I See by the Papers...

THE PALMIST WILL SEE YOU NOW

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It had been years since a "psychic" huckster had worked the city of roses and rubes, so Santa Rosa was ripe for plucking by 1908.

Not that the town was completely bereft of soothsayers; the occasional spiritualist slipped into town and announced she was available for consultations via a cheap, two-line ad, where Madame promised she would peer into your future, talk to the spirits, read your stars, and what have you. Although the number of psychic ads dropped off in the year following the great earthquake, the fortune-telling biz appears to have roared back in 1908, perhaps in part because of widespread anxiety following the recent bank panic and near collapse of the U.S. economy. (It might seem that a natural disaster would spur a greater demand for those who claimed mystic abilities, but crisis psychology can defy assumptions; in San Francisco, for ex, reports of suicide fell dramatically after the 1906 earthquake and remained low until the following year.)

As these carny-like fortune tellers came and went, there was also an elite cadre of magicians that allowed the gullible to believe that their diamond-stickpinned selves had actual supernatural powers. Some, like "The Great McEwen" who passed through Santa Rosa with his mentalist act in 1904 (see my earlier "City of Roses and Rubes" series), only used offstage stunts to draw audiences to his performances, but other magicians dishonestly used tricks to convince suckers of their psychic bona fides. Houdini did this early in his career and later felt ashamed for having fooled people into believing he could actually communicate with the dead. Less scrupulous was a man named Grant Chesterfield, who followed a magician's playbook to convince Santa Rosans that he could diagnose their illnesses or peer into their futures by studying the palms of their hands.

Chesterfield arrived in Santa Rosa with a splash at the end of 1908. Large ads appeared in the newspapers daily, either with a photo of him or an illustration of someone's hand to accompany a little story about what Chesterfield discovered there. An article about him - undoubtedly written from copy provided by Chesterfield - claimed he was "endorsed by such authorities as the Press Club of Chicago, practically by the Universities of St. Petersburg." (That he was "practically" endorsed is a nice touch; read that quote again, imagining it in the voice of W. C. Fields as The Great McGonigle.)

From that article and others we learn that he also introduced himself to a new community via the same tricks as stage magician McEwen. He drove a vehicle blindfolded (in this case, piloting a ferry from Oakland to San Francisco) and opened safes by "reading minds." Both were tricks detailed in a 1901 book by "Professor Leonidas" that all of these would-be psychics copied - see link above for more details.

Grant Chesterfield was born in 1862, and first mention of his palm reading can be found in a Salem, Oregon paper from 1898. From newspaper accounts he seemed to work mainly in the Portland area, with occasional trips to California, from San Francisco to smaller cities such as Bakersfield. He was in the Midwest 1912-1913, where he curiously never mentioned his endorsement by the nearby Chicago Press Club. In the prairie states he instead touted himself as the palm reader of choice by politicians, European royalty, and declared he was "looked upon in Eastern cities as a prophet." His trail disappears after a mention in the 1916 Klamath Falls newspaper, and he appeared in the U.S. census exactly once, in 1900. Occupation: "Palmist."

CLICK or TAP to enlarge

SEES WITH HIS MIND
Most Miraculous Are the Powers of Grant Chesterfield

Grant Chesterfield, the noted thought reader and clairvoyant, who is going to pilot the "Piedmont" from San Francisco to Oakland mole blindfolded shortly, possesses power most marvelous, if the statements of the most prominent citizens of Santa Rosa are to be believed. They claim that he has examined their palms, immediately told them the story of their past, diagnosed their physical condition, described their present situation of affairs, and then proceeded to define for them their future. They further aver that many predictions made by the enigma have already come to pass. Seen at his parlors at the Hotel Majestic, 435 Fourth street. Professor Chesterfield said:

"Possibly some reports are exaggerated, but then you must remember that I have been endorsed by such authorities as the Press Club of Chicago, practically by the Universities of St. Petersburg and a long string of others.

Again among the hotel personages whose palms I have read are the most distinguished of either hemisphere, so I hardly thing this report that you have heard is at all exaggerated."

"But do you pretend to read one's future?" was asked.

"I read the palm, and the future as well as the past is written therein."

"Do you give legal advice?"

"The same as in certain cases I diagnose one's condition and advise according how to recover lost nerve energy and power and what to do to take care of their health in the future. Some have certain business changes they should make, others have marriages, divorces, lawsuits in store for them; still others have mining interests or geographical changes to undergo, and so it runs on."

"How many palms do you read daily?"

"Oh, that's hard to say. In Fresno I read 2000 in several weeks. Now come up another time and I'll give you a reading."

Then the wonder worker, who kept Boston, New York, Copenhagen and other cosmopolitan cities in a flurry, called "next" and vanished into his consultation room.

- Santa Rosa Republican, December 29, 1908

MORE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF THE 1906 EARTHQUAKE

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From the doorway of his downtown saloon, William Hearn believed he was watching "the entire town go down" that morning of the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake. Soon the barkeep saw the "flames as they consumed building after building." and surely wondered if his place would burn. By the end of the day, that entire block was gone. (It was part of the current Fourth st. location of the big Mexican restaurant adjacent to the Empire building.)

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Although this was a simple and brief item, it proved quite tricky to verify, no thanks to the practices of old-timey newspaper editors to mostly identify people by formal and oblique names. Often adult males usually were mentioned by a pair of initials and surname: "J. W. Oates." Married women almost always were reduced to an appendage of their husband: "Mrs. J. W. Oates."

In this story, we learn that the plantiff was " Naomi E. Davis Moke." Only after much head-scratching did I learn that the names "Davis" and Moke" were linked in two different ways. On the morning of the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake, undertaker H. H. Moke lived with his family above the funeral parlor at 418 Fourth st, where his wife and daughter were killed. The building was owned by Moke's former partner, one M. S. Davis. After the quake, the Aetna Insurance Company paid Milo Davis for the loss of his property.

In 1907, widower Moke married Naomi Davis - who soon became one of the first female undertakers in the state - but apparently was no relation to Moke's former landlord. She was the daughter of H. S. Davis, who operated a well-known pharmacy at 517 4th st (directly east of Tex Wasabi's). Naomi was executor of her father's estate, which left her to battle in the courts with the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company. I mistakenly assumed that M. S. and H. S. Davis were likely the same person, and a victim of a typographical error.

Then there's the matter of Attorney F. McG. Martin, who "gave a graphic description of her escape..." Wait - HER escape? That had to be a typo; surely there wasn't a woman lawyer in misogynistic turn-of-the century Santa Rosa, where women were denied restrooms, much less opportunities of prestigious careers. Again, my error: In town was Frances McG. Martin, one of the founders of the suffrage movement in Sonoma County. In her 19th century history, Gaye LeBaron has quite a nice profile of Frances and her two equally remarkable sisters, one a pharmacist and the other a physician (their maiden name was "McGaughey," and it was never explained why all three abbreviated it to "McG.").

But Mr. Hearn never chronicled his experiences that day, nor was he interviewed by a reporter. His account comes from testimony in one of the lawsuits against the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company, which refused to pay for any losses that happened on the day of the earthquake. Five plaintiffs fought them in court, the final case not being settled until 1911 by the state Supreme Court (MORE BACKGROUND).

Because there were so few surviving letters from eyewitnesses, summaries of the testimony that appeared in the local papers and which were cited in court decisions are invaluable. From testimony in another case, we learned that Fire Chief Frank Muther was pulling on his clothes as he ran towards downtown, and once there he made quick, decisive command decisions that probably saved the town. Besides Hearn, the article below mentions a dozen other witnesses who gave their own account of that terrible day. If court transcripts survive - and they must, given that years later, the California Supreme Court quoted sections at length - there's a substantial body of first-hand accounts waiting in a musty archive for someone to investigate.

READY FOR SUBMISSION
Insurance Case to go to Jury This Afternoon

The fire insurance suit brought by Naomi E. Davis Moke against the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company of Hartford will be completed this afternoon. The case will be submitted to the jury, and it is expected to have a verdict some time during the evening.

During the session Wednesday afternoon William Hearn, J. D. Ward, W. P. Barnes, W. H. Bailey, C. A. Brobeck and Paul Reynaud were on the witness stand. Their testimony dealt generally with the conditions here on the morning of the earthquake regarding the demolition of the buildings. Each of the witnesses testified to having been on the street directly following the seismic disturbance. None knew definitely how the fires which consumed property here happened to catch, and none could tell which particular stores they had noticed on fire early in the morning on that fateful day.

Hearn declared that he was at his saloon at the time of the earthquake, adjoining the Savings Bank of Santa Rosa. He ran to the front door and said he saw the entire town go down and be demolished. Later he saw the fires break out in portions of the devastated district and noted the progress of the flames as they consumed building after building. Ward declared his greatest concern that morning was for any prisoners that might be locked up in the steel cages at the city hall. The city hall was demolished by the shock.

Among the witnesses to testify in the suit Thursday morning were Fire Chief Frank Muther, Henry G. Hahman, James William Duncan, F. McG. Martin, George F. King, F. Bailey, Ed M. Faught and Ernest W. Cornett. The testimony dealt particularly with the condition of things as they were just following the earthquake. Attorney F. McG. Martin gave a graphic description of her escape from the Doyle & Overton building, in which she made her home at that time, and of the fire breaking out just after her escape. She declared that she had left the building apparently before any blaze or smoke could be discovered.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 19, 1908

THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON CLUB

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It was an unusual sight, that foggy morning in mid-August, 1908. Dozens of women, most of them elderly and all of them clearly well-to-do, judging by their fine clothes and elaborate hats, were standing together in a vacant lot. More unusual was that this group of women jointly owned the property - or rather, it belonged to the corporation they had formed to buy it. And more remarkable still, one of the few men on hand that morning was a noted architect with building plans for a meeting house designed under the direction of these same women. None of this might have been noteworthy in San Francisco, Berkeley, or other places where emergent voices for women's rights and suffrage were loudly heard; but this was taking place in little Santa Rosa, California. It was the ground breaking for the Saturday Afternoon Club.

The day must have been deeply gratifying for Mattie Oates, who is seen over the shoulder of architect Brainerd Jones in the only known surviving photograph of her. It was almost four years to the day since construction had started on her fine new home up the street, and here she was again working closely with Jones in her role as chairman of the building committee. Husband James Wyatt Oates had drawn up the papers of incorporation that had made this all possible.

The event must have been memorable for Brainerd Jones as well. From where he stood for the photographer, he could see three of his best creations lined up in a row: The Lumsden House (now the Belvedere), the Paxton House, and Mattie's home, which would become known as Comstock House. For the Lumsdens he had built a very pretty Queen Anne - but for the Paxton and Oates families he had created what were probably the most adventurous designs of his career. These homes were in the Eastern Shingle Style/First Bay Region Tradition that strived to be simultaneously rustic and elegant. And now with the similarly brown-shingle clad Saturday Afternoon Club, he made a final statement in an architectural style that he apparently never used again. A few years later in 1913, Jones would design a building for the Petaluma Woman's Club that had similar dimensions, but was rendered in a far more conservative style.

(RIGHT: Brainerd Jones' drawing of the Saturday Afternoon Club appeared in both newspapers. A different sketch also appeared in the August 13 Santa Rosa Republican, but the microfilm is such poor quality that it's not included here. CLICK or TAP any image to enlarge)

Only the Saturday Afternoon Club could have built such a place. The town was awash in "ladies' clubs" in that era, most with the sole function of planning afternoon card parties and get-togethers held at member's homes; a Press Democrat columnist guessed there were about 100 women's clubs, lodges and societies then in Santa Rosa. But no cards were shuffled at meetings of the Saturday Afternoon Club, where women might discuss a member's report on military tensions in Asia or listen to an amateur soprano from the club's Etude section warble through a program of Schubert lieder. One of the few personal details we know about Mattie Oates concerns a witty presentation on "The Laws of California as related to Women and Children."

