Greyhound Racing in Emeryville
Greyhound racing flourished in California from 1919 to 1939. despite the existence of State laws against racetrack betting, and consequent harassment from law enforcement officials. This novel sport became popular because it provided fans with the thrilling spectacle of swift, graceful dogs running at top speed (over 40 m.p.h.) in close competition, as well as the opportunity to bet on a winner.
The first commercial greyhound racetrack in America was located in Emeryville, strategically situated in the center of a large metropolitan area. The town was chosen for its tolerance for gambling and the racetrack tradition that dated back to the opening of the Oakland Trotting Park in the early 1870s.
Owen Smith
The Emeryville dog racetrack was built by Owen Patrick Smith, “the father of modem greyhound racing.” Smith, a native of Oklahoma and an engineer by profession, perfected the mechanical rabbit device which revolutionized the sport of greyhound racing. Before Smith’s invention, greyhound racing, known as “coursing” in England where the sport originated, took place in a fenced park where greyhounds chased live rabbits. The introduction of coursing into the United States generated considerable opposition because the dogs often caught and killed the rabbits before they could reach the holes in the fence provided for their escape. Coursing events were held in California after the tum of the century, but the government suppressed the sport because of its brutality.
The Mechanical Rabbit
In an attempt to make the sport more humane, Smith designed a circular dog racetrack equipped with a moving mechanical rabbit that acted as a lure for the dogs to chase. Propelled by a motor, the rabbit traveled on a rail past the starting gate, and upon their release the dogs eagerly pursued it. Smith successfully tested the innovation in Emeryville in 1919 and opened a greyhound racetrack here in 1920. Known as Blue Star Amusement Park, it was located on the north side of Park Avenue between Horton and Holden Streets. The oval track was 25 feet wide and three-sixteenths of a mile (990 feet) long, encompassing an area about the size of a football field.
George Sawyer was President of Blue Star Amusement Park, while Smith served on the Board of Directors. In an effort to promote and regulate the new sport, the Emeryville Coursing Club was established with an office at 1420 Park Avenue.
Opening of Blue Star Amusement Park
The sport section of the 1921 Oakland Tribune Yearbook recounted the opening of the Blue Star Amusement Park as follows:
“The latest sport to attract the attention of the fans is dog racing and Emeryville claims the distinction of having the first dog racing plant in the West. The plant was built and is operated by the Blue Star Amusement Company of which George Sawyer is president, and races are held every Sunday and holiday during the summer season. Coursing, which once flourished in this part of the country, was killed by the protests of people who claimed the sport was brutal. Instead of using live rabbits at the Emeryville track a mechanical hare is used and the hounds chase it with as much interest as they would a live rabbit. The hare is operated on a track by electricity and runs around the track just a few yards ahead of the dogs. At the start of the race the dogs are kept in a cage containing six stalls and when the rabbit passes they are released simultaneously. At the finish of the race the hare automatically disappears. The mechanical bunny is the invention of O. P. Smith. one of the directors of the Blue Star Company. The local company controls all rights and patents and is constructing tracks in many parts of the country.”
An article also appeared in the Oakland Enquirer. May 26. 1920, announcing the opening of the dog track
“Fanciers of fleet greyhounds get their innings next Saturday when a new sport is inaugurated at the Emeryville coursing park.
Three days of the sport will be offered to introduce the new track. which boasts the first electrically controlled hare ever seen in the west.
On the first turn of the racetrack is situated a tower equipped with controller and switches from which all operations take place. Around the track (is) a boxing built partly around the ground. This contains a miniature subway railway with rails. trolley wire and the necessary equipment to speed up the quarry. The stuffed rabbit is mounted in a running position and a jumping motion is given the body by means of a hinge arrangement.
The dogs, after being duly classified, are started from a novel barrier, wherein every dog has his own stall, there being no such thing as leaving one dog at the post. At a given signal they are released at the same instant, and it is then up to the dog. To distinguish the different dogs, colored collars are used.
The animals are placed in the barrier, each in his own stall, their position being determined by lot. A rabbit is started at the farther side of the track in order to gain its momentum, so that when it passes the barrier it is going at top speed. When it is fifty feet in front of the cage the flagman drops the flag and the dogs are instantly released.
The faster they travel, the faster the operator gives the Juice to the flying rabbit the object being to keep the hare about fifty feet ahead of the dogs. At the end of the race the towerman throws the switch, letting the rabbit in on a side track through which it disappears into a hole. The race has already been decided before they reach the escape, as the wire is passed 150 feet before the rabbit disappears…”
Only an Electric Bunny
Under the headline “Hounds Give Pursuit to Fake Bunny” the San Francisco Examiner, May 31, 1920, also announced the opening of the dog racetrack.
