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.