The Saturday Afternoon Club was a group firmly in the traditions of the club movement, which was founded after the Civil War and took off around the turn of the century. Members were typically older women from the leisure class who sought intellectual challenge and culture. Such lofty aspirations made them easy targets for satirists and jokesters; think of the scene in "The Music Man" where the mayor's insufferable wife and her dowdy friends clumsily pranced and posed in an ode to a Grecian urn.

The Club was founded in 1894 under the leadership of Jeanette Cochrane, a farmer's wife who found Santa Rosa to be a cultural sinkhole under the sway of dullards, at least as compared to her former home of Santa Barbara. There she belonged to a small "woman's club" that discussed literature and lobbied for civic improvements. The Club here certainly pursued literary matters with gusto, but until WWI it was not very active in civic affairs, perhaps because Santa Rosa had a busy "Woman's Improvement Club" that was tirelessly working for the town's betterment, such as coordinating with the S.P.C.A. to raise watering troughs to make them more humane for thirsty horses and cleaning up the Rural Cemetery. Rarely were members of that group singled out by the newspapers, but the names that did appear were almost always prominent members of the Saturday Afternoon Club, suggesting there was substantial overlap between the groups.

Central to the success of the Saturday Afternoon Club was its clubhouse, and that almost wasn't built, according to a 1994 Gaye LeBaron column. After the land was purchased from Mark McDonald Jr. for $800, all the banks in town refused to give them a construction loan, saying it was "crazy" to to take a risk on a social club, even one that included the wives of every prominent man in town. A wealthy aunt of club member Laura Cragin finally put up the entire $4,375, with another $100 tossed in for architect Brainerd Jones. Yet curiously, none of those interesting details were mentioned in either Santa Rosa paper at the time, which together printed over three dozen approving items about the Saturday Afternoon Club's mission to establish a clubhouse. Nor is Mrs. Cragin seen in the group photograph at the ground breaking. For having brokered a deal that saved the club's bacon, you'd think that she'd at least be rewarded by a snapshot of her throwing a shovelful of dirt.

LEFT: The Saturday Afternoon Club in the late 1940s, still with the original cedar shingles
RIGHT: The clubhouse in 1962, following the remodel that destroyed most of Brainerd Jones' design. Photograph by Don Meacham

(Photographs courtesy Sonoma County Library Collection)

BEAUTIFUL CLUB HOME AUSPICIOUSLY OPENED
Pretty Scene Thursday Evening at Handsome Structure

The opening of the pretty club home of the Saturday Afternoon Club last evening marks an epoch and a decided step in advance for the City of Roses. The new home will be the center of intellectual and social development, and the scene of many pretty parties and entertainments in the future, as well as the place where splendid musical talent will be heard...

...Mrs. James S. Sweet, the president of the club, made the address of welcome to the assembled guests, and told of the beginning and completion of the work, of the sweet resignation of Architect Brainerd Jones when the ladies proceeded to "prune" his plans, of the painstaking work of Contractor J. B. Durand and his corps of subcontractors....

...Mrs. Robert Potter Hill, former president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, and Judge James W. Oates made addresses during the evening. Each of the speakers made a talented address, the ladies bringing greetings from the organizations which they represent, and speaking of the pleasures which they had at being present on so auspicious occasion and of the beneficial influence the erection of the Saturday Afternoon Club structure would have on other cities.

Judge Oates was happy in his remarks, and his advice to the ladies on getting rid of the pest known as "knockers" touched a responsive chord in the audience. Judge Oates has been the legal light who has piloted the ladies through the shoals on which they might have wrecked their enterprise, and to him especial credit is due, and which was mentioned by Mrs. Sweet in her opening address. Judge Oates is always heard with pleasure by the people of this city, with whom he is a great favorite, and his well modulated voice was heard to advantage last evening. The speaker suggested that all the members of the male persuasion of the audience should assist the ladies in every way to make their laudable endeavors all the more successful and brilliant. The achievement of the energetic ladies followed the crashing blow which devastated this city less than three years ago, he remarked, was all the more pronounced because of its accomplishments in the face of such an adversity and calamity. Never in the history of the world, declared Judge Oates, had such a blow fallen on a city as Santa Rosa had suffered...

- Santa Rosa Republican, December 18, 1908

WORK ON CLUB HOUSE PROGRESSING WELL

Architect Brainerd Jonea was here from Petaluma yesterday looking after the Saturday Afternoon Club's new club house on Tenth street. He expressed himself as well pleased with the manner in which the work is progressing and of the work being done by the contractor. The brick work in the terrace was also commented upon favorably by the architect.

Contractor J. B. Durand has the club house under cover so that the rain will not interfere with the force of men engaged on the job. He sees no reason now why the contract will not be completed well within the specified time limit.

- Press Democrat, October 18, 1908

CLUB HOUSE UNDER WAY
Ladies Pleased with New Structure Being Erected

The new structure being erected for the Saturday Afternoon Club on Tenth street is rapidly being pushed to completion. Contractor J. B. Durand has a force of men busy shingling the sides of the structure, and it will soon be enclosed. Some delay has been occasioned in the structure of the roof, as the heavy timbers for that portion of the structure have been ordered direct from Oregon. They will be here at once, and it is expected to have the roof on the structure before the rains set in.

The ladies of the club frequently visit the new structure and are well pleased with what is being done there. The club house, when completed, will fill a long felt want on the part of the ladies of Santa Rosa, and will give them a place where their musicals and other high class entertainments can be staged with proper effect.

- Santa Rosa Republican, September 18, 1908

CLUB LADIES BREAK GROUND
Saturday Afternoon Members Start Building

An exceedingly pretty and impressive, tho' informal ceremony took place at 8 o'clock this morning at the site of the Saturday Afternoon Club House on Tenth street near Mendocino Avenue. The building contractors began work at that hour and the members of the club assembled to break ground. The ceremony was begun by the presidents of the organization, Mrs. Finlaw, the "mother president," turning the first shovelful of earth, and starting the work that will go on till a beautiful and artistic club home is completed. Mrs. Finlaw made a short and appropriate address to her sister members and co-laborers and relinquished the shovel to her successor in office. This was followed down the line presidents, who are Mrs. J. W. Oates, Mrs. A. C. McMeans, Mrs. Mark McDonald, Jr., Miss Lulu Leppo, Mrs. T. J. Geary, Mrs. W. E. McConnell, Mrs. James R. Edwards and Mrs. J. S. Sweet, the present presiding officer. Then the vice presidents took a hand, and this finished the official list and the members--the high privates--did their allotted part in preparing for the foundations.

There were present Judge James W. Oates and Professor J. S. Sweet, also Contractor J. B. Durand and Architect Brainerd Jones. John Ross, the photographer, posed the lady builders in an attractive bunch and took several pictures. The shovel will be preserved as a thing sacred in the club house.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 17, 1908

AWARD CONTRACT FOR CLUB HOUSE
Saturday Afternoon Club's Handsome Home on Tenth Street Will Soon Be Under Way

The contract for the erection of the handsome club house on Tenth street for the Saturday Afternoon Club, has been finally awarded to Contractor J. B. Durand of this city. Work will be commenced at once and will be finished as rapidly as possible.

A description of the building and the sketch of the same by Brainerd Jones, the architect, was published in the Press Democrat some weeks ago. The building will cost in the neighborhood of $5,000. An application for a building permit has been filed with the City Council, and will of course be granted.

The chairman of the building board is Mrs. James W. Oates. The members of the club will be glad to know that the work of construction is to be commenced and will be delighted when the building is ready for occupancy. Mrs. James S. Sweet is the president of the Saturday Afternoon Club.

- Press Democrat, August 14, 1908

HANDSOME CLUB HOUSE TO BE ERECTED BY THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON CLUB

After some delay incident to certain alterations in the original plans, on Thursday morning the contract was signed with J. B. Durand to erect the elegant new home for the Saturday Afternoon Club on Tenth street, near Mendocino avenue.

This building is the first to be devoted exclusively to club purposes in this city and marks an epoch in the history of Santa Rosa. The ladies of the Building Committee have displayed much energy and business ability in their efforts toward providing the Club with suitable quarters, and they are to be congratulated on the consummation of their undertaking.

The plans, which were drawn by Brainerd Jones, are in the Chalet style of architecture. The exterior is to be wholly in shingles and with its spacious port-cochere, pergolas and porches, forms a very pleasing picture.

The large auditorium, lighted by electricity, will be floored with polished maple. Opposite the stage is a large fireplace and over this is a gallery thirty-six feet in length. From the stage open two dressing rooms provided with all conveniences. The kitchen is to be furnished with a gas range, instantaneous water heater, etc. The auditorium will be wainscoted to the height of seven feet to the plaster line. A unique feature of the finish is the use of stained shakes to ceil the roof under the main rafters.

The acoustic properties have been carefully considered by the architect and the building is admirably adapted to lectures and threatening, while the dancing floor will be unsurpassed in the city. All in all, the new building will be an ornament to Santa Rosa and a credit to the enterprising members of the Saturday Afternoon Club.

[..]

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 13, 1908

When the ladies of the Saturday Afternoon Club elect which set of the several plans they are wrinkling their fair brows over, they will begin to build a club home that will be an ornament to Santa Rosa and a joy forever to club women who will dwell therein. The idea uppermost in the minds of the members of the organization is a pretty and commodious club house. It will not be costly nor elaborate in its adornments, but will be simple, artistic and genteel. Club homes are now considered necessary in social and fraternal organizations. The Elks in this city built themselves a splendid place where the cultured members of the order meet and enjoy the social features of their order. It is their rallying point and their home. The local Native Sons are now building a costly temple and it will be their fraternal and social home. Finely equipped club rooms will be a part of construction where the members will gather.

The Saturday Afternoon club house may be a rustic bungalow, wide eves, ornamental galleries, French windows, giving onto grace 11 balconies and terraces, approached by a broad driveway, sweeping in a half circle up through a porte cochere or roofed entrance at the front. The interior will be a large club room, capable of seating several hundred persons, elevated gallery at one end, with ornamental balcony where one may sit and enjoy refreshments and the literary menu from the floor below at the same time. Piano and other musical instruments will be provided for the Etude Section. Flowers and greenery will grow around and over this artistic structure and it will be a home indeed to the Saturday Afternoon Club of Santa Rosa. At the next meeting, the club will choose the plan and the building will begin.

- "Pencil Gatherings Among the Social and Other People" Santa Rosa Republican, June 1, 1908

SATURDAY AFTERNOON CLUB FILES ARTICLES

The Saturday Afternoon Club filed its articles of incorporation with the county clerk Thursday afternoon. The ladies are enthusiastic over their project and there were many signers of the club's roll, each taking one share of stock in the proposition. The club is capitalized at $10,000 and the stock is valued at ten dollars per share...

- Santa Rosa Republican, March 15, 1907

...A big step in the advancement of club life in our little city was taken on last Monday afternoon, at a special meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club, held at the home of Mrs. Dr. C. H. Thompson. The object of the meeting was to discuss and decide upon the advisability of purchasing a lot and erecting a modern, up-to-date club house that would not only afford a great deal of pleasure to the members of the club, but would also yield them a good revenue by being rented to other clubs and individuals for social functions and various other purposes. The meeting was largely attended in spite of the inclement weather and the ladies were most enthusiastic and earnest in discussing the proposed plan, and after carefully considering the important question and looking at it from all sides, a vote was taken upon it that resulted in a unanimous decision in favor of building a club house as soon as possible and also an order to file articles at once and incorporate the club under the name of "The Saturday Afternoon Club." Judge J. W. Oates has kindly offered his legal advice and assistance in their future business transactions and the ladies appreciate this generous offer and realize how valuable and helpful Judge Oates can be to them in carrying out such a big undertaking.

