Los Alamos Old Days

At eleven o’clock on the Sunday of the last full weekend of September, Bell Street in Los Alamos is closed and lined with people waiting for the Biggest Little Parade. In 2017 the route began at Bell Street (Highway 135) and Augusta Street, ran west on Bell, and ended at St. Joseph Street. Ray Williams, president of the Los Alamos Valley Men’s Club, told the Santa Maria Sun in 2025 that the club pays tens of thousands of dollars to shut the street down. That year there were around 40 to 50 entries. At the 2026 parade, the 80th, Waylon Estes, a nine-year-old singer and rodeo interviewer, sang the national anthem. The announcers were Jessie Carroll of Sunny Country 102.5 and Sara Djerf of the 1880 Union Hotel.

Friday horns, Saturday steaks

The parade closes a weekend that opens on Friday evening at the clubhouse, 429 Leslie Street, with the Buck Contest. In 2026, the contest’s third year, hunters turned in horns from 3 p.m., and all had to arrive by 6. A chile verde dinner, a raffle with door prizes, and the Red Oak Country Band followed. Winners went home with buckles. The club wrote afterward that “the house was packed with kids, locals, visitors and plenty of familiar faces.” Earlier Fridays went differently. In 2017 the weekend began with a Chili Kick-Off Party & Dance, and the event’s Facebook profile still lists a chili cook-off, a silent auction, and a pancake breakfast.

On Saturday the classic cars park along Bell Street, and artisan booths line both sides from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. In Ferrini Park, children play carnival games free for prizes, with bounce houses, soft play, and a petting zoo. The bingo game is played on a field marked in squares, and the 2026 schedule named it goat pebble bingo at 11 a.m. The club’s own Saturday post called it goat pie bingo. Its Old Days page and older listings call it cow pie bingo. Food vendors work Centennial Street from 11 to 2. At noon a dog parade crosses Ferrini Park, and at the clubhouse Whiskey Bent BBQ begins selling tri-tip sandwiches and keeps going until they run out. Churros 805 sold churros at the club on both days in 2026. Saturday night is Cook Your Own, a dinner and dance at the clubhouse where guests cook their own steaks. In 2026 the band was The Fossils, billed as a Central Coast party band. “Saturday night for me is always the fun one,” Williams said.

Sunday begins at 9 a.m. with an outdoor service by Element Christian Church in Ferrini Park. At 9:30 the Old Days Stampede, a 5K run and walk, starts from the same park. It reached its 15th running in 2026 and raises money for Cal Swoosh, which pays for underprivileged children to play sports. After the parade the club holds its barbecue contest, which Williams said in 2025 had started two years earlier. It has categories for tri-tip, chicken, and pork ribs. “It’s a traditional Santa Maria style, or you can say ‘Los Alamos style,’” he said. “There’s no smokers or anything like that.” Chris & Brett played at the clubhouse from noon to 2 in 2026. Back in Ferrini Park there was a water balloon toss at 1 and a watermelon eating contest at 1:30.

Wanted posters and a jail of pallets

Before each Old Days the club chooses a queen and a princess. The 2026 candidates were Lucy Martin, MaKayla Goodchild, Ruby Olvera, and Cassidy Young, and together they raised about $8,000 for community donations. Lucy Martin was named queen and Ruby Olvera princess. For the 80th they ran a jail-and-bail fundraiser, which the club described as “in true old west fashion.” Townspeople were nominated at $1 per minute of jail time, and bail was set at double the nomination. Wanted Posters showed the amounts, and payment went to the club. Two weeks before the weekend, a member named Shirley asked on the club’s page for three pallets in good shape to build the jail.

Earlier editions leaned harder on costume. In 2013 Civil War re-enactors camped in the courtyard of the Union Hotel to honor the California 100, a group of Californians who went east to fight in the war. “So few people in California even know that there is a California Civil War history,” said Wayne Sherman of Solvang, standing in union blue beside a rack of old rifles. A costume contest that year brought out Old West clothes, and a few people on Bell Street wore guns on their hips. Vendors sold bottle openers made from railroad spikes. Organizers counted more than 3,000 visitors a day in a town the Lompoc Record put at about 1,800 people. In 2017, the 71st year, Gustavo Ramirez set a mock metal cow on Bell Street beside his booth of torch-finished furniture and taught passersby to rope it. “We’re not cowboys,” one would-be roper said, laughing. Vendors on the street that year sold fresh-squeezed lemonade, super nachos, kettle corn, and double chocolate avocado cookies.

A square mile on two ranches

Bell Street takes its name from one of the town’s founders. The Santa Barbara Independent’s history of the town says the valley was first home to a Chumash village, which was abandoned in the early 1800s under Mission La Purísima. Alamos is Spanish for cottonwoods. In 1839 Jose Antonio de la Guerra was granted Rancho Los Alamos, almost 49,000 acres. In 1868 Dr. James Barron Shaw, acting for the San Francisco financier Thomas Bell, bought 14,000 acres of it for Bell’s son John and the same acreage of neighboring Rancho La Laguna for himself.

In 1874 the stagecoach route was shifted through the valley, and the stage company put up a stable and a dining place. Two years later Bell and Shaw hired surveyors to lay out a town on the line between their ranches. The site was a square mile, with lots 50 by 200 feet. One main street was named Centennial for the nation’s hundredth birthday that year. The first building was a residence and store put up by A. Leslie. J.D. Snyder, the Wells Fargo agent, built another store and turned it into a hotel. According to the Independent, that building burned in 1893 and was rebuilt as the Union Hotel. The Lompoc Record gives the Union Hotel’s construction date as 1880.

The narrow-gauge Pacific Coast Railway arrived in 1882, and by the spring of 1883 about 450 people lived in Los Alamos. In 1887 the line was extended to Los Olivos, and the town lost its standing as the terminus. The railroad was abandoned completely in the early 1940s. When Highway 101 was rerouted in the 1960s, it bypassed the town. The Independent counted about 1,200 residents in 2008.

Cards from the post office

Late in the summer of 1946, after talk around the post office, Bill Drum, George Michalopoulos, and John Bastenchury signed and mailed cards to residents. The cards invited them to a meeting about forming a community organization. The meetings were held at the D&M Café, which had been the Steel Horse Saloon and is now Bell’s. On October 26, 1946, the Los Alamos Valley Men’s Club enrolled 88 charter members and elected W.F. Luton president. Its constitution committed the club to civic betterment and to social and welfare activities for youth and adults. Through that winter members met in Nick Moulton’s Hall at the same address. On January 9, 1947, they accepted a plan from charter member Angelo Grgich that let the club buy two lots and finance a clubhouse. On March 3, 1947, charter member Jack Rickard filed the articles of incorporation with the California Secretary of State. Today the club describes itself as men, women, and families. It gives the money it raises to schools and youth programs, and it begins planning each Old Days in January.

The first Old Days was held in 1946, and Carl Abeloe was there. By 2013 he had attended every year since, and the Lompoc Record wrote that for most of his life the weekend had been a homecoming for townspeople who had moved away. Williams said much the same in 2025: “There’s quite a few people that no longer live in Los Alamos but have ties, and they come back every year.” In 2013 Abeloe and his wife, Charlene, were still bringing their pumpkins to show. Asked about the money raised for local youth, he said, “I’m real proud of that.”