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 1938 Rose Queen Cheryl Walker

Rose Queen Cheryl Walker and the 1938 Rose Court

The 1938 Queen of the Tournament of Roses was 20-year-old native of Pasadena, Cheryl Walker. The Pasadena Junior College student was selected out of more than 1,500 young women who vied for the honor. Alabama beat Stanford in the 1935 New Year's Day classic, 29-13.

The day after the Tournament of Roses she signed a film contract with Paramount that launched her modeling and film career. Walker worked as a double for stars such as Joyce Mathews, Madeleine Carroll and Veronica Lake until her first substantial role in 1940's "Chasing Trouble."

Walker's first starring role was in "Secrets of a Model"  later that year although she used the name Sharon Lee. From then until her retirement as an actress in 1948, Walker mainly appeared as a minor character in the films she worked on. The notable exception of her star turn "Stage Door Canteen" in 1943.

In the 1950s, Walker became involved in Southern California political activities traveling across the region giving speeches to civic and church groups on "the menace of communism". She founded Tuesday Morning Study Club that presented annual patriotism awards to anti-communist activists.

Walker died in 1971 of cancer in Pasadena.