- "Our Social Affairs, by Madam Trice", Santa Rosa Republican, March 9, 1907

DECIDE ON CLUB HOUSE
Saturday Afternoon Club Will Have Handsome Home

At the meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club held Monday evening, the members determined to incorporate, purchase the proposed site for their handsome club rooms and erect a large and commodious structure thereon, The meeting was one of the most enthusiastic ever held by the ladies and when it came to a vote on the proposition there was a unanimity of sentiment favoring the club house. Mrs. James R. Edwards, president of the club, presided at the meeting.

The lot which will be purchased by the ladies is one owned by Mark L. McDonald, Jr. It is located on Tenth street facing Joe Davis street, and location for their club house [sic]. The close to Mendocino avenue [sic], and the members believe it will be an ideal election of directors [sic] resulted in the selection of the following to serve in that capacity [sic]...

...The club has decided to incorporate under the name of "The Saturday Afternoon Club," and the articles will be prepared at once and filed. At subsequent meetings of the club the arrangements for the building will be undertaken and architects will be asked to submit plans for the structure. The members can be depended on to erect one of the most beautiful and cozy structures for their occupance that is contained in the City of Roses.

- Santa Rosa Republican, March 5, 1907

LADIES TO BUILD FINE CLUBHOUSE
Special Meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club to Be Held on Monday Afternoon

There is to be an important meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club, both sections, on Monday afternoon at the residence of Mrs. Dr. C. H. Thompson, on Mendocino avenue, for the purpose of discussing incorporation, for the purchase of a lot at Tenth and Joe Davis streets, and the erection of a club house. It is hoped that all the members will be present and take part in the discussion. Most of the members are very enthusiastic over the probable purchase of the lot and owning their own club house. Mrs. James R. Edwards is the president of the Saturday Afternoon Club. While many lots have been considered it is certain that the club house will be located in or near the location mentioned, which is the locality in which the Saturday Afternoon Club had its origin and development.

[..]

- Press Democrat, March 3, 1907

ORIGIN OF THE LADIES' CLUB
How Saturday Afternoon Club Came Into Existence

The Saturday Afternoon Club, Santa Rosa's foremost organization in music and literature, whose handsome club house was dedicated Thursday evening, was founded by five prominent ladies of this vicinity. Many years ago a meeting was held at the resident [sic] of Dr. William Finlaw, on Mendocino avenue, the ladies present being guests Mrs. Dr. Wylie, on McDonald avenue. The idea of forming the club was broached and discussed by these ladies, and from that inception the stately edifice has arisen to crown their splendit efforts.

The ladies were Mrs. Martin Cochrane of Kenwood, Mrs. William Finlaw, Mrs. A. C. McMeans, Mrs. Mark L. McDonald, Sr., and Mrs. J. G. Wylie.

The first officers of the club were Mrs. Finlaw, president; Miss Nellie Porter, vice president; Mrs. McMeans, secretary; Mrs. McDonald, Mrs. Wylie and Mrs. Cochrane, committee on constitution and by-laws. At the next meeting of the ladies, which was held at the residence of Mrs. Finlaw, the constitution and by-laws of the club were presented and adopted.

Miss Nellie Porter, who was chosen vice president of the club, was to have been president of the club, was to have been present at the original meeting, but was unavoidably detained. She was chosen an officer in her absence.

- Santa Rosa Republican, December 18, 1908

NOW THAT WAS A FIGHT

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Rule of thumb: While you're getting beat up, it's never a good idea to become trapped in a barber's chair.

The brawl that started at the Blue Wing saloon in downtown Santa Rosa spilled over into the barber shop next door. One fighter was caught in the chair, where his leg was broken in two places and an arm broken as well. So frenetic was the action that even someone who tried to break up the scuffle was thought to have a broken arm.

BONES BROKEN IN A FIGHT
George Cogswell Sustains Several Injuries

In a fight at the Blue Wing saloon at First and Main streets Sunday afternoon between George Cogswell and James Campion, the former sustained a number of broken bones. One of his legs was broken in two places, and he is said to have also had one bone of his right arm broken. He became entangled in a barber chair and it was while thus entangled that the bones of the leg were broken. The man's injuries were dressed by Dr. J. W. Jesse after which he was taken to his home near this city.

A peacemaker, who endeavored to separate the combatants, was also injured, and for a time it was believed he had sustained a broken arm.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 16, 1908

FIGHT IN BARBER SHOP

The fight Sunday evening in which George Cogswell sustained a broken leg took place in a barber shop adjoining the Blue Wing saloon. S. H. McKee, of the Blue Wing, declares this barber shop has no connection with the business whatever.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 19, 1908

STUMBLING IN THE DARK

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You took a risk driving, riding a buggy, or even walking at night in Santa Rosa's 1908 neighborhoods; streets were frequently dark because the electricity was off, and unwary travelers might crash into wet-cement barriers or hit the piles of building materials that were obstructing streets and sidewalks. So bad was the situation that the Press Democrat - loathe to expose any flaw in the town whatsoever - openly called for contractors to put out 19th century kerosene lanterns to alert the public to the dangers.

The PD was prodded to mention the issue after a woman was thrown from her buggy and seriously injured when the horse became spooked by an unexpected encounter with a pile of stuff blocking the street. The newspaper also complained that there was some sort of wire fence across the freshly-poured sidewalk at College and Mendocino Avenues "which could not be seen even with the light burning, [and] was a snare when the light was out."

This item states that "the electric lights [are] going out nearly every night for a time," and the previous article revealed there was a steam whistle for summoning a lineman to "answer lamp kicks at all hours of the night" ("kick" was common slang for "complaint" at that time, so I presume that meant customers were reporting electric outages).

Santa Rosans were understandably angry that the power company couldn't keep the lights on, and a couple of weeks after these incidents, the Chamber of Commerce demanded answers from the superintendent of the Santa Rosa Lighting Company. Alas, he told them, he only did as he was so ordered by a PG&E engineer in another county: "I receive a message from Napa to cut out the street lights until further notice. Out they go."

WARNING LIGHTS SHOULD BE PUT OUT

A number of building and sidewalk contractors are growing careless and indifferent regarding the matter of putting out lights at night where obstructions are left in the streets and sidewalks. The matter is one of importance as was shown last Saturday night when a runaway was caused which resulted in a lady receiving a compound fracture of her arm and a fine buggy was demolished.

With the electric lights going out nearly every night for a time, contractors should use lanterns. A wire fencing was left across some new walks on Mendocino street at College avenue Thursday night which could not be seen even with the light burning, was a snare when the light was out. A number of other obstructions were left unguarded in different parts of the city.

- Press Democrat, October 2, 1908

COUNCILMEN WILL BE BOYS

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It's always disheartening to attend a city council meeting and find your elected officials are acting like weepy drunks, but thus it was at a Santa Rosa council meeting in 1908.

The agenda item was the 8:30PM juvenile curfew, and the first sign of trouble was that each councilman was motivated to rise and deliver a sorrowful little speech about the need for a curfew because of a few wayward youths, some revisiting their own unhappy boyhood. Discussion turned to the question of how the time of curfew would be sounded each evening, and a councilman said they might be allowed to ring the bell at the new Santa Rosa Bank building. At that suggestion, the council meeting dissolved into pandemonium.

The councilman who proposed a curfew bell applauded his own brilliant idea; another broke out in tears; another council member waxed uncontrollably nostalgic about his recitations at school while yet another lunged towards the telephone to call the library for a poem that he could read aloud.

The hot button that turned them into drooling Pavlovian dogs was the concept of a "curfew bell." It seems that children of their day were expected to memorize a bit of Victorian doggerel titled, "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight," a narrative poem about a man condemned to be executed at the sounding of the curfew bell and who is saved by his lady love who blocks the bell from ringing (read it here, if you must). Driven by the psychological need to redeem their own wanton youth (or as an alternative, see: weepy drunk), the emotional story about silencing the bell transformed into the councilmen wanting the curfew bell to ring, even though they would have to personally take weekly shifts yanking the bell rope.

Presumably after hankies blotted eyes and further maudlin verses were misquoted from memory, council business continued. Another item concerned a request from cigar store owners to be allowed the running of card games. These stores were already permitted to have slot machines, but adding card tables was a matter of controversy also being debated in Healdsburg at this time. To the apparent surprise of the council and the reporter, Fire Chief Frank Muther rose and spoke up in opposition. Muther was there on fire department business, but he also operated the most well-known cigar store in town. Muther concluded his remarks by saying, "...I have seen boys ruined through the gambling games in the back of cigar stores. I have known mothers to come and ask that their boys be protected, and I don't want to see this council grant this permit."

At the mention of ruined boys and pleading mothers, you can bet that the sobbing lamentations began anew, and the rest of the meeting was surely lost wandering deep in the weeds.

CURFEW SHALL RING TONIGHT
Councilmen Will Take Turn at the Bank Bell

It was quite an animated discussion the city fathers had over the curfew ordinance Tuesday night. There is a general desire on the part of the public to have the whistle blown at 8:30 in the evening as a warning to straying juveniles that the big bogey man in blue coat and brass buttons is after them. Councilman Bronson made quite a feeling little speech on the perils of permitting little boys on the streets at night, and said something about safeguarding the young, etc. Councilman Forgett earnestly echoed this tender sentiment and referred to Councilman Steiner as a sad object lesson of a young boy being permitted to run at large. Councilman Johnson looked more sorrowful than ever as he thought of his youthful street scrapes at night.

Councilman Barham arose to his feet and said that it was impossible to get either brewery or gas company steam whistles, as those instruments of exquisite melody are used for fire alarms and to call a lineman to answer lamp kicks at all hours of the night. But he was quite sure they could have the use of the big new bell on the Santa Rosa Bank building if they could have it rung at the hour. If no other way was found, he would suggest that the members of the council take a week turn about ringing the curfew, beginning with Councilman Bronson. Then he sat down.

The picture of Bronson swinging the bell clapper, and repeating:
"Curfew, it shall ring tonight--
Curfew's got ter ring tonight."
was so inspiring that the tears came in Forgett's eyes and Barham enthusiastically applauded his own speech.

Johnston, in mind, wandered far away over the sunset English hills where the poem girl first tackled the curfew proposition and Steiner remembered his young school days when he used to speak the "piece" every term and make his teacher and schoolmates tired to death.

Even Frank Muther forgot all about fires and Engineer Tom McNamara quit worrying over the collection of his surveying bills from the property owners. Rushmore slipped over to the telephone and called to the free library if they had among the books a copy of the immortal verses. He wanted to read them to the council. Clerk Clawson began to read the list for a vote on the proposition and before he recovered himself he had voted all the councilmen and all the city employees "aye." Bronson will probably begin his week as soon as the building contractor gets a ladder up to the bell.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 8, 1908

OBJECTS TO CARD GAMES
Cigar Men's Petition Addressed by Frank Muther

At the meeting of the council Tuesday evening a petition was presented by the cigar dealers of this city asking that they be permitted to conduct card games in their establishments. When the matter was presented, Chief Muther, who is one of the cigar men of the city, addressed the council in doubtful terms and told the officials and spectators that he was opposed to the movement. He commenced by saying: "This is a matter in which I am interested, and I am not speaking as chief of the fire department, but as a cigar dealer. In the interest of the protection of the boys of the town, I want to request that this petition not be granted. It is not asked for a legitimate purpose, but is for gambling. I am not a party to this. I believe in a legitimate business, and the cigar business is legitimate. I have seen boys ruined through the gambling games in the back of cigar stores. I have known mothers to come and ask that their boys be protected, and I don't want to see this council grant this permit." Mr. Muther said there were some good men who had signed the petition, but there were those who had signed it for the purpose of getting an opportunity to have gambling games and he was opposed to the whole scheme.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 8, 1908

WHERE'S THE FIRE?

