75 Years Serving Horsemen in California

1942-2017

FOREWARD

Much of the history of CSHA from the 1940s and into the 1960s has been lost. Not surprising considering “records storage pretty much amounted to what could fit in the Executive Secretary’s home for nearly 25 years. Also, these were people who had lived through a depression, 2 world wars and a “police action”…perhaps the tendency was to look to the future without worrying too much about the past. After all, someone would always be around to tell the story…wouldn’t they?

In 2008 Kirk Siedentopf (Region 1) put together a brief history of CSHA. We thought he’d pretty much covered it until a cache of old newsletters was discovered in the storage unit. After a few hours spent laughing at what we’d forgotten or never known, we realized just how much had actually been missing…and was found. And so started the quest for more. Thank you to everyone who dug through CSHA archives, their own drawers and closets, boxes of photo albums and even E-Bay finding a photo, a document or a snippet of memory to fill in the gaps.

This writing represents where we’ve been and how the organization got to be 75 years old. We have done our best to verify dates, names and facts. If you feel that you have additional information, can further expand on what has been presented or provide photos for possible inclusion, please contact the CSHA Historian via the State Office.

This history is presented to you in celebration as we enter CSHA’s 75^thanniversary…..1942 2017. Were you there for the 10^thanniversary? Were you there for the 25^thanniversary or maybe the 50^thanniversary? Well, you’re here now and I hope that you enjoy reading this history as much as I enjoyed writing it…and living it for nearly 40 years.