The Southern Pacific commuter train left for Los Angeles at 8:09 a.m. every day, and returned at 5:46 in the evening.
The local press was drawing Downey out of its rural setting into a more worldly scene. The Downey News of June 14, 1912 informed readers of the coming Panama-California Exposition scheduled for San Diego in 1915. Three years advance notice seemed adequate. The Exposition’s theme was to be "The Progress of Man," and the paper’s editorial advised Downey’s residents to "be there."
The guns of August, 1914 which marked the beginning of World War I, had not yet sounded. Technology was the measure of man’s progress and, seemingly, his best hope for the future.
The human doubt engendered by trench warfare, tanks and machine-gun slaughter had not yet stifled the spirit of a young country.
Even by 1916, when the far-off fighting was well under way, the press of the time was astoundingly naive. The Downey News stated, "This war will be a great stimulus to American manufacturers. Before it is over we shall be able to equal if not surpass every country in Europe in any line of production."
Downey was still very much a rural village, despite the railroad, newspaper and far-off war. One news item noted, "Mr. and Mrs. Otto McCormick were surprised at their home on College Avenue Thursday night when about 15 friends entered, each bringing a live hen. This was by way of condolence for the loss by theft of their chickens some time ago."
And 1916 was a gala sports year. The girls basketball team of Downey High won a pennant by defeating the girls of Claremont. But, alas, Downey High’s boys lost to Citrus 27-25. Downey fans howled they had been robbed of two points by the scorekeeper.
F. A. Philbrick opened a Dodge agency in his garage on East Second Street. He sold two cars. The purchasers, Alonzo Hall and H. S. Redfield, were the talk of the town.
In 1917 the Downey Board of Trade proposed the city incorporate. A subcommittee suggested the new city encompass an area that started at Second Street and Crawford (Downey Avenue) and extend a half mile in four directions, making a perfect square.
The idea lost.
Similar plans for incorporation would lose 13 times over four decades before Downey would finally incorporate successfully during the 1950s.
Charles Russell Quinn, in his "History of Downey," notes that in the Downey of 1917 the high school was the center of social life. Public meetings were held there, the local team was the focus of civic pride and there was great concern over the curriculum.
"What are they teaching our children?" was the question then, much as it is today.
The local newspapers in 1917 discussed the formation of a Home Guard for Downey. This was not so much to fend off the threat of German sympathizers as America prepared to enter the war in Europe. It was to deal with the imaginary threat from the Mexican residents. Gen. George Pershing had recently chased Pancho Villa back into Mexico in a much publicized campaign. It was feared the Hispanics would use America’s military preoccupation in Europe to stage a local rebellion.
Of the imagined Mexican threat, the editors of The Champion advised its readers, "It is too early to get nervous." One article calmed some of the hysteria, noting that the reason many Hispanics were not showing up for work was due to the approaching religious holiday of Easter, rather than any impending plot to overthrow the Anglos.