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Your house burning down? Don't even consider calling the Santa Rosa Fire Department, said Chief Frank Muther in 1908; instead, dash over to the nearest fire box and pull the alarm.

Since most houses and businesses had telephones, his advice seemed backwards, even cruel; it may be rough for some homeowners to sprint up to 3-4 blocks to the closest box (and everyone knew exactly where they were, right?), or someone caring for small children or the infirm might be a wee reluctant to leave helpless family members in a building that could become engulfed in flames. Bur strange as it may seem today, Fire Chief Muther was right; if a fire was indeed serious, the only hope of controlling it was via someone first pulling the lever of that little red box.

Like most towns of its size, 1908 Santa Rosa did not have a full-time fire department. The on-call firefighters - including Frank Muther - had to rush directly to the blaze from wherever they were at the time, hopefully arriving at the scene at about the same time as the pump truck. But in an age before cell phones, pagers, or even radios existed, there was only one sure way to direct the firemen to the vicinity of the fire: Ringing a loud bell or otherwise making a noise using a code that corresponded with a particular fire alarm box.

The technology for these "fire alarm telegraphs" went back to before the Civil War, and Santa Rosa probably had a Gamewell system, as almost all communities used by the turn of the century. Here's how it worked:

Santa Rosa had only 23 alarm boxes, and the town was small enough that they were probably all connected together in a single electrical series, like a string of christmas tree lights. The low-voltage circuit was (battery?) powered from the fire alarm office.

The alarm boxes used a clock-like mechanism (which had to be routinely rewound by the fire department) and when someone pulled the lever, the spring motor came to life, turning a wheel that had a unique pattern of teeth that corresponded with the number of the box. As the wheel slowly turned, each tooth briefly interrupted the circuit (see this YouTube video for the mechanism in action).

This sent a sort of slow-motion telegraph message to the fire alarm office, which activated another device that punched holes in a paper tape matching the pattern of clicks sent from the box. That paper strip could in turn be fed automatically into a tape reader that rang a bell, flashed a light, sounded a klaxon, or anything else. Another YouTube video clearly demonstrates the entire system. On that video an alarm box with a wheel configured to transmit "27" sends out two clicks, pauses, then sends out another seven. After a longer pause, the pattern repeats. Next in line, the paper tape enters the reader where the holes gong a bell twice, pause a bit, then ring seven times more. Listening and counting, the firefighters knew they should head for the location of alarm #27.

And it wasn't just the firemen who knew where to find a fire; the Press Democrat frequently published the alarm codes, using them as column fillers when there wasn't enough advertising, as shown here. (Note that the linotype operator wasn't bothering to reset the often-used text, and the reused letters were gumming up with ink; is that "Hazel" street or "Haxol"?) The public memorized these codes as well. Chasing fire engines was popular sport.

Here's the final obl. believe-it-or-not twist: between the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake and completion of the new firehouse in 1909, where was the fire alarm office and its clever machinery located? Apparently everything was controlled from the Grace Brothers Brewery. A July 8 item in the Santa Rosa Republican (see following post) shows that their steam whistle was being used for fire alarms. While it's possible that an automated relay system could have forwarded the alarm code from the temporary firehouse, the story below shows that no alert sounded at all for the fire that was telephoned, which meant that there was no way a fireman could intervene and directly toot the beer baron's whistle.

MUST TURN IN ALARMS
Chief Muther Makes Order For Fire Department

The fire department was summoned by telephone early Wednesday morning to the residence of Mr. and Mrs. P. F. Johnson on College avenue, where a chimney fire was causing some uneasiness. The fire burned briskly and the galvanized iron cap on the chimney was red hot. There was no fire between the ceiling and the roof, and the services of the firemen were hardly required.

The property belongs to the Misses Hahman, and no particular damage resulted from the chimney fire.

The department ran straight down B street to Ross and then turned east to the scene of the fire. Many who saw the department go along B street attempted to follow, and soon became lost and went down into the lower portion of town. Fire Chief Muther got a belated start owing to the fact that no alarm was given and was unable, like others, to follow the department. He arrived at the scene of the fire somewhat tardy.

Chief Muther will insist in future on all persons summoning the fire department by means of the alarm system, that the public and the firemen may know where the blaze is supposed to be. This is a step in the proper direction, for with the still alarm the trained firemen are not notified of the blaze, and if there is a fire they should be present to do the work directed by the chief in extinguishing the blaze. Persons desiring the department should bear in mind that they should got to the nearest box and turn in the alarm in the regular manner. In the case of the fire Wednesday morning an alarm box was within one block of the scene of the fire, and if the house had been blazing there would have been no trained members of the department present to fight the blaze.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 11, 1908

TOM GREGORY

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Had I the chance to visit 1908 Santa Rosa, I know exactly how I'd want to spend my day. First I'd ask James Wyatt Oates for a spin in his fine, new touring car; with any luck, I could convince him to drive over to Hoen Avenue so we could say hello to the newly arrived Comstock family. I'd drop by Frank Muther's cigar shop on Fourth Street and thank the Fire Chief for saving our town from burning down after the Great Earthquake. Should Fred J. Wiseman happen to be loafing around the Santa Rosa Cyclery with old friends, I'd ask if he thought airplanes had much of a future. But come the end of my visit, I'd like to have a beer and hang out with Tom Gregory.

(RIGHT: Portrait of Tom Gregory from "History of Sonoma County")

Next to Luther Burbank, Tom Gregory is probably the most famous person who ever lived in Santa Rosa, by one measure: His "History of Sonoma County" (available to read online or download here) became the de facto reference on local history almost from the day it was published in 1911. In genealogy circles, he's particularly viewed as a superstar because most of the volume is filled with 558 biographies of local movers and shakers (who each paid something around $50 to be memorialized as a m&s). But in a believe-it-or-not twist worthy of Robert Ripley (another of Santa Rosa's famous sons), Gregory is famous for the wrong reason; he likely contributed little besides editorial touch-up to the biography section, where only occasional flashes of his hallmark writing style can be found.^*

In the twilight of his life, Tom was a history-writing machine. After the 1911 Sonoma County volume, he followed with county histories for Solano and Napa (1912) and Yolo (1913). Truth be told, however, his histories really aren't very good. He wrote in a style more florid than precise; rarely are sources cited, and there are more than a few passages where he added colorful details that leave Gentle Reader wondering how such bullshit ever made it into print. (He made the absurd claim, for example, that the word "gringo" was coined by Mexicans who heard Americans endlessly singing the old folk tune, "Green Grow the Rushes.") And although he was an eyewitness to the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake, he offered a mere three pages describing the day of the disaster and its immediate aftermath. That's almost unforgivable.

But Tom Gregory wasn't a scholar or historian; he was a storyteller and newspaperman. He spent his life writing about people and matters he knew about first hand, not long-distant events researched at a library. Instead of his flawed histories, he should be celebrated for the decades of entertaining, often hilarious, writings that appeared in the San Francisco and Santa Rosa newspapers.

He was the only writer in the early 20th century Santa Rosa papers to be given a byline or allowed to sign his articles, and he appeared in both the Press Democrat and the Republican. Before the 1906 quake he had an occasional column in the PD called "One Man's Opinion" or "Individual Opinion." For the Republican after the quake, it was "Pencil Gatherings Among the Social and Other People" (it would later be called the even more irreverent "Unclassified News of the Social and Other Things"), which was a staff-written society gossip column that took sarcastic pokes at local snobs when Gregory contributed.

The February 22, 1908 "Pencil Gatherings" was particularly good fun. Responding to a reader who hoped the newspaper would reproach "certain lady [card] players who are more anxious to win prizes than they are to play fair," Gregory wailed in mock despair, "My! my! I am jarred out of all think...I have worked so hard uplifting society to a higher moral plane, spying out and eliminating every element of the earth earthy, we find that our labors have been in some respects in vain." Card cheaters risked the launch of "horrid war...in the ethics of game there is no redemption for the gamester who falls from honor." Later in the same column, he oozed unctuously over the fashions at a sorority dance instead of offering the customary fawning praise:

It was indeed a bright phalanx of fair Grecians that came to the dance of the Lambda Theta Phi Friday evening in the Occidental. If one may refer to them in the scholastic and classic lore of Hellenic days, he may write that no more charming company of girls ever gathered to the Olympian games that these Minervian maidens of the West. Their gowns were not just the draperies seen on the graceful marble goddesses of the Parthenon, but they were dainty, pretty, and fetching...

Tom dabbled in Santa Rosa civic affairs in 1906 with his customary humor. When there was a kerfuffle over sidewalks being used by bicycle riders and roller skaters, he proposed the city should encourage scofflaws, the better to issue tickets that could be used to rebuild the earthquake damage. Policemen could even expedite the fines by selling coupon books in advance: "Under this beautiful system a cop could grab a wheelman, tear off a coupon, and let him ride on. No delay, no bother." He ran that year for city clerk (see below for an amusing anecdote), and when he didn't win, his Press Democrat column laughed at his own defeat: "I have not yet found the central cause of my 'pass in the night' of April 3. I fancy, however, that it may be attributed to lack of votes." A friend comforted him by saying that he lost only because "after my opponent finished at the ballot box there was not enough votes left to go around."

In a 1908 "Pencil Gatherings" column, Gregory introduced his fictional (?) nemesis, a blowhard he called the "up-town citizen" who would stop by the newspaper office and wax his ill-informed opinions, then stealing a paper as he left. Another episode is transcribed here, but this one will make less sense to those not familiar with events that have been discussed in earlier posts. When the windbag says, "[W]hat is this report about settin' the proposed city park down in the crick...I was asked what the crick was assessed at, bit I don't think it has any taxable value since the fish died," the references are to an election-year promise to create a park on the banks of Santa Rosa Creek, although it was well-known that the waterway was now so polluted that the fish were vanishing.

Alas, there's no index of Tom Gregory's writings in the Santa Rosa papers, so stumbling across an unknown item is always a treat. There are undoubtedly many more gems to be unearthed, although his contributions seem to slack off after 1908 as he began writing the histories. A look at older papers should prove fruitful; he moved to town in 1898, when he was already an acclaimed writer.

Tom Gregory was born in California in 1853 and joined the U.S. Navy at 17. Although he had only a rudimentary education he read constantly, and when his ship was monitoring the war between Bolivia, Chile and Peru in 1879, he made his debut as a war correspondent for the San Francisco Call. For most of the rest of his life his focus drifted between the sea and the newsroom. He left the Navy to become a newspaperman, then later re-enlisted to run the Navy recruiting station in San Francisco during the Spanish-American War. He wrote for the old Alta California and the San Francisco Call, where "he was assigned to the waterfront and became famous for his waterfront stories," the obituary in the Santa Rosa Republican noted. "Some of his exploits in search of news are traditions in the Press Club of California."

(RIGHT: Featured poem in the SF Call, February 9, 1896. CLICK or TAP to enlarge)

By at least 1895, he was highly regarded as a poet and writer of human interest stories about life at sea. Historic newspaper archives for the San Francisco Call show a couple of dozen stories or poems that appeared in the fat Sunday editions between 1895 and 1899, often featuring an illustration drawn specifically for it. Obits in both local papers stated that the poems in particular were widely reprinted nationwide. A Call article referred to him as the "chief staff poet" and after a Friday night romp in the Bohemian district with other reporters, there was a laugh because Gregory was back at his desk at midnight "...searching a dictionary of rhymes for something to go with '-izzle.'" Now, that's dedication. Or something.

Tom Gregory died on Sept. 8, 1914, at his home at 930 Cherry Street (which still stands, on the corner of Cherry and E) and his remains were taken to San Francisco and there cremated. Rest in peace, Tom; it would have been nice to have known you.

