User:Noctividus/Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles

The Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles is a club dedicated to providing a hearth and home for those who have left the beaten path and made for adventure.[] The club was founded by Captain John W. (Jack) Roulac in 1921, and was incorporated by the State of California in 1922.

The Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles holds an annual black tie gala known as the Night of High Adventure[]. The program hosts a prominent adventurer-explorer who delivers a keynote program. During the event, outstanding expedition flags are returned to the club and Club members are honored for their accomplishments.[]

History

The idea for the Adventurers’ Club was the result of a meeting between Teddy Roosevelt and friends in 1908. The first Adventurers’ Club was founded in New York City in 1912 by Arthur Sullivan Hoffman[], editor of the popular pulp magazine Adventure.[] Thirty-four members sat down at the first dinner meeting of the Adventurers’ Club given at Joel's Restaurant in New York in 1912. They were soldiers, sailors, hunters, trappers, travelers, journalists, authors and scientists. Four toasts were offered: “To Adventure, the Shadow of Every Red-Blooded Man;” “To the Game;” “To Every Lost Trail, Lost Cause, and Lost Comrade;” and finally “To Gentlemen Adventurers.”  In its second year, the writer Sinclair Lewis, who served as  Hoffman’s assistant, was elected secretary and served in that position for three years.[] Sinclair Lewis would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1930), the first writer from the United States to be given the distinction[].       

Thus was the first Adventurers’ Club inaugurated and such are the personnel and spirit of all of the Adventurers’ Clubs. From this original Club were founded The Adventurers’ Club, Chicago[may be temporarily or permanently closed?], in 1913; The Adventurers’ Club, Los Angeles, in 1921[]; The Adventurers’ Club, Denmark, in 1938[] and The Adventurers’ Club, Honolulu, in 1955[]. The Club is affiliated with the Explorers Club in New York City[], Savage Club in London[], the Travelers Clubs in Oslo[] and Istanbul [Istanbul club may no longer exist], and the Adventurers’ Clubs in Pretoria[Could find no information], and Singapore[]. The Club has always attracted the best and the brightest of the world‘s most adventurous spirits.

A group of members of The Adventurers’ Club, then resident in Los Angeles, met informally many times in 1921. Under the leadership of Capt. John (Jack) W. Roulac, they perfected plans for the organization of The Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles. The Adventurers’ Club of Chicago forwarded copies of their Constitution and other papers, together with a flag, and on February 13, 1922, the Articles of Incorporations were filed with the Secretary of State for California. The Club has met every Thursday (holidays excepted) at locations ranging from The Wilton Studio, Chamber of Commerce Building (beginning March 8, 1922), to the present headquarters at 2433 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90031.

Programs and Lectures

The Adventurers' Club hosts a dinner and program on Thursday evenings where members and guests engage in spirited conversation over dinner followed by a program. A question and answer period normally follows the program. These meetings have been held every Thursday evening, holidays excepted, since the Club was incorporated in 1922. Nearly all of the Club’s lectures and programs are open to the public at its headquarters and most are hosted on YouTube.

Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles Flags

In 1939, a flag was designed by Ginger Lamb, wife of Dana Lamb, and issued to Dr. E.A. Peterson. The flag was to be flown from his boat Hummel Hummel during a South Pacific cruise. It was returned to the club several years later. That same flag was then carried by the Lambs through the jungles of Guatemala and Yucatan. This remained the official flag design until 1953 when a new flag, designed by Edison Ostrom was adopted[].

Expedition Flags

Carrying an Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles Expedition Flag represents a 100 year old tradition of members documenting their off the beaten path adventures. Expedition flags are approved for members who are leading a significant expedition, or will participate on the expedition in a key leadership role. Furthermore, an adventure-expedition must be “off the beaten path into little known or inaccessible parts of the world for purposes of acquiring useful knowledge for the benefit of exploration, scientific interests, treasure hunting, and/or high adventure”.[]

Expedition flags have been carried to the rough country of Baja California and to the summits of Mount Ararat and the Matterhorn[]. They have made their way through the steamy jungles of the Amazon and over the Humac Mountains into Brazil from French Guiana[]. Club members have packed flags on treks to Antarctica, and navigated the length of the Mackenzie River to the Arctic[]. Our flag has made its way down the Nile and Congo rivers; river runs of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado; and El Sumidero Canyon of Mexico[]. We have been honored to see our banner raised over the “Lost World” in Venezuela, the jungles of New Guinea, and the outback of Australia[]. Furthering the tradition, our sailors have sported the colors aboard small craft, traversing the Pacific Ocean, landing on numerous islands and other faraway places.

