The way it used to be: barefeet all the way…
 Up until the mid-1960s in Southern California it was common to see most high school runners going barefoot over the 1.8 to two mile cross country courses that were usually held on the large grass fields at the high schools. Nearly all meets including invitational and CIF Championships were on grass or mostly grass (Cal St. Long Beach hosted many CIF Championships on their hilly campus of grass and sidewalks). Even at the Mt. SAC Invitational the course then started on a large grass field next to the gym and made a small hill loop to the water tower and returned to the grass field to finish.

Sidebar: Dale Story (Orange HS, Orange, Calif ) national record-holder in the mile in 1959 at 4:11, took his acquired Southern California habit of running barefoot to the next level at Santa Ana JC, where he won the state two mile, and then he transferred  to Oregon State where he won the 1961 NCAA cross country title. Finish chute pictures at host Michigan State’s NCAA Championship course show runners wearing gloves, snow hats, and long sleeved shirts, but Story was without shoes.  Story went on to set an NCAA 5000 record at Fresno’s West Coast Relays in May of 1962 with a barefoot 14:03.5.
–Larry Knuth; Track & Field News, June, 1962; How They Train by Fred Wilt, Track & Field News, Inc., 1959