^* Although nothing specific is known on the practices of the "Historic Record Company" of Los Angeles, the publishers of these "mug books" typically hired a local newspaper editor or scholar to write (or supervise the writing of) the histories, but sent a salesman from the home office to sell the subscriptions that underwrote the publication. The salesman also collected the all-important biographical data from subscribers. As an example, the 1889 "Illustrated History of Sonoma County, California" is attributed to Petaluma Argus editor Samuel Cassiday, but a man named William Buckline from the Lewis Publishing Company in Chicago was in the county the previous year for interviews and taking pre-orders. The main author sometimes hired a local writer for the biographical sketches, and other times subscribers sent their autobiographical details directly to staff writers at the company. Regardless of how these books were assembled, they were enormously profitable. As the books typically included 500+ biographies, the publisher had a risk-free publication that brought in about $25,000 - a princely sum for the day.

COLONEL GREGORY'S PETITION
Colonel Tom Gregory petitioned for an electric light on King street, to relieve the situation on that thoroughfare. By reason of the large pine trees growing in the old college grounds the Colonel declared it could easily be termed "darkest Santa Rosa." He prayed for relief from the situation. Referred to street committee.

- Santa Rosa Republican, February 7, 1906

UNIQUE CAMPAIGN CARDS
Advertising Legend Brings Out Good Joke at Tom Gregory's Expense

Tom Gregory shows his newspaper training in the unique character of his advertising campaign cards. His penwork is as striking as it is funny, and attracts attention wherever it appears.

In the windows of several stores the reader is told to "get a quick meal on one of our stoves early April 3rd and vote for Tom Gregory." Lou Dillon's famous sulky in a well-known harness store is adorned with this statement: "The fastest sulky on Earth, puled by Lou Dillon in 1:58. Tom Gregory's run for City Clerk is equally marvelous."

One of these election legends brought out a joke at Tom's expense which is as good as one of his own: A grocery window held a card which said, "Ask your grocer for Tom Gregory." "What is it?" queried a curious customer. The information was given by the proprietor.

"Oh, I thought it was a new breakfast food," the customer replied.

- Press Democrat, March 23, 1906

THINGS HEARD ABOUT TOWN
A New Society Formed--- A Political Rumor

"These here fine, sunny days just drags everything and everybody out of the shell," said the up town citizen, leaning over the counter and cheerfully confiding to the entire office force, "I reckon society will just turn on 'high speed' this nice weather and crowd the dates with functions or whatever you call 'em, before Lent turns out the lights. Speakin' of society, I must tell you about a new social club we have organized, though I must not tell you where it is located, because the police is awful fierce now, it bein' purtty close to election. It is the Paradox Bean-Poker and Debating Society, Limited. We found in the dictionary that paradox is something a person would think aint but really is, so we though it a good name. Bean poker I guess you 'sabe.' The debatin' comes in when the members are a-growlin' over five of a kind before the draw, and the limit is in 'five hundred' and euchre professionals. When we get more coin in the kitty we are a-going to federate with other clubs and then we will have the angtray into the select circles of the hoi polloi. Better let me take your name in? What say?"

Nobody said anything, and he continued: "But there is one thing not out yet, and that is the candidate. I've been a-hunting for the bunch who want to serve the public, and I can't flush a single bird. I did catch one stickin' his head out of the grass, but before I could get a camera on him he ducked back. He had 'councilman' and 'goodness' written all over him, but he was skeery. There's to be six men and a city hall with a fire house on the side voted for, and the only thing yet in sight is the place where the hall and house is to be if it is to be.

"The folks in and out of town don't 'pear to like the mositness in the streets. They keep a'askin' me to dry up the mudholes. I tell them with so much free water, natcherly lots of it will get splashed around a good deal. Just as soon as the summer comes and people begin to wet down their lawns and find roses so the Chamber of Commerce can truthfully tell what a gardin spot Santa Rosay is, the free water idea will evaporate, leaving excess bills in its place. I was up to the city council t'other night and heard a cry going up to thet cloudless skies. If was for free water for revenue only. I hear they are a-goin' to make the old water company put in meters so it can't work no cut rate job on the city business, I'll be goshdurned if this water question isn't gittin' complerkated.

"Haven't got a late Lost Ang'lus paper have you? I had a visitor from the sunny south the other day. He belonged to some Chamber of Commerce down there and said what was needed to make this state have a settler on every fifty-vera lot of it was more harmony and less 'knocking' between the different sections. Pretty soon he sets down on the hammer he had in his back pocket and hurt himself real painful.,

"The court house deputies is a-pickin' out their offices in the new county building and askin' the architect to put sunny south windown on the north side. Say, what is this report about settin' the proposed city park down in the crick? Geminy, it would take more money to fix up the place, put in dams, walks, gondolas, submarines, like Healdsburg had, than it would take to build a battleship. The citizens could never stand for it without a bond issue. I was asked what the crick was assessed at, bit I don't think it has any taxable value since the fish died.

"Speakin' of aquatic matters reminds me that the big fleet is in the Pacific and will soon be up here. Bein' a society man, I'm goin' to leave my card aboard Evans' flagship and have the Admiral up to Santa Rosy and get up a reception. We are well acquainted with each other--I was ship's cook with him once. One day he gave me five days in double irons for burning the beans. I'll make Fightin' Bob honerary member of the Paradoxes. Guess I'll take a paper home with me, the carrier might fergit to leave me one."

- Santa Rosa Republican, February 13, 1908

WHEN YOU BOOST THE BOOSTER YOU BOOM THE BOOM

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Here's another of those very odd public service "booster" ads that appeared in the Santa Rosa Republican around 1908 (other examples here and here). CLICK or TAP to enlarge and learn how you can help "the old town perk up and plunge forward."

THE ODDITIES OF 1908

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Here's a handful of items from 1908 Santa Rosa papers that are interesting, yet don't quite merit separate articles:

A Santa Rosa man named H. C. Stone registered to vote, listing his occupation as, "Philosopher of the Order of Mephistopheles" (misspelled "Methlstopheles" by the Press Democrat). The County Clerk thus entered his job title in the Great Register of Voters.

A pharmacist in Sonoma was arrested for having a caged dove. Under California game law selling or even possessing wild birds (alive or dead) outside of hunting season was punishable by at least a $25 fine or 25 days in prison, but the druggist plead ignorance of the law and was acquitted by a jury. There was particular concern in the years 1908-1909 that sportsmen's clubs were wiping out local game and tighter rules were imposed; Marin banned quail hunting for three years, and Los Angeles county limited dove season (yes, there was a dove season) to a single day. Doves were hunted both for sport and food, and unlike robin pot pie, you couldn't get in trouble for tucking into a dove pie, as long as they were killed legally; a woman won a prize in a 1909 San Francisco Call recipe contest with a dish that called for a dozen birds.

Testifying at a circuit court hearing in Bodega, a witness who was "a son of sunny Italy, not long in this country, and best learned in English in the use of slang," according to the PD, responded to a lawyer's question by saying, "Sure, Mike." This was newsworthy because "sure, Mike" was a somewhat disrespectful catchphrase of the time that meant something between "you betcha" and "hell, yeah." The crime in question, by the way, was for Peter Ginella taking "an unfriendly poke with a crowbar" at one G. Bugada. The accused was probably part of the sprawling Gonnella clan; no fewer than 37 Gonnellas were listed in the 1910 census for Bodega township.

"A lick and a promise this time, Jim," read the note left by the thief who had robbed a dentist's office of gold for fillings. Another Healdsburg dentist reported a similar robbery, and two Petaluma dentists had been burgled a couple of weeks before. A historic newspaper database search suggests that thieves who robbed dentist offices specialized in that crime, and were very often caught either trying to pawn the gold to a regular jeweler or during an inept break-in attempt. Just a few months earlier, the mayor of Reno had spotted someone wiggling through the transom of a dentist's office; a police officer arrested the would-be burglar at gunpoint, likely still in mid-wiggle.

What do you do when a friend is so chronically depressed that he speaks of nothing but suicide? If you're one of the "friends" of this despondent Healdsburg man, you turn his misery into a vicious practical joke. They gave him "a great quantity of crystals looking like strychnine, but which were really epsom salts," which he promptly mixed with water and drank, expecting to die in front of his comrades - he even held a club to fight them off, should they attempt to intervene. A witness horrified by the scene summoned the police, who could find no sign of the anticipated corpse. The victim "is none the worse for the cruel hoax played on him," the Santa Rosa Republican dubiously claimed. Besides the damage this prank certainly added to his already frail emotional state, epsom salts, when taken orally, are a powerful and fast-acting laxative.

CROWBAR WIELDER IS DISCHARGED

Peter Ginella, charged with giving G. Bugada an unfriendly poke with a crowbar at Bodega, was not held for trial by Justice Cunninghame at the preliminary examination at Bodega on Saturday. He was allowed to go and sin no more. Attorney William Finley Cowan went over from Santa Rosa to represent the accused. Assistant District Attorney George W. Hoyle, and Court Reporter Harry Scott were also among those present from Santa Rosa. The evidence Ginella was not considered sufficient by the magistrate to hold him over to the Superior Court.

Some diversion was occasioned in the courtroom during the examination of a witness who chanced to be a son of sunny Italy, not long in this country, and best learned in English in the use of slang. In response to one question by Attorney Cowan the witness, in responding in the affirmative, said:

"Sure, Mike."

- Press Democrat, February 12, 1908

KEPT A LITTLE DOVE IN A GILDED CAGE

Deputy Game Commissioner Lounlbos arrested a Sonoma druggist, named Simmons, last week on a charge of violating the law. The specific charge was keeping a dove in captivity in a cage. The man was given a hearing on Saturday and was acquitted by the jury hearing the evidence. Mr. Simmons had no intention of violating the law.

- Press Democrat, March 31, 1908

SANTA ROSA HAS ITS OWN PHILOSOPHER
Man Registers at County Clerk's Office and in Response to Query Tells of His Occupation

"What is your occupation?" queried the clerk in the registration department in County Clerk Fred Wright's office of a man who presented himself to have his name put on the new Great Register the day before yesterday.

"Philosopher of the Order of Methlstopheles," came the quick reply.

"What?" gasped "Casey," behind the book. "Repeat that again please, and slowly; and possibly you had better spell out the last."

"Philosopher of the Order of Methlstopheles," thee last word spelt out in a suppressed, dignified tone by the man on the other side of the wicket.

"All right, Mr. Philosopher, you're registered. Here's your receipt."

Santa Rosa has a philosopher, one who firmly believes in the teaching of philosophy of the Methlstopheles. His name is H. C. Stone.

- Press Democrat, March 7, 1908

BOLD THIEF ROBS DENTAL OFFICES

"A lick and a promise this time, Jim," written in a scrawling hand on a piece of paper and left on the desk in the dental office of Dr. O. J. Litchfield, at Healdsburg, was all that the smiling dentist has to show as evidence, except the carrying off of a lot of gold used in filling teeth, etc., that an unbidden guest, a thief, had entered his offices in that city on Sunday night. The thief also paid a visit to Dr. McGlish's office and made a haul of gold there. He did not leave his card. A couple of weeks ago a thief also burglarized the offices of two Petaluma dentists and stole gold, bridges and crowns. Santa Rosa dentists are respectfully invited to see that their gold is under lock and key. They thief may pay a return visit to Santa Rosa.

- Press Democrat, August 19, 1908

USED SALTS TO SUICIDE
Hoax Played on Man Who Was Tired of Life

John Capella, a resident of Healdsburg, had recently become despondent and threatened many times to commit suicide. The man made quite a diligent effort to obtain a sufficient quantity of strychnine to shuffle off this mortal coil, and was unsuccessful.