“It looks like a rabbit and the hounds think it is a rabbit, but it is only an electric bunny. This is the manner in which east bay sportsmen have solved the problem of holding dog races without coming into difficulties with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Coursing was enjoyed Saturday and yesterday and will be enjoyed today at the Emeryville Coursing Park.
The mechanical rabbit is in reality a miniature electric car invented by O. P. Smith.
The only cruelty that could be charged now would be that it is cruel to the hounds to fool them.
The make-believe rabbit consists of a small tramway circling the inner edge of a three sixteenths mile track. The tramway is controlled from a ‘stationary point in a small tower. Protruding from the car is an iron rod, surmounting a small rubber tire wheel. Atop of it is a stuffed rabbit.
The dogs run six in afield. They are “unleashed” from a cage in front of which the stuffed rabbit, carrying a distinct bunny odor, is exhibited to the hounds. The rabbit can make upward of seventy-five miles an hour, it is claimed, but for the safety of the device, is usually given a fifty-foot start on the dogs.
At the “killing” the stuffed hare is drawn into a trap beside the track, the hounds usually piling up alongside it.
At the opening of the meet one of the dogs overtook the bait. Disaster to the machine was averted by the dog’s surprise at the strange character of the rabbit.
The apparatus was constructed at a cost of $30,000, Smith claims. The car weighs 500 pounds. In the first race at the 3-16 of a mile the dogs covered the ground in 22 seconds.”
A Call to the Starting Gate
The Blue Star Amusement Park featured three types of races. A one-quarter mile championship event consisted of three heats; the first three dogs in each heat competed in the final race. In the match race, two dogs raced one quarter mile to determine the winner, a distance the hounds completed in about 29 seconds. In the hurdle race, greyhounds jumped over hurdles for three-sixteenths of a mile, an event the dogs completed in about 25 seconds. In 1921 a puppy race, a match race between two youngsters, was added to the card. As in a horse race, the bugle called the dogs to the starting gate.
The gate consisted of six stalls, one stall for each dog in a six dog race. It operated in the following manner:
“A flip-top type starting box was used. This was a starting gate with four (or six) stalls with a single door across the front, covering all four stalls, and hinged across the top. At the start the door would be opened upward by the use of bungee cord and all greyhounds would be released at the same instant. And at the beginning, the grey hounds wore cloth collars of different colors rather than blankets as are used today.”
A method had to be devised to stop the hounds from running after they crossed the finish line. This was accomplished by moving a curtain across the track, a device that proved effective, according to the following account:
“When the track first opened, a canvas curtain was drawn across the track to stop the greyhounds. This curtain was located near the middle of the first tum. Soon, however, it became necessary to add another curtain, called the ‘runback’ curtain so as to trap the dogs between the two. This latter curtain would be drawn across the track at the beginning of the first turn. This second curtain cut down the catch time considerably because the forefathers of today’s greyhounds were a wild and spooky bunch.”
Fast Farm Dogs
According to Paul Hartwell’s The Road from Emeryville: a History of Greyhound Racing, O. P. Smith and George Sawyer bought Emeryville’s racing greyhounds from farmers in outlying rural areas:
“There were’t too many greyhounds around California at that time and the ones that were there were widely scattered. O. P. Smith, with the help of George Sawyer, had rounded up a few farmers with greyhounds in some of the outlying areas, most of whom had brought their greyhounds with them from Texas or Oklahoma, but even so, a day’s racing might consist of no more than 16 or 20 greyhounds, and some would race several times in an afternoon.”
These dogs may not have been English racing greyhounds, but they were undoubtedly similar in size and appearance to the hounds that race today. The modern racing greyhound is almost five feet long from nose to tip of tail, weighs about 65 pounds, and has a top speed of about 45 miles per hour.
Colorful Handles
The following colorfully-named dogs raced at the Emeryville track:
Palm Flower, Oakland Hop, Harmony. Smoky Wild Bill, Crystal Belle, Honor M, Princess Pat. Sinn Feiner, Lady Grand, Waconia, Ready Answer. Oakland Beau, Montana Boy, Wahoo, Gold Thread. Desert Sand. Loganberry. Starlight, My Lily. Yeomanette, Steamship, Good Rule, Birdie. Tammany Hall, Lone Mountain Lass. Mr. Jiggs. Theda Bora, Diablo, Oakland Hero. Little Nancy. Black Jack, Daddy Long Legs. Nebulous Nimrod, Dry Martini, Badly Blended. Fireball, Richmond Bell, California Girl, and Gypsy Queen.
This list is by no means complete.
Motley Crowd
The dog races attracted a motley audience, according to Hartwell:
“At the time. though, it (Blue Star) was on the fringes of a much younger Oakland and was so far from the bulk of the population that crowds were small; It was strictly a weekend operation — Saturdays and Sundays only — but even so, attendance rarely exceeded 200 or 300 persons per day.
