Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176pp., 1891
"The most famous of the early cycling contests was the Annual Santa Monica Road Race, sponsored by the Los Angeles Wheelmen, who were now affiliated with the LAAC. The first race was held on July 4, 1891, on a course that began in front of the Club and ran by way of Pico Boulevard to the Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica-a distance of seventeen miles. A gold medal with the Club insignia and other trophies were donated by the Tufts-Lyons Arms Company . . .
" . . .
"When [the bicylists started] the judges dashed for the train. The cyclists reached Santa Monica first, led by W.A. Tufts in 1:15:14. . . . Miss Marguerite Lloyd . . . was unofficially timed for 16 miles at 2:06. The following year (1892), thirty cyclists competed over an 18 1/2 mile course, while the spectators sped to Santa Monica on two rival rail lines in time to see H.B. Cromwell of the LAAC [win.]
"By 1894, the number of entries had increased to 218 . . . Passengers filled twenty-six special trains, and vehicles of every description made the trip, including a railroad handcart . . . Emil Ulbrecht set a record of 57:07 and outclassed the field again in 1895."
" . . .
"In 1894 the Great Sandow appeared for two nights at the Los Angeles Theatre under the management of Flo Ziegfield. His feats of strength, however, were overshadowed by the Trocadero Vaudeville Company, who appeared on the same bill and presented a whistler, lady songsters, a juggler, and Elsie Arden in her great skirt dance . . ."