Some wags sought to have some fun at the expense of Capella, and they gave him a great quantity of crystals looking like strychnine, but which were really epsom salts. The man went into the bar room of the Oak Lawn House and there mixed the crystals in a can.

When he raised the can to his lips Capella announced that he was drinking a dose of strychnine, and to make the matter more tragic, the men who had played the joke on the would-be suicide, endeavored to wrest the can from his possession. With a large club and mighty oaths Capella kept the crowd back until he had drained the can of its contents.

A messenger, seeing the commotion caused by Capella's attempts at suicide, ran post haste on his bicycle for the police station and notified the officers. Night Watchman Harris hastened to the scene and made a search for Capella. He was finally told of the prank played on the man, and gave up the search. Capella is none the worse for the cruel hoax played on him.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 7, 1908

A CAR IS A TRUCK IS A MOTORCYCLE

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Q: It's 1908. What do you call those large vehicles used to haul stuff? A: They're "automobiles" "delivery cars," "delivery vans," or maybe, if you're feeling formal, "motor-trucks." But they're certainly not just "trucks" - at least, not until the 1930s.

Today we're so accustomed to the simple meaning of "car" and "truck" that it's hard to imagine a little over a century ago those referred only to railway compartments. Then in 1895, motor-car, motor-truck were coined - hyphens optional - but in the U.S. these remained mostly technical terms outside of everyday usage (some names also created in 1895 did catch on: motorcycle, motorboat, and the modern meaning of automobile).

This journey down the bumpy roads of etymology was spurred by a little 1908 item in the Press Democrat: "Petaluma is to have an automobile milk wagon...[two men] have purchased a Mitchell automobile and are having it fitted out for carrying and delivering milk." The idea of an "automobile milk wagon" seemed absurd; I doubt that dairies in a small town such as Petaluma had pasteurization and bottling equipment in that era (it would be almost a decade more before pasteurized milk was even available in most large cities) so milk was still being delivered in big cans, and it would be difficult to ladle milk out of a 10-gallon can riding in the back seat. But did the Mitchell Motor Car Co. even make a drayage vehicle? Sure thing, they offered a flatbed "motor truck," as seen in the 1908 ad on the right.

Other vehicular variations tumbled into the language; Mitchell also sold a "touring car" in that ad (that name for a big auto was already in common use), and here's a "stake truck" for hauling beer, although it's called an "electric car" in the accompanying article. The same 1905 article mentions an "automobile stage line" running between towns carrying passengers in a "bus wagon," which was more commonly known at the time as an "automobile bus."

Confusing matters hopelessly, there was even a motorcycle that was called a delivery van as well as a motor car. The PD reported in 1909 that Santa Rosa's Pioneer Laundry now had a "tri-car" for deliveries, and as seen here, the vehicle made by the Indian motorcycle company wasn't a "car" at all, but a 5HP motorized bicycle that had two wide-spaced front wheels with a box in the middle. One feature, according to the newspaper, was that "the whole front may be removed and the single wheel attached and leave a plain motor car" (even though that only would turn it into an underpowered motorcycle).

Thus in the baffling world of the early 20th century, anything with a motor and wheels could be considered a "car" or "automobile," no matter if it carried one person, thirty passengers, or a ton of bricks. When we say that people of that time went auto-crazy it was probably true, because when words mean little or nothing, the result is lunatic babble. They might as well have described those marvelous horseless machines by using pictographs of gestures and grunts.

BONUS GRAPHIC: While digging through old magazine on Google Books, I stumbled upon this cover from the June, 1907 issue of Motor magazine, with its oddly modern/steampunk allure (CLICK or TAP to enlarge)

WILL DELIVER MILK BY AUTOMOBILE

Petaluma is to have an automobile milk wagon, the first in Sonoma county, and probably in the state. The Messrs. H. C. Taylor and E. W. Ormsby have purchased the Arthur E. Matsen milk route in that city and will begin business January 1, 1909. They have purchased a Mitchell automobile and are having it fitted out for carrying and delivering milk to their customers.

- Press Democrat, December 8, 1908

LAUNDRY GETS MOTOR DELIVERY CAR

The Pioneer Laundry Company has secured an Indian Merchandise Delivery Motor car and will make use of it in delivering laundry to the customers of the company. The car is a combination tri-car, merchandise delivery car and motor cycle, and is a novelty in this part of the country.

The car has twin cylinders of 2 1-2 horse power each and can run from 6 to 60 miles an hour. As a tri-car there is a seat in front of the driver for a second person which rides as smoothly as an easy chair. That can be taken off and the delivery box substituted or else the whole front may be removed and the single wheel attached and leave a plain motor car.

- Press Democrat, April 8, 1909

JAPANESE SPIES ARE UNDER YOUR BED

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In 1938, Orson Welles scared the willies out of us with a sci-fi tale about a Martian invasion. But thirty years earlier, newspapers were frightening nearly everyone with equally fantastic rumors about an upcoming invasion by Japan.

Even 1908 Sonoma County, with its established and well-respected Japanese community, got into the act; the Santa Rosa Republican reported that locals in Bodega Bay were suspicious about two Japanese men - "well dressed and intelligent looking" - who rented a buggy and looked at the coastline. "What their real business was is a matter of conjecture and there was some talk of setting a watch on their movements," the Republican's correspondent wrote ominously, although their actions seemed no different from any other tourists.

The roots of the hysteria went back to Japan's military victory over Russia in 1905, as discussed in an earlier essay. Almost overnight, the popular image of Japan flipped upside-down, from couldn't-care-less to couldn't-care-more. The little Asian country that was once just viewed as a source of cheap field labor was now a potentially threatening superpower. It was as if we were suddenly told today that Guatemala had developed nuclear weapons.

American anxiety about Japan's formidable navy was fueled by fearmongering in the press - the link above shows a 1906 feature story titled, "If Japan Should Attack Us" - and that in turn launched a national mania about Japanese spies gathering tactical data to prepare for an invasion of the West Coast. And once we began looking for spies, we found them everywhere; Americans are world champs when it comes to hunting witches.

Japanese spy stories spread through the 1908 media like modern-day Internet urban legends. Most often they were an item from the United Press newswire, such as the January report that National Guard sharpshooters fired at someone trying to break into the San Francisco armory where "valuable military maps" were kept. "It is thought that Japanese spies were seeing to gain entrance to the armory." Although that story was picked up by dozens of newspapers (often adding their own little embellishments), it apparently wasn't true at all; no mention of an incident like this appeared in the San Francisco Call or Oakland Tribune.

Similarly, another wire story had it that a Japanese spy was caught at Fort Wadsworth, NY, with maps of the land surrounding the fort. "The military authorities at Fort Wadsworth admit that a Japanese spy has been caught...officers of the regular army are trying to hush the affair up but militiamen speak freely about it." Yet strangely, not a peep about the event can be found in the New York press.

Like the "friend of a friend" source of a juicy urban legend story, these events always happened somewhere else and far away. The San Francisco armory story appeared in the New York Tribune, as well as many papers in the upper Midwest. The Fort Wadsworth story was printed in South Carolina. Then there was a widely reprinted story quoting a Mexico City paper that claimed a spy had been caught in Brownsville, Texas with plans of American fortifications. Alas, not a single newspaper printed the firm denial from the local paper: "No Japanese whatever have been seen at Brownsville in months."

Other spy sightings were likely misunderstandings by hyper-suspicious locals, like the incident in Bodega Bay. In January, two well-dressed Japanese men (being well-dressed is a common reason for suspicion in many of these yarns) were detained in Oregon because they were found walking around and looking at Fort Stevens, on the mouth of the Columbia River. Although "nothing of an incriminating nature could be found upon their persons, the indications are that they were at the post for the purpose of obtaining plans and sketches of the different fortifications."

There were also spy stories that stretch belief to the breaking point. The Daily Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) ran a front page article about a Nevada draftsman named A. B. Clinton who claimed a Japanese man wanted to hire him to draw up plans of the San Francisco harbors. The patriotic draftsman attacked the man, but "the Jap put up a fierce fight and proved himself a master of jiu-jitsu. In the melee some of Clinton's fingers were so badly bitten that they will probably have to be amputated." The Japanese man was said to be held under a charge of "mayhem."

Every urban legend collection has to include an "imminent catastrophe" tale, and a UP wire story datelined Galveston, Texas, August 8, claimed there were "fifty thousand Japanese in Mexico ready to cross" the border:

From eight Japanese captured while attempting to cross the border from Mexico, details of a great smuggling plot were learned today by the immigration agents. The Japanese declare that there are now 50,000 of their countrymen in Mexico, and that most of them are awaiting an opportunity to enter this country. They say an organized band of smugglers is working on the border...

But unlike the other examples of anti-Japanese hysteria, there was a core of truth to this story, and it's worth a detour to explore.

After the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 between the U.S. and Japan blocked immigration of workers, Japanese men began entering the country illegally through Mexico. From the 1880s onward, the Mexican border was an easy crossing point for anyone not allowed in through the front door. Most numerous were the Chinese, but after the turn of the century there were growing numbers of Russian Jews, Syrians, Slavs, Greeks, and Italians as well as the Japanese. These European and Mideast immigrants weren't barred from legal entry on basis of race or nationality, but usually had individual reasons for sneaking in. Often, it was because the person wasn't in perfect health; Ellis Island medical examiners were increasingly turning immigrants away because of disease or because they otherwise appeared to sickly for manual labor. "LOPD" was bureaucratic shorthand for "Lack of Physical Development," and as likely to cause rejection as the "No Money" classification.

Ironically today, the easiest way to enter the U. S. was to pass as a "local Mexican" crossing the border for shopping or day labor. Immigrants were sold traditional clothing and coached on how to blend into the Mexican crowds. Many of the Japanese men used another trick: Telling the border guard that they were only crossing the U.S. en route to Canada, producing a ribbon of train tickets as proof.

To coach and/or smuggle these immigrants, an industry emerged. An excellent book on border enforcement, "Imaginary Lines." quotes a 1908 report from the Commerce Secretary:

On the Mexican side of the border, at the towns nearest the several ports of entry, aliens, both European and Asiatic, congregate in large numbers prior to seeking entry into the United States. By reason of the influx of foreigners into these towns, a profitable industry has grown up in the promotion of immigration, by methods seldom more than colorably legal and often simply illegal...there are physicians professing ability to remove the signs of disease, and there are smugglers and guides in abundance.

The most common points of entry from Mexico was either San Diego or El Paso, and that the dateline of this story is Galveston suggests there's also a dash of anti-Semitism in this mishmash of truth and fiction. The year 1908 was just after the start of the "Galveston Movement," which brought Eastern European Jews to the U.S. via Texas so to avoid the crowded East Coast cities.

There weren't many newspapers that spoke out against the rumors, but to his credit, one voice was Ernest L. Finley, editor of the Press Democrat. "These silly yarns of Jap spies are getting tiresome," he griped in an editorial. "Their publication puts us in the light of being about scared to death." Another editor raised the point that it was absurd to believe that Japanese spies were skulking about drawing our coastlines. "Topographical maps of the United States, made accurately by government surveyors, may be purchased for a dime," wrote the editor of the Los Angeles Herald. "Why should the Japanese go to the trouble and expense of making topographical surveys on their own hook?"