Since then about 127 of these flags have been issued to members to carry into the field. Upon their return, each is inscribed with the autographs of expedition participants, and the name(s) of their destinations. A journal of the trip accompanies each flag back to the club for our archives. Afterward, the flags are prominently hung from their staffs and decorate our clubhouse walls.

Notable Flagged Expeditions

• Flag #1 - Dana Lamb #365 and his wife Ginger searched for the Lost Mission of Santa Isabel in Baja, California in 1938.
• Flag #2 - Dana Lamb #365 and his wife Ginger carry the flag on their Quest for the Lost City, Mexican Expedition of 1949-1952.
• Flag #6 - John Goddard #507 summited the Matterhorn (14,692 ft.). He then took a nine-month trip to explore the Nile River in a 15-ft. Kayak. Later, he spent nine months traveling from some small springs in Burundi to the Mediterranean. (1950-1951.)
• Flag #11 - Herman Jesson #609 crossed the Amazon Jungle from Ecuador, to Iquitos, to Peru via Rio Yaupi, Santiago, Maronon. He visited the Jibaro, Huambisa and Aguaruna tribes. (1957.)
• Flag #19 - Branan Ward #596 and Alan Soenke #741 made a canoe trip to the Arctic Ocean to make a lecture film and document the effects of the rotation of the earth on a great river. They traveled by bus to Edmonton, and later took the North Alberta Railway to the MacKenzie River. They traveled 1200 miles downstream and then 400 miles from Summit Lake in the Richardson Mountains to Old Crow. (1965.)
• Flag #27 - Bob Silver #728 filmed the Aqua Minerals Gold Expedition in the western foothills of the Andes Mountains, just south of the Equator in Ecuador. The expedition utilized a surplus amphibious war tank that was modified to accept a powerful suction dredge. (1966.)
• Flag #39 - Theodor Bergman #693 studied nutritional problems in Southern Tunisia. He visited the ruins in Carthage, the baths of Antonious and picturesque Sedi bou Said, Utica and the Phoenician and Dougga. (1966.)
• Flag #41 - Louis Higger #632 and Lon DeCoursey #781. Lou revisited Tahiti in 1971 where he worked with Dr. Marsh on the elephantiasis program 13 years prior. They flew to Sydney, drove to Brisbane and then on to Queensland. After, they flew to New Lake Taupo in New Zealand and Lae, New Guinea.
• Flag #47 - James Stuart Bruce #678. Greenland dog sledding from Kulusuk to Kangamiut, then onto the ice cap to Ansmsggsalik.    
• Flag #52 - Robert Byrd Breyer #875, the grandson of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, first person to fly over the South Pole in 1929, took the flag between November, 1974 to February, 1975 while he assisted in the construction of the new South Pole science station.
• Flag #63 - Ralph White #942 went with the National Geographic to study Loch Ness. The Loch is 795 feet deep and has a visibility of two feet. Beneath Urquhart Castle there are many caves that go back under the land. The expedition made one sonar hit from its boat. (ca.1981.)
• Flag #65 - Ralph White #942 took a trip to the frozen Arctic to locate and dive on the wreck of the HMS Breadalbane. The ship sank to the bottom of the Northwest Passage near Beechey Island in 1853.
• Flag #67 - Ralph White #942 documented the 1985 discovery of the shipwreck Titanic.
• Flag #96 - David Dolan #1087 and Moses Pulei circumnavigate Mt. Kilimanjaro. They ascended on the Rongai route, traveled west on the northern circuit, and continued around to the southern circuit, before descending via the Maranju route. (August, 2003.)
• Flag #100 -  Pierre Odier #988 studied the lives of remote headhunters of eastern Borneo. He boated up the Tandjupuso River. (August, 2006.)
• Flag #107 - Paul Isley #1088 and Dr. Anatoly Sagalevich #1021 undertook a scientific study of life and vents at the bottom of Lake Baikal. They embarked on the Mir and dove 5,000 feet to the bottom. (2008.)
• Flag #111 - Bill Burke #1157 summited Mt. Everest in 2009 at age sixty-seven. He later reached the summit from the China-Tibet side at age 72. He supports an orphanage in Kathmandu.
• Flag #120 - Wayne White #1194 flew the flag at the South Pole at Amundsen-Scott Station where he was the winter over station manager in 2018.
• Flag #124 - Alec Shumate #1210 participated in a micro-plastics study for two weeks on a small boat on the Mekong River in Cambodia. The expedition found much pollution and changes in water levels due to dams being built.

