By Frank Moltane

The Santa Ana Lawn Bowling Club in Santiago Park has been delighting lawn bowlers for almost 85 years since it opened in 1938. President Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration(WPA) an ambitious employment infrastructure program in 1935, during the bleakest years of the Great Depression. Over it's eight years of existence, the WPA put roughly 8.5 million Americans to work. Some of the best known local projects include the Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl, the Astronomer's Monument at Griffith Observatory, and in sculptures + murals at the Old Globe theater and Starlight Bowl in San Diego's Balboa Park.

At its height in late 1938, more than 3.3 million Americans worked for the WPA. That's the same year that the WPA reconstructed the Santiago Creek bed and built the Lawn Bowling Center under Santa Ana park manager Dale Griggs. That summer the first lawn bowl was rolled. Popularity of the sport created a need for the second 'green', which was constructed in 1952.  In 1954 a structure was acquired from the Army airbase in Costa Mesa that served as the Clubhouse for 34 years.  The current facility was dedicated on January 26, 1991.