JAPANESE INSPECTING
War Scare is Noted at Bodega Bay

Editor REPUBLICAN:

Considerable excitement was occasioned in Bodega yesterday by the arrival of two Japanese men on the train from San Francisco. They were well dressed and intelligent looking, but spoke broken English when making inquiries about the coast line about Bodega Bay. Securing a rig from the livery stable here they immediately drove toward the bay. Ostensibly they were looking for abalones and when they returned said they could not find a suitable boat landing or place to erect a cabin. As they were gone from town but about three hours it is hardly possible for them to have made a very extended search for such locations. They exhibited a map of the coast when asking the distance to the point known here as Campbell's Point and seemed familiar with the shore line. What their real business was is a matter of conjecture and there was some talk of setting a watch on their movements. Another Japanese war scare. Well I must say that in the present uncompleted condition of the fortifications about Bodega Bay we are hardly in position to resist the attack of a very formidable squadron.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 14, 1908

MORE JAP SPIES
The latest scare of the timorous Japophobists is that the spies of Nippon are trying to get jobs as waiters and laundrymen in the big maneuvers camp at Atascadero. It is likely that these prying Japs are only prying into the chances to feed the privates and was the officers' shirts, and not into the secrets of the wireless signal code or into the manner in which the national guard fights and bleeds in sham battle. It is usual for foreign officers to be given the courtesy of an invitation to witness military maneuvers and these guests, trained in the science of soldierly evolutions, would learn far more than will the cooks and waiters in camp. Moreover, the war department in Tokio already knows all it cares to know concerning the work out for the regular and state troops at Atascadero. These silly yarns of Jap spies are getting tiresome. Their publication puts us in the light of being about scared to death.

- Press Democrat editorial, October 2, 1908

ARMSTRONG WOODS TO BE CHOPPED DOWN

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Hurry if you want to see Armstrong Woods; the new owner intends to chop down the entire grove for timber. Or so the Santa Rosa papers reported in the summer of 1908, when Harrison M. LeBaron bought the last 195 acres of the woodlands from the late Colonel Armstrong's daughter. LeBaron now owned the entire 400+ acres of magnificent redwood forest, and he knew well its value as lumber; someone was earlier hired to "compute the stumpage."

(RIGHT: Mrs. Bert Jewett of Forestville and her parents visit Armstrong Woods, c. 1909. Photo courtest Sonoma County Library)

It was no surprise that there was a FOR SALE sign on the grove; after all, Col. Armstrong had tried to get the state to buy it for a park in 1891, and a couple of years later, LeBaron had purchased the largest section from another of Armstrong's heirs. What was different in 1908 was that the public suddenly cared about its future. Letters to the editor appeared, and at the Guerneville Fourth of July celebration that year, almost all speakers dropped the usual patrotic hooey and pleaded for the trees to be saved. The Press Democrat printed the entire flowery speech delivered by Santa Rosa attorney Joseph Berry ("...towering with all the majesty of an Olympian Jove are 400 acres of virgin redwood mostened with the dews of heaven and mantled with garlands of emerald blue...") which was notable only in its inclusion of a 227 word sentence (!) and that the speaker asked tourists in the audience to contact their legislators and lobby for it to become a state park.

In October came news that State Senator Walter Price (R - Santa Rosa) had promised to present a bill in the next session of the legislature to purchase the grove, conditional on LeBaron delaying logging. LeBaron had signaled months earlier that he would be willing to wait - at least for a while:

A Press Democrat representative talked with Mr. Le Baron on Thursday concerning his purchase. He was asked if the matter of the purchase of the famous grove could be arranged with the idea of its preservation [if] he could be induced to come to terms. He replied that not only would he be glad to do so, but would assist himself in the project. Otherwise he said it would be necessary to cut the trees up into lumber as the investment was to big to allow it to remain idle.

A later article will show this chapter of the Armstrong Woods saga came to an end in 1909, and without looking too far ahead in the story, LeBaron died about five years later, the grove still untouched and its future still unclear. Why didn't he follow through with his logging threat? Was it just a bluff to frighten conservationists into lobbying for park status?

Gaye LeBaron apparently covered this history only once, in a January 20, 2008 column - now unfortunately behind the Press Democrat's pay-per-view firewall - but she wrote with some authority; H. M. LeBaron was the grandfather of her husband. Her view is that ancestor LeBaron was "...the new champion for the colonel's dream...interested in seeing the Fife Creek forest become a nature preserve..." The 1908 and 1909 papers likewise praised his civic-minded protection of the trees ("Mr. LeBaron is a public spirited man, and he desires the progress of Sonoma county and its betterment far more than he does the accumulation of sordid dollars").

But it should also be weighed that Harrison LeBaron was an astute businessman, and there was little profit to be made in logging the grove at that time. The U.S. economy was still shaking from the bank panic of 1907, so money was tight and the construction industry was at a near standstill, further depressing the already-low price of lumber. And redwood was not considered a valuable wood - it sold for about the same price as Douglas Fir/Oregon Pine. One of the articles below revealed that the estimated worth of Armstrong Woods as timber was a measly $25,000, which may have been even below LeBaron's purchase price. As a long-term investment, however, it turned out well for his heirs; the land was finally sold to the county in 1917 for $80,000.

BONUS REDWOOD ITEM: Press Democrat editor Ernest Finley obviously loved it when readers brought natural oddities to his office, and column fillers described things like really big beets, albino trout, and potatoes shaped like ducks. In the midst of the hoopla about the sale of Armstrong Woods, a man brought in a sample of curly redwood, which the PD commented was "a handsome board and makes up into fine decorations." Some of the trim in Comstock House is curly redwood (photo here) and it is indeed pretty; fine examples can look like tiger-striped oak or have a wavy ripple pattern (the appearance is caused by the tree being under stress as it grows). As the PD item notes, however, it was usually thrown away by the mill, and still is today; it splinters easily, and is notoriously hard to plane into a smooth board.

FAMOUS GROVE HAS BEEN SOLD
Armstrong Grove Soon to be Made into Lumber

The famous Armstrong grove, about three miles from Guerneville, is soon to be but a matter of history. It has been sold by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Armstrong to H. M. LeBaron of Valley Ford and will be cut for timber.

The Armstrong grove as it is familiarly called, is said to be the finest tract of standing redwood of its size in existence today and there have been efforts made for several years to preserve the trees for a park, but the sale of the place to Mr. LeBaron means that as soon as the times become more normal, and building operations are resumed again, the timber will be cut up and placed on the market. It is to be regretted that the grove is to be thus destroyed but the timber is very valuable and the purchase of the property by Mr. LeBaron is one of the largest deals that has been consummated in this county for a long time.

At one time Col. Armstrong offered to deed the grove to the state, and at the Fourth of July celebration at Guerneville this year, the whole burden of the addresses delivered there was for the saving of the great grove. It is thought that efforts will yet be made to secure the forest for the benefit of the public and the place should be made into a great park.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 30, 1908

H.M. LE BARON BUYS ARMSTRONG GROVE
Famous Redwood Trees in Danger Now of Invasion by the Woodsman's Axe--Immense Lot of Lumber

H. M. LeBaron, the Valley Ford banker on Thursday completed the purchase from Walter Armstrong of Sebastopol of the latter's 195 acres of the famous Armstrong Grove of gigantic redwoods near Guerneville. It is understood that Mr. Le Baron paid away up in the thousands for the splendid grove.

The property Mr. Le Baron has acquired contains some of the finest specimens of redwood in the State. It is his intention, when the building business resumes activity, to establish a sawmill in the grove and cut up the monarchs of the forest into lumber. He says that the property is to valuable to let the trees stand.

For years it has been the dream of those interested in the preservation of the redwoods, and particularly this famed beauty spot, that some day the State or possibly the national Government would acquire possession of the Armstrong Grove for the purpose of preserving the redwoods and making it a State or National park. The matter has never assumed definite shape.

A Press Democrat representative talked with Mr. Le Baron on Thursday concerning his purchase. He was asked if the matter of the purchase of the famous grove could be arranged with the idea of its preservation he could be induced to come to terms. He replied that not only would he be glad to do so, but would assist himself in the project. Otherwise he said it would be necessary to cut the trees up into lumber as the investment was to big to allow it to remain idle.

[..]

It is not even now too late to take some steps to preserve the redwoods, But time is fleeting, and if no more direct action is taken than that in the past which has largely resulted in oratory and suggestion, the woodsman's axe will invade the famous temple Nature herself fashioned near Guerneville.

- Press Democrat, July 31, 1908

ARMSTRONG'S WOODS CAN NOW BE PRESERVED
Senator Price Has Arranged So State Can Purchase Same

Senator Walter F. Price has secured an option on the Armstrong Woods, recently purchased by Hon. H. M. LeBaron, and will endeavor to have the state preserve the handsome woods for posterity. For many years past this matter has been discussed, and if the splendid trees are to be spared the woodman's axe it is necessary to act at once.

There are four hundred acres in the tract, and it contains the largest redwood trees in California. The timber has been cruised and it is estimated that there are 2,500,000 feet of lumber in the grove, which is worth wholesale commercially at least ten dollars per thousand feet clear of all expense. This tract is the largest and best grove of trees in the vicinity of San Francisco, and should be preserved for the future, that visitors may see what wonderful trees grew here in Imperial Sonoma.

Senator Price will introduce a bill in the coming session of the legislature for the purchase of these splendid trees, and convert Armstrong Woods into a state park. It is hoped that the people of the entire state will get behind the measure and see that their representatives are made acquainted with the matter and urged to vote for the passage of the bill. It will be necessary for concerted action, and there is no doubt that Sonoma county residents will lend every assistance in their power to the passage of the bill.

Mr. LeBaron has entered into an agreement with Senator Price on the matter, and will await the action of the legislature in the matter. He has already received an offer for the timer, which would net him more money than he asks for the grove if the state desires to purchase it, but his pride in Sonoma county is greater than his desire for money, and he yields to the wishes of the people if they want the woods preserved. Mr. LeBaron is a public spirited man, and he desires the progress of Sonoma county and its betterment far more than he does the accumulation of sordid dollars. The grove, if preserved, will be a monument to the memory of Colonel Armstrong, and a lasting reminder to the people of the generosity of Mr. LeBaron.

When the woods were purchased by Mr. LeBaron some time since Senator Price was absent from this county. He immediately wired Mr. LeBaron, asking him to hold the matter of a sale of the property in abeyance until such time as he could see him. Senator Price came home as soon as he could, and immediately opened negotiations with Mr. LeBaron for the purchase of the property by the state. Now Mr. LeBaron has consented to the same, and if the property is not purchased by the state, it will be cut up for commercial usages, and one of the handsomest places in Sonoma county will have passed away forever. The people cannot afford to let this property be destroyed and it is practically certain that it will be secured through the energetic action of the people of the state and preserved for posterity.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 5, 1908

FAVOR THE PURCHASE OF THE ARMSTRONG WOODS

Editor REPUBLICAN:
The Ladies' Improvement Club, in its action looking to the salvation of the Armstrong Woods, is deserving the moral and financial support of the county and state.

Senator Price's proposed legislative measure favoring the purchase of the grove by the state is the most credible thing to date in the Senator's political career. Mr. LeBaron's motive in having the state purchase and set it aside as a park, rather than cut into lumber, marks Mr. LeBaron as a public spirited gentleman.

The Armstrong Woods is the finest body of accessible redwood timber in the state. It is but a short distance from the populous and travel center of the coast.

Like the Yosemite and Big Basin, it should logically, justly, belong to the people, a heritage for all time to come.

[..]

Years ago when Colonel Armstrong was alive and well, a small party, myself among the number, made a little journey to these trees. The Colonel himself, together with one of his daughters, piloted us through the grove, calling our attention to the beauty of this tree, the size and symmetry of that, the peculiarity of another. He spoke freely and unreservedly regarding his plans, his desires, his hopes for the success of the scheme. There was to be a gateway of stone, a fit entrance to the grove, and a number of trees native to the state, but not growing in the tract, were to be planted in the scantier places.

He spoke of the fitness of the trustees appointed to help carry out his wishes, Luther Burbank and Robert Underwood Johnson of the Century Magazine.

Unfortunately I had not taken notes of his talk, which, if it could be reproduced now, would be to the good of the measure.