Nevertheless, what crowd there was a lively and motley one. Some came to see and some came to play. Clothing was anything and everything from bib overalls to black suits topped off with Derby hats, and there was a liberal sprinkling of the tattered remnants of World War I doughboy uniforms. There were also many heads covered with the short-visored cloth caps that had crossed the seas from troubled Ireland and a few of the wearers of these caps were soon to become greyhound owners themselves. There were few women in attendance. Of those that were seen at the races, some still wore long dresses and high-top shoes, but there were some venturesome souls who reflected the post-war freedom by wearing dark but daring skirts that occasionally curled above the knee when a gust of wind blew in from the bay.”
Gambling
Hartwell also provides Information about gambling at the Blue Star Amusement Park.
“In the beginning there was no gambling; profits were ostensibly to come from gate receipts. But O. P. Smith was a realist and soon accepted the reality that gambling was going to pay the bills. Consequently, most afternoons would see bookmakers waving their arms and calling the odds, and those wishing to wager could shop from one bookmaker to another to find the most favorable odds on the greyhound of their choice. The differences were small, but occasionally one bookmaker would reach for business by raising the odds on a particular greyhound from 3 to 5 all the way up to, perhaps, 6 to 5.”
The major Bay Area newspapers, including the Oakland Tribune, Oakland Enquirer, San Francisco Call, and the San Francisco Examiner, promoted the sport by covering Emeryville dog races in their respective sport sections. In 1921, the Oakland Tribune started a special column entitled “Coursing News”, topped by a cartoon of a hound chasing a scared rabbit, that provided Information about greyhound racing in Emeryville.
“Its Greatest Summer Season”
When the Blue Star Amusement Park began its second season of racing in June, 1921, local newspapers made optimistic predictions about the future of the sport in Emeryville. The Pacific Coursing Club, having replaced the Emeryville Coursing Club as the racetrack sponsor, expanded the regular program to include a puppy match that featured the younger dogs. The June 13, 1921 Oakland Enquirer reported that “greyhound racing is improving in popularity every week and should enjoy its greatest summer season.”
A few days later the track closed. On June 19, 1921 the Oakland Tribune announced:
“Owner George Sawyer has decided to close the plant down for a couple of weeks. Sawyer is planning some needed improvements, and the track will probably open up soon under new management.”
The park never reopened and the first greyhound track to open became the first greyhound track to close.
The demise of greyhound racing in Emeryville can be attributed to both the breakup of O. P. Smith’s business partnership, and the limitations of daytime racing. Smith had serious disagreements with his business partners, George Sawyer, George Heintz, and Todd Hunter. He insisted on exercising total control of the racetrack operation, an attitude that made the business partnership unworkable.
No Night Racing
Furthermore, the park was only open on Saturday and Sunday, and the track had difficulty making a profit with this limited schedule. It remained closed on weekdays since in an era of six- day work weeks, most of the fans worked on those days. The track did not offer night racing because it lacked the necessary lighting. A few years after the close of the Emeryville track, greyhound racetracks in other parts of the country began installing lighting and offering night racing events. Nighttime dog racing soon became popular with the fans and profitable for the owners.
The closing of the Emeryville dog track did not bring an end to greyhound racing in the Bay Area, however; in the 20s and 30s, dog racetracks opened in numerous Bay Area cities, including San Pablo, EI Cerrito, Menlo Park, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Alviso, Union Park, and Bayshore City. These tracks operated illegally, but most of the time local officials made no attempt to shut them down. To stay in business, racetrack owners would have to reach an agreement, often requiring a payoff, with local police and politicians. Twice in the 30s, the State legislature passed bills which would have legalized dog racetrack betting, but both were vetoed by Governor Frank Merrian.
“Public Nuisances”
Then State Attorney General Earl Warren disapproved of dog race gambling in California and was determined to close all of the dog race tracks in the State. Warren claimed that the sport attracted a large number of low-income fans who could ill afford to gamble. and that bettors had no protection when dog track owners rigged the odds. According to Warren, racetrack owners had operated the tracks “in defiance of the law ever since their spread to California some years ago. Not only are they operating in violation of the State gambling law but in various ways constitute public nuisances. I’m satisfied that a substantial portion of relief funds goes through betting windows at dog tracks rather than into the mouths of children the money is supposed to feed.”
Warren also accused track owners of hiring 12 and 13-year-old minors to work at night. He sent State agents to raid California dog tracks and by 1939, all of them had been forced to shut down. By 1930, the Emeryville dog track, vacant for several years, had already been demolished. The last greyhound dog track, the EI Cerrito Dog Track, closed in March, 1939. Proposals to legalize dog track betting continued to be submitted to the legislature in the 1940s, but all were defeated.
This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical essays book.
