1953 Theme Award: T.M. Frew Blacksmith Shop
Newhall Fourth of July Parade

Tom Frew's blacksmithing shop on San Fernando Road took the prize for Best of Theme ("Western Transportation") in the 1953 Fourth of July Parade in downtown Newhall — something the shop would repeat many times in the 1950s and 1960s with its elaborately decorated entries.

The mules are driven by Jim Booth, who would later drive the Wells Fargo stagecoach in the local parades of the 1980s and 1990s. In the back of the wagon, young Steve and Jim Arnold are dressed up as welders, and Tom Frew IV is hiding inside the giant firecracker, where he is blowing smoke through the wick (actually a piece of pipe). The white house with the iron fence in the background is the Frew home.

Tom Frew II established the family blacksmithing shop in 1900 on San Fernando Road (then called Spruce) between Market and Eighth Streets, where it stood for three generations until it was finally closed by Tom IV in 1970. For information about the Frew family, read The Accidental Blacksmiths Of Old Newhall by Ruth Waldo Newhall.

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