Honors and Awards

Honorary Members

Captain Roger Ashwell Pocock (1865-1941): No. 78A. He served with the North-West Mounted Police and later, rode horseback from Canada to Mexico City on the “Outlaw Trail”. He wrote the book “Outrider of Empire”. Pocock served in the Boer War and WWI. He founded The Legion of Frontiersman whose philosophy led to the formation of the Boy Scouts.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962): No. 90A. Explorer and ethnologist who wrote several books; “My Life with the Eskimo,” “The Friendly Arctic,” and “Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic.”  Produced the first written records of several places including Meighen and Lougheed Islands and the edge of the continental shelf.

Roald Amundsen (1872-1928): No. 188A. He was an explorer of the polar regions. Amundsen was the first person to sail through the North-West Passage, the first man to reach the South Pole and the first to take a trans-arctic flight across the North Pole.

Frederick R. Burnham (1861-1947): No. 253. He became a tracker for the United States Army in the Apache Wars. Later he served with the British South Africa Company and the British Army in colonial Africa as Chief of Scouts. At that time he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the highest military honor earned by any American during the Second Boer War. His friendship with Robert Baden-Powell, later led to the outdoors skill-set adopted by the Boy Scouts of America.

Charles F. Lummis (1859-1928): No. 270A. He was a historian, photographer, ethnographer, archaeologist, poet and librarian. He was a Harvard classmate of Teddy Roosevelt. In 1884, he began a 3,507 walk alone from Ohio to California. Arriving in Los Angeles, he took the job as City Editor of the Los Angeles Times. Lummis formed a group to protect the California Spanish Missions. He became an Indian rights activist and fought for the reorganization of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Will Rogers (1879-1935): Member #340A. Will Rogers was an American stage and film actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator. He traveled around the World three times, made 71 films and wrote over 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns. He died in an Alaskan plane crash in 1935 with famed aviator Wiley Post.

Richard B. Black (1902-1992): No. 348. After graduation from college, he applied to join Rear Admiral Richard Byrd’s second Antarctic Expedition in 1933. He spent two years in the Antarctic and later, joined Byrd in 1939 as a member of the United States Antarctic Service Expedition. In 1941, he was at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7. In 1955, he returned to the Antarctic with Admiral Byrd as part of Operation Deep Freeze.

Herbert Spencer Dickey (1876-1948): No. 355. A physician, Dickey signed on as a staff doctor for the Peruvian Amazon Company Station located on a tributary of the Putumayo River. The rubber company was illegally using the local natives for slave labor. Eventually, Dickey plotted an escape from the control of the company by paddling a canoe for 11 days down the river to the Brazilian Customs Port. A succession of steamers took him down the Amazon and he eventually made it to Barbados. He retired from medicine, became a fulltime explorer On his travels on the eastern side of the Andes, he made contact with an unknown tribe, witnessed a Jivaro head shrinking ceremony and is credited with finding the source of the Orinoco River. He was the author of several books including “My Jungle Book” and “Adventurers of a Tropical Medico”.

