[5] The strongest dramatization of the event was a photo of a drunken man sitting on a motorcycle, possibly staged by the photographer by surrounding the scene with discarded beer bottles.

After World War II, countless veterans came back to America and had a difficult time readjusting to civilian life.

Due to World War II, the rally was canceled, but the event organized for 1947 was the revival of the Gypsy Tour in Hollister.

[12][13] But soon, drunken motorcyclists were riding their bikes through the small streets of Hollister and consuming large amounts of alcohol.

[5] The police tried to stop the motorcyclists' activities by threatening to use tear gas[10][clarification needed] and arresting as many drunken men as possible.

The bars tried to stop the men from drinking by refusing to sell beer and voluntarily closing two hours ahead of time.

[5] Eyewitnesses were quoted as saying, "It's just one hell of a mess",[5] but that "[the motorcyclists] weren't doing anything bad, just riding up and down whooping and hollering; not really doing any harm at all.

At the end of the Fourth of July weekend and the informal riot, Hollister was littered with thousands of beer bottles and other debris[5] and there was some minor storefront damage.

[5] The Chronicle article did little to cause panic for citizens in the California area as there was other major news occurring at the same time, including local labor strikes.

[3] The initial reporting reached a larger audience a few weeks later, with an article published in the July 21, 1947, issue of Life magazine.

The article was published in the photojournalism section of Life, relying heavily on graphic images and explanatory text.

[3] This was shown as single-page article, with a nearly full-page photo above a 115-word insert of text with the headline "Cyclist's Holiday: He and Friends Terrorize Town.

[3] The one percenter iconography employed by outlaw motorcycle clubs stems from an apocryphal comment ostensibly made in 1960 by William Berry, a former president of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying the last one percent were outlaws.

[17][a] A short story, "Cyclists' Raid" by Frank Rooney, is based on the events of the Hollister riot and was originally published in the January 1951 issue of Harper's Magazine.

[22] While the film bears little resemblance to the actual events,[23] it brought the incident into public light and introduced the popular image of motorcyclists as misfits and outlaws.