all-day affair preceded by much planning, became just a quick jaunt for Southern Californians.

The Los Angeles Times caught the fever. When the Arroyo Seco Parkway (now called the Pasadena Freeway), the region's first freeway, opened on Dec. 30, 1940, the paper heralded the event with a front-page banner headline.

Car-happy Southern Californians quickly discovered that they didn't need to live close to their work or their recreational pursuits. Automobiles and cheap gasoline meant that a person could drive anywhere to shop or play golf. That mobility would have a profound influence on golf course, real estate and business construction during the next two decades.

Chapter One - Soldiering On

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