It should be no surprise to describe Charles Frederick Holder, who played the key role in the creation of the Tournament of Roses, as a true renaissance man.

He was a scientist, a journalist, publications editor and author, a founder of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club, conservator of wildlife and a talented sportsman. And he knew a good idea when he heard it.

“In New York, people are buried in snow,” Holder said at a Valley Hunt Club meeting in 1889, according to one local history. “Here, our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”

• Complete Rose Parade coverage

Holder, then president of the club, appointed a committee of three on Dec. 10, 1889, to quickly make arrangements for a Jan. 1 celebration “to afford entertainment to the young folks and strangers within our gates by a little healthy recreation,” reported the Los Angeles Times two days later.

Attendance at the first Rose Parade, on Jan. 1, 1890, could be counted in the hundreds. Today, it’s in the hundreds of thousands. (Pasadena Public Library, Digital History Collection)

And from this meeting blossomed Pasadena’s first New Year’s tournament. The 1890 edition was an all-purpose community fair that featured a variety of sports events and drew more than 2,500 of the city’s population of 4,800. Spectators arrived in an array of carriages and horses decorated with flowers to watch running competitions, horse and mule races, and even a pick-up football game.

Holder’s good idea “will be called the ‘Tournament of the Roses’ because the contestants in the various events will be designated by the color of the rose they wear,” the Los Angeles Times reported Dec. 19.

This tournament was quite an undertaking considering Holder had lived here only for a couple of years. He and his wife came to Pasadena from the East in 1885 because of his health issues.

But it was his early years – at an exotic place far from his birthplace in Massachusetts or his future home in Pasadena – that prepared him for his future achievements.

Holder spent much of his teenage years in the Dry Tortugas, a series of small islands a couple of hours west of Key West, Fla. His father was assigned as a doctor for American engineers building Fort Jefferson, the island fort on the islands that today is a national park.

The Holder family arrived in 1860 with plans to be there for two years, but that grew to seven, much of which was during the Civil War. They were there when several of the conspirators of the assassination of President Lincoln were imprisoned at that fort in 1865.

Charles often accompanied his father, Joseph, in his spare time when he conducted research on ocean reefs and sea life in the vicinity of their island home. From such research, his father would write many papers and books and later continue his studies in natural history. He was one of the leaders of the campaign that built New York City’s American Museum of Natural History.

At age 17, Charles returned to the mainland for more formal education and even spent time at the U.S. Naval Academy, but did not graduate. In 1871, he was hired at age 20 to be an assistant curator of the natural history museum in New York, continuing the interest in the natural sciences he gained from working with his father.

The remaining years of his life were mostly spent in Southern California where he was an ambitious writer, editing the Californian illustrated magazine and later gained partial interest in the Los Angeles Tribune newspaper.

Like his father, he also wrote numerous books and articles about the natural world, including biographies of Charles Darwin and geologist Louis Agassiz, as well as books on sportfishing and various animals. He even composed a novel based on his experience as a young man in the Dry Tortugas.

Perhaps, his most impressive work was “All About Pasadena and Its Vicinity,” a 1889 guidebook describing the wonders of Pasadena and much of Southern California. Written in great detail, especially about the balmy climate, it was a book published in Boston and likely read in the cold climes of the East. It probably enticed thousands of visitors, and future residents, to the area.

Holder turned down an opportunity to teach at the new Throop College (today’s Caltech) because of his magazine work. He did serve on the college’s board of trustees.

Holder enjoyed his recreation at the Valley Hunt Club, engaging in regular hunts on horseback, often with greyhounds and fox hounds. The members in the early days hunted jackrabbits, quail, deer and bear.

Charles F. Holder’s “All About Pasadena,” published in the late 1880s, served as a guide book to the Crown City and surrounding Southern California. A complete pdf of the book can be found in the Library of Congress digital collection. (Pasadena Public Library, Digital History Collection)

He also was a regular visitor to Santa Catalina island, where some of his fishing exploits are legendary. In 1898, he formed the Tuna Club at Avalon following his hours-long landing with a rod and reel of a 183-pound bluefin tuna off Catalina. Like the Valley Hunt Club, the Tuna Club still operates today.

But despite his promotion of hunting and fishing, he also wrote of his objections to the reckless slaughtering of animals and the dangers of indiscriminate harvesting of some species of animals and fish until they were on the brink of extinction.

With the success of that first Tournament of Roses, Holder served as the event’s president for several years as it grew larger. In subsequent decades it became the New Year’s tradition that it is today with the addition of the famous parade, football game and the Rose Bowl stadium.

In 1915, Holder was bedridden due to heart troubles which he had suffered from even before coming to Pasadena. After several weeks’ illness, he died on Oct. 10. He was buried at Mountain View Cemetery.

The Tournament of Roses is his legacy, fulfilling the prediction made by the Los Angeles Times 12 days before the first tournament in 1890: “Surely there can be no happier way of ushering in the new year, and the chances are that the event of January 1st next will prove so popular that a New Year’s Day tournament will become a settled feature.”

More Rose Parade

Rose Parade survival guide: What you need to know before you go
Rose Parade 2023: Grand marshal Gabby Giffords embodies this year’s theme, ‘Turning the Corner’
Why the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl are on Jan. 2 in 2023
How to see the Rose Parade floats in person on Jan. 2-3
More Rose Parade coverage