I See by the Papers...

When did we lose "old Santa Rosa"? When did we first glance into the rearview mirror and suddenly realize we could no longer see anything on the road behind us? Some of it happened in the mid 1960s, when the Carnegie library was torn down and Courthouse Square lost its actual courthouse. More was lost in the late 1970s, when the Redevelopment Agency's bulldozers plowed about 40 acres of old buildings - some beautiful and more than a few historic - to make way for that damned mall. But I'd argue a large part disappeared precisely on Saturday, May 4 1985, starting at 10 o'clock in the morning. That was when we sold off artifacts and treasures, some dating back before the Gold Rush. Or rather, the Freemasons sold it off for their own profit - all without the county or city's knowledge or permission.

This is the story of Santa Rosa's lost attic. All of those things were kept for a half-century in an actual attic - the top floor of the Masonic Scottish Rite Temple at 441 B street, which is where Macy's parking garage is now.

To the untutored eye it appeared to be the sort of junky space you might have found at a grandparent's house: There were boxes of faded photographs, souvenirs only recognizable to old-timers, objects which were precious to people very long dead but useless to anyone now. It was both a mausoleum and a loving shrine in remembrance of all things past, and there was no contradiction in that.

The keeper of these treasures was Sid Kurlander. By trade he was a tobacconist like his father before him. He was born above the family tobacco shop/cigar factory on Fourth street in 1879, and by all accounts began collecting interesting things before he could shave. Sometime during the 1930s the collection became too big for his garage (or wherever he had been keeping it) so everything was moved to the roomy Masonic attic. It's no surprise that his collection was welcomed there; Sid was about as tangled up with everything Masonic as anyone could.¹

Sid was also a Reserve Deputy, which gave him a badge with his name engraved on the back. As such he had no real duties; it was a nod to him being considered an honorary member of the law enforcement fraternity. Which brings us to the guns.

There were lots and lots and lots of guns up there in the attic and many were given to him by the sheriff or local police. There was Al Chamberlain's gun that killed Police Chief Charlie O'Neal in 1935 and a revolver supposedly used by Black Bart. There were weapons collected by Sid or donated from people who didn't want to have to have dangerous antiques around. There was an elephant gun, muzzle loaders, a tiny .41 caliber Spanish single-shot with a pearl handle as well as swords and machetes. All were tagged as to where they came from and their part in history.

Among other police-related artifacts: The cabinet displaying nooses from the 1920 lynchings along with the photo of the dangling gangsters. A thick book of wanted posters given to Sid by the SRPD in 1938. A pair of the county sheriff's handcuffs from 1900. There was "beautifully made oriental opium smoking equipment" taken from a raid of Santa Rosa's Chinese quarter and donated by Sheriff Mike Flohr. There was an engraved invitation from Sheriff Dinwiddie to the hanging of H. E. Brown on May 4, 1882. (The Governor commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.)

Nearly all of what we know about the contents of Sid's collection comes from just two 1949 and 1976 feature stories in the Press Democrat - and those were mainly photo spreads, with little space for the writer to describe those "mementos of times that were luxurious for some and hard for others," as Susan Swartz lyrically wrote in the latter piece.

And there were thousands and thousands of stories there begging to be told. Why did the Straub family hang on to a pair of lacy white hand-knitted hosiery from the Civil War era? On the shelves were police arrest books next to hotel registers from the Occidental and Grand hotels; Swartz was told "you'd be surprised at the names that turn up in one or the other of these." Aaargh, so tell us!

One wonderful story which did thankfully survive concerned a little silver spoon given to Jennie Shattuck on her twelfth birthday in 1852. She and her family had sailed around the Horn and were now headed to California on a steamer, so the ship's captain thought it would be nice to hold a party for her. It must have been a pretty swell birthday shindig, because the ship ran aground off the coast of Mexico during it.

Sometimes the PD referred to the Masonic attic as the "Kurlander Museum," which made Sid none too happy. He was adamant he was only preserving artifacts until the city or county created a proper history museum. In the 1949 interview he said he had turned down offers from a Los Angeles museum and the San Francisco chapter of the Native Sons (NSGW) because he wanted to make sure everything stayed locally.

Also in 1949 the Sonoma County Historical Society was formed.² That fall there were many meetings planning for an "all-out campaign" to build a history/art museum across from the fairgrounds on Bennett Valley Road. Breaking news: It ain't there and never was.

Sid died in 1958. His Press Democrat obit mentioned he "maintained an extensive collection of historical photographs, documents, and momentoes of Santa Rosa's early days." But since he had never opened it to the public, people walking past the building next to the Sears & Roebuck had no idea what all was in that attic.

The collection was in limbo. A man named Spencer had the keys for awhile before Raford Leggett took over. Leggett had a very successful real estate office in Santa Rosa during the 1940s-1950s and was now in his seventies. Naming him curator seemed a perfect fit; not only did he have an interest in local history, but he was entwined with the Masonic world as much as Sid had been - perhaps more so. For better and worse, the fate of the Kurlander Collection would be in the hands of Raford Leggett for the next 25 years.

There is much to be admired in what he did during his time. He created an inventory of the collection (now lost) and gave private tours to interested clubs and school groups.

His weakness was a failure to grasp that a museum was not just an indiscriminate bunch of old stuff. Leggett donated the license plate from his family's 1912 Rambler, an elaborate toy his father made, his mother's wedding dress and household items such as a hand pump vacuum cleaner. There was a toolbox from a Model T ("You didn't really need any tools, just baling wire and a pair of pliers," Raford told the Press Democrat).

People cleaning out their attics gave him similar "heirlooms," which he dutifully added to the Kurlander Collection. He did not see a difference in importance between Sid's shelf of old bibles - which may contain the only surviving vital data on otherwise forgotten branches of a local family tree - with that row of butter churns he now had lining a wall.

The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott