The Crimson Tide Special En Route to the 1938 Rose Bowl

In December 1937, the University of Alabama scheduled a special Southern Pacific train to carry the Crimson Tide football team and their supporters to Pasadena for the New Years Day game against the University of California. As in years past, the transportation for the Bama backers to the West Coast was organized by Jefferson Coleman, the UA athletic department business manager.

The 14-car train with 248 passengers dubbed "The Crimson Tide Special" by sportswriters left Tuscaloosa on Dec. 21 and traveled the 2,500 miles to California in three days, arriving at the Pasadena station at 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning.

The trip was not uneventful for the squad. During a practice on a rain-drenched field while on a stopover at San Antonio, Texas, Alabama player Leroy Munskie sustained a severe cut over his right eye that required several stiches. The cut was re-injured in a collision during another practice in a Tuscon, AZ stop. The injury sparked concern over if he would be able to play in the New Year's Day game.

Another train carrying Alabama supporters departed Tuscaloosa on Dec. 27 with about 150 passengers and two more trains, one leaving Montgomery and another from Birmingham, departed the same day with about 200 additional Crimson Tide backers.

Rose Bowl Postcard

A postcard of the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California during one of the venue's New Year's Day inter-sectional games from the 1920s.

The 1927 Rose Bowl from the Air

An aerial view of the Rose Bowl stadium during the 1927 game pitting Alabama against Stanford. This was the last game in the distinctive "horseshoe" version of the venue as the southern end was completed prior to the following year's contest. The 1927 game ended in a 7-7 tie.

The Completion of the Rose Bowl Stadium

Built in 1922, Rose Bowl Stadium was initially constructed in a horseshoe shape with the south end of the venue left "open." The popularity of the annual inter-sectional contest in the mid-1920s, due partly to the success of the Alabama team's success there, provided the financial means to complete the stadium. The new southern section debuted with the 1928 Rose Bowl game featuring Pittsburgh and Stanford raising the stadium's capacity by 16,000 to 79,000.

Alabama Arrives in Pasadena for the 1946 Rose Bowl

Alabama's Harry Gilmer, Coach Frank Thomas
and Vaughn Mancha arrive in Pasadena.

On Dec. 26, 1945, the University of Alabama football team arrived in Pasadena, California for the 1946 Rose Bowl after a 72-hour train trip from Tuscaloosa.

Although the train arrived more than nine hours late Alabama Head Coach Frank Thomas immediately ordered his team to a workout under the lights at South Pasadena High School. It was the first time in Rose Bowl history a team held a night workout to prepare for the New Year's Day game.

The trip had not been uneventful. Nine Crimson Tide players suffered from the flu on the way and halfback Lowell Tew was dealing with a broken jaw from a hit he took on the final day of practice in Tuscaloosa. Alabama would go on to defeat USC in the Rose Bowl game, 34-14.

The 1946 Tournament of Roses Parade

The 57th Tournament of Roses Queen and her Royal Court

The 1946 Tournament of Roses was the first to be held following the end of World War II and the event's centerpiece parade garnered a extraordinarily large amount of attention and participation.

Admiral William F "Bull" Halsey was the grand marshall of the parade which was comprise of more than 50 floats. Officials said the crowds that descended on Pasadena to see the parade were the largest in the history of the event.

1946 Tournament of Roses
Queen Patricia Auman

The Rose Queen was Patricia Auman, a 17-year-old student at Pasadena Junior College. After her year-long duties concluded, Auman chose to attend Stanford rather than pursue a movie career like many other Rose Queens.

Years later, when interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, she said she greatly enjoyed the experience but had resevations about what it meant and the commercialization of the event.

“While the tournament has always stressed it wasn’t a beauty contest I don’t like the emphasis on looks," she told the paper in 1979. "I wish they would do away with it entirely or combine it with achievement; what a person is, now how they look."

Alabama defeated the University of Southern California 34-13 in the 1946 Rose Bowl, the final appearance of the Crimson Tide in the New Year's Day classic.

The color photograph above was taken by Huntington Park resident O.W. Sjogren. Several of his shots of this Rose parade and a few others have recently been uploaded onto Flickr.

The Arroyo Seco Parkway

1938 Rose Queen Cheryl Walker at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Cheryl Walker presided as the Rose Queen in the 1938 Tournament of Roses and subsequent Rose Bowl that saw California defeat Alabama, 13-0. Three months later, her duties included the inauguration of one of the countries most historic infrastructure projects - the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

When the bulldozer carrying Walker pushed the first mound of dirt on March 22, 1940 it launched the construction of a six lane road between Pasadena and Los Angeles - the first freeway in the Western United States.

The increase in automobile usage in the late 20s and 1930s prompted a push to build a direct connection between the prospering city and its neighbor eight miles to the northeast. The $5.75 million freeway was built in the route of an intermittent stream that had long been one of the main transportation routes between the two cities.

The road was completed and dedicated on December 30, 1940 by Sally Stanton, that year's Rose Queen. It was in operation on New Year's Day in time for both the Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl that pitted Southern California against Tennessee (USC won 14-0).

At the time, the six "glass-smooth miles" represented a transitional phase between early parkways and modern freeways. The road's landscaped embankments, limited access, and depressed roadway made it the prototype of the Los Angeles freeway system.

Today California 110, or the Pasadena Freeway as it is also known, remains largely the same as when it was first completed but carries more than four times the traffic it was originally intended to. As a result it is now considered overly narrow and outdated (it was designed for traffic travelling at 45 mph) but $17 million initiative to upgrade the road proposal has drawn the ire of preservationists.

The freeway is in the National Record of Historic Places and one of the American Society of Civil Engineers Historic Landmarks.

The 1926 Rose Bowl

A panoramic view of the 1926 Rose Bowl game between Alabama and Washington. The Crimson Tide bested the Huskies 20-19 in Pasadena's Rose Bowl Stadium before a crowd of more than 43,000.

The 1946 Tournament of Roses Parade

Film of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on Jan. 1, 1946 prior to the game between Alabama and USC.