The Jamboree was an extraordinary local event. For a single week in July 1953, a full-scale city, larger than the permanent population of Newport Beach materialized. Scouts attending the Jamboree pitched more than 25,000 tents on the site bordered by present-day MacArthur Blvd., Coast Highway, Back Bay Drive and University Drive. Irvine Road, which ran through the site, was later renamed Jamboree.
Well in advance of the scouts’ arrival, planners surveyed the site and installed the infrastructure. Workers built more than 8 miles of roads, installed over 36 miles of telephone and electrical lines and constructed a water works capable of pumping 18 million gallons of water per day. The encampment also had its own telephone exchange, short wave radio station, hospital employing 164 doctors, fire department consisting of four companies, and police department with a staff of 150 officers. By the time the Scouts arrived, the site also included a theater, store, zoo, bus line and a parking lot capable of holding 16,000 cars.