Norman G. Dyhrenfurth (1918-2017): No. 670A. Admitted 1960 Norman Dyhrenfurth was born on May 7, 1918, in what is now Poland, but was raised in Austria and Switzerland. His parents were accomplished climbers who made early ascents on Himalayan peaks. His mother held the world record for the highest climb by a woman for two decades. He received his U.S. citizenship after serving in the Army during WWII as an infantry officer. He became a professor at UCLA while shooting a documentary television series. Later he worked on movies starring Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery. He also taught skiing and worked as a mountain guide in Alaska. He was the Deputy-leader of a scientific search of Yeti in 1958 and produced a documentary on a 1960 ascent of Dhaulagiri. In the early 1960’s Dyhrenfurth scraped together funding for the first U.S. ascent on Mount Everest. The plan was to build a team of 19 climbers and scientists. To reach the foothills from Kathmandu, the expedition enlisted more than 900 porters who carried 27 tons of food, clothing and equipment. In 1963, several climbers perished during the effort, but the mountain was conquered by the 4th, 5th and 6th persons to make it to the summit. He was awarded the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society by President John F. Kennedy on July 8, 1963. He died at the age of 99 in 2017.

James H. Doolittle (1896-1993): No. 800. General Doolittle was born in Alameda, California in 1896, attended high school in Los Angeles and went on to the University of California at Berkeley where he studied mining engineering. In 1917, he enlisted in the Signal Corps Reserve as a flying cadet and continued his studies at Berkeley while in flight training. Doolittle was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1918. During WWI, Doolittle stayed in the USA as a flight instructor and performed his war service at various training fields around the country. At the close of the War he qualified by examination and received a Regular Army commission as a 1st Lieutenant in 1920. He went on to complete his bachelor’s degree at Berkeley and shortly after completed the first cross country flight in a de Havilland DH4 from Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for that accomplishment. He immediately was asked to attend to more schooling and receive advanced training. That lead to studies in aeronautical engineering by attending MIT where he received his master’s and finally a PhD in aeronautical engineering in 1925. Another of his accomplishments was to do pioneer study in instrument flying. For the next 5 years he worked on this idea and in 1929, he became the first pilot to take off, fly and land an airplane using instruments alone, without a view outside the cockpit. He resigned his regular commission in 1930 and remained a Major in the reserves. He joined Shell Oil with the intent to help them improve on fuel to power aircraft engines. He convinced Shell to develop 100 octane gasoline that was sorely needed to power the next generation of engines that were being designed. He returned to active duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1940, with the rank of Major. He started working with auto manufacturers on the conversion of their plants for production of planes. In 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned to the Air Force’s Headquarters to plan the first retaliatory raid on the Japanese homeland following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He volunteered for and received General Hap Arnold’s approval to lead the top-secret attack of sixteen B-25 medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, with targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Nagoya. On April 18, 1942, the 16 planes took off from the Hornet, reached Japan and bombed their targets. Fifteen of the planes then headed for their recovery airfield in China and Doolittle’s plane chose to land in Russia due to their bomber’s unusually high fuel consumption. Doolittle and his crew bailed out over China when the plane ran out of fuel. They parachuted into a rice field and were helped through enemy lines by Chinese guerrillas. Some of the other air crews made it through safely, but some were caught by the Japanese and were executed. Doolittle went on to fly more combat missions as commander of the 12th Air Force in North Africa. He received the Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt for planning and leading his raid

on Japan. The successful attack was viewed by historians as a major morale-building victory for the United States. Doolittle was promptly promoted to Brigadier General. During his tour of duty on

North Africa, he was promoted to Major General in 1942, and in March of 1943 became commanding

General of the Army Air Force. He went on to receive numerous awards and medals along with promotion to a four-star general. He finally retired from the military and served on the Board at Shell Oil Company as well as numerous advisory boards. He became interested in the concept of space exploration and was always enthusiastic about the long-term future. He retired to Pebble Beach, California and died at the age of 96 in 1993.

External links

• www.adventuersclub.org