To those interested in the good cause I can reasonably guarantee the support of the most influential body of nature lovers on the Coast, the Sierra Club.
Respectfully,
Thos. J. Pilkington

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 23, 1908

Curly Redwood Specimen

One of the interesting sights in a visit to the large redwood lumber mills of Humboldt county is the curly and burl redwood, which not being suitable for lumber is thrown aside. A. R. Waters brought several pieces of the curly redwood home with him from the Minor Mill & Lumber Co. mills at Glenwood, of which his sister-in-law is half owner. One of the pieces may be seen at this office, where it is on exhibition for a few days. It is a handsome board and makes up into fine decorations.

- Press Democrat, July 21, 1908

THE GENERAL'S LAST VISIT

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Mattie and James Wyatt Oates surely expected the autumn of 1908 would be a season for farewells. The woman who was like a godchild to them, Anna May Bell, was to be married that October in Southern California, which would mean the end of her long summer visits with the Oates and the grand Santa Rosa parties always held in her honor. Before the wedding, however, the Oates were to have other visitors: former congressman and governor William C. Oates and family. The old general was now 72, unlikely to be able to make any future treks from Alabama to visit his baby brother Wyatt. And, in fact, he died exactly two years following his Santa Rosa trip.

Unlike the fuss over his 1905 visit, there was little mention this time of the family's presence in town. Apparently there were no parties for them, no newspaper interviews. They arrived quietly, stayed about two weeks, and left, with Mattie and Wyatt following them as far as San Francisco. Mattie's mother went along to their train departure, making her first visit to the city since the earthquake.

It might be worth noting that William's son, "Willie," arrived in Santa Rosa only a few days before his parents would leave, having spent most of his western vacation hunting in Colorado. In the original draft of his will, James Wyatt Oates left almost everything to his nephew; but three weeks before he died, he wrote a codicil that completely disinherited Willie, for reasons unknown. Perhaps if Willie had spent a little more face time with his notoriously mercurial uncle, Santa Rosa today would have an Oates House and not a Comstock House.

Former Governor and Mrs. W. C. Oates of Alabama, who are visiting at the James Wyatt Oates home on Mendocino avenue, are enjoying their stay in the City of Roses very much. A number of old friends have called to see them.

- "Society Gossip", Press Democrat, September 6, 1908

William C. Oates, Jr., is expected here either tonight or tomorrow to join his parents, General and Mrs. William C. Oates, who are here for a visit with Colonel and Mrs. J. W. Oates. The young man has been enjoying a hunt in the mountains of Colorado.

- "Society Gossip", Press Democrat, September 13, 1908

GENERAL OATES LEFT FOR EASTERN HOME

General and Mrs. Oates left here on Friday morning for the metropolis, and from there will start for their home in Montgomery Alabama. They expect to make several stops en route east, and will reach home about October 1. They were accompanied as far as the metropolis by Mr. and Mrs. James W. Oates and Mrs. Solomon. This is the first time Mrs. Solomon has been in San Francisco since the great fire. Many years of her life were spent there, and up to this time she has refused to go and see the ruins.

- Santa Rosa Republican, September 18, 1908

IS IT HOOD MANSION OR HOOD HOUSE?

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About 15 minutes from downtown Santa Rosa is a mansion that's not a mansion, and a treasure that's hasn't been particularly treasured at times. It's the William Hood House (AKA Hood Mansion).

Now tucked behind the county's Juvenile Justice Center, the old house has lost the commanding view of northern Sonoma Valley that it possessed when it was built in 1858. The talking points (PDF) prepared for an open house a few years ago provide the best overview of the history of the building: Hood, a house builder and grape grower, bought a half interest in the nearly 19,000 acre Rancho Los Guilicos in 1850, obtaining complete ownership a few years later. In 1858 he married and began construction.

(ABOVE: The William Hood House c. 1898, courtesy the Sonoma County Library/Sherman Boivin Collection

BELOW: Hood Mansion today, from approximately the same viewpoint)

Most of Hood's original house is architecturally unremarkable; it's a nice Victorian-era farmhouse, as seen in the historic photo. Most notable is that it's made of brick, even including the downstairs interior walls, which are finished with plaster. The talking points explain why this was unusual:

At the time, brick was a very expensive building material. Very few manufacturing kilns had been established in the area, and their weight made them costly to transport. Therefore, most brick buildings from this period were made from clay deposits found nearby and fired on site. The somewhat uneven appearance of the bricks on Hood Mansion are a testament to the handiwork of the local craftsmen. In all likelihood, the bricks were manufactured on site by Native American workers.

The Hood family lost the property through foreclosure in 1893, and the lender eventually sold it to Thomas Kearns, a Utah silver tycoon and former U.S. Senator, who wanted it for a summer place. Kearns had an opulent home in Salt Lake City and hobnobbed with the rich and powerful, including President Teddy Roosevelt. For him, a simple farmhouse would not do, so he hired someone to enlarge and modernize the building. Thanks to a small item in the Press Democrat, we now know that someone was architect William H. Willcox.

Willcox has been mentioned several times in this journal (read an introduction here) and had been an nationally-esteemed architect since the 1880s. In Santa Rosa, he was planning to build a auditorium large enough to host state and national conventions, as well as providing a civic center; he also proposed creating a water park between Main and E street, which would have transformed the town's focus. Alas, the 1906 earthquake struck when he was apparently just weeks away from having enough funding to begin the big pavilion, and in the disaster's aftermath, the money men were interested in rebuilding what they had personally lost, not investing in their mutual future.

Willcox was really the only logical man for Kearns to hire. The scope of the project went beyond what could be entrusted to a carpenter-builder, and Willcox was about the only experienced architect who could keep an eye on the construction. Other qualified architects working around Santa Rosa at that time lived farther away. Brainerd Jones was busy in Petaluma, John Galen Howard (who designed the Empire Building) was in Berkeley, and J. W. Doliver (the new county courthouse) and Victor Dunkerly (a Frank Lloyd Wright collaborator who built the Overton Hotel) were in San Francisco. While Willcox mainly lived and worked in San Francisco, he kept an office in Santa Rosa that he shared with a civil engineer (another bonus, considering that the project involved a unreinforced brick building in the Santa Rosa Plain, where the occasional aftershock still made people twitchy).

Sadly, the Hood House modifications are the only works of Willcox (currently known) to survive in Sonoma County. Some of the additions were quite modern; other work blended so well with the pre-Civil War building that there are questions about what details were part of the original construction. Thanks to the county Facilities Department, myself and a handful of architects and historians were given a chance to examine the building. Here's my guess on what Willcox completed in 1908:

Viewing the front (Hood House faces west) it's immediately apparent that the building was widened by about 30 feet, as seen by comparing the historic and current photos above. (CLICK or TAP on any photo to enlarge.) The seams between old and new brickwork are easily noticed in person. To expand the house on the north side, Willcox had to only add a second floor to the original one-story extension of the main house, which might have been Hood's dining room.

LEFT: North view, with the original roof line visible above the ground floor windows. The single story section with the three doors was likely a utility room (a boiler for the heating system, a boiler for hot faucets, and probably a backup electric generator) added by Willcox

MIDDLE: East view, with the Kearns-era kitchen at the south (green door), directly behind the new dining room. The northern section of the utility building with the door closest to the camera was added, and its proximity to the boiler room suggests it was a laundry room

RIGHT: South view, with the new formal entrance into the dining room

Willcox gets credit for the entire south side of the house, which he turned into the new formal entrance. The roof of the portico is supported by the same cornice brackets as found on the front of the house. Thankfully the county left its original brown shingle when a new roof was put on the rest of the house; these shingles were a favorite material of the Bay Area Arts & Craft movement, and serve to introduce visitors to the spectacular dining room behind the door.

Nearly everything in the dining room is oak: The enormous table, floor, beamed ceiling, paneled walls, and the huge sideboard that nearly fills the inside wall. Above the table, an array of lights illuminate the room as well as the ceiling beams, all fixtures in the Craftsman style. In 1908, this room would have been considered ultra-modern design.

LEFT: Upper shades of the elaborate center fixture point towards the simple ceiling rose

MIDDLE: Along the sides of the room are pendant lanterns, suspended from an ornamental post and chain

RIGHT: The underside of a lantern reveals that each could hold four candles on the exterior, plus one inside. Only very narrow candles could be used in these holders, suggesting they were used only for decoration

The dining room commands half of Willcox's addition on the southern ground floor; the southwest side is an equally large reception room. The modern touch here is the cove ceiling; the rest of the room is unadorned, except for a nice fireplace with a Roman-themed break front portraying a woman's head and grape leaves. Willcox also placed fireplaces in each pair of upstairs bedrooms on the north and south walls as well as in the dining room, giving the house a total of eight fireplaces (I think).

LEFT: Fireplace in the reception room

MIDDLE: Fireplace in the northeast bedroom

RIGHT: One of the fireplaces in the original part of the house

Where else did Willcox leave his fingerprints on the William Hood House? An architect on our tour proposed that fancy moldings in some of the old rooms were too opulent for a mid-19th century farmhouse, and suggested that Willcox made a pass through the entire home to update details and unify the design. I disagree; the trim work upstairs is modest, particularly in the rooms Willcox created. But I agree that these downstairs moldings probably were not part of the original construction and were added sometime during the late Victorian era. Perhaps the investor who owned the property between the 1893 Hood foreclosure and the 1905 purchase by Kearns brought in a contractor to put some lipstick on his white elephant.

LEFT: Several of the rooms in the original house have extremely elaborate crown molding-picture rail

MIDDLE: Many downstairs door jambs, unusually thick because of the interior brick walls, have moldings on all sides

RIGHT: Multipart crown moldings are even found on storage cabinets

The history of the house after the Willcox changes is detailed in the talking points linked above. Briefly: Kearns sold it after WWI, and the property was subdivided. The home became part of a compound owned by a men's organization, then the state, then finally Sonoma County. The house is lucky to have enjoyed good stewardship: Had the Fates been unkind, the bricks of Hood Mansion could just as easily be melting back into the local mud from which they came (see: Carrillo Adobe). The county deserves full props for its earthquake retrofit and stabilization of the building in recent years.

The county does, however, deserve shame for the darkest moment of Hood House: Turning the place over to a clique of interior decorators for a Bicentennial Decorators' Showcase ("a display of more than 20 historic rooms decorated by leading designers!") that left many interiors in the esteemed old building defaced - and possibly, damaged - with mid-1970s crap-ola. Woodwork was painted in trendy colors; avocado green linoleum was glued to antique counter tops and cabinets; room after room has wallpaper competing for the most frenetic design and clashing colors, some of which can be glimpsed in the photos above. One interior room has a wall covered in wood shingles, with other walls (and ceiling!) papered in a cartoon-y floral orgy that looks a plea for help from someone who's watched way too many episodes of the Partridge Family.

(RIGHT: Something awful lurks in the dark rooms of Hood House)

Most of the damage done by the showcase can be undone, but that The Ugly is still around more than three decades later attests that the work won't be easy or cheap - it's another big project in a house that has a list of big projects crying for attention. There's a measure of irony that Willcox was available to accept the Hood House project because post-quake Santa Rosa was too distracted to see the best interests for its future. Then exactly 70 years later, his work there was defaced because the county likewise failed to weigh the long-term impacts of a poor decision.

Architect William H. Willcox is at the Overton from San Francisco. Mr. Wilcox says the new residence on Senator Kearns' place at Los Guilocos [sic] is about completed.

- "Around the Corridors", Press Democrat, June 5, 1908

TEN BUCKS FOR A RUNAWAY BARLOW BOY

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Wanna make a sawbuck in 1908 Sonoma County? Capture a kid trying to escape the workcamp at the Barlow ranch near Sebastopol.

Every summer, the "The Boys' and Girls' Aid Society" - a San Francisco institution for boys "not sufficiently wayward to require assignment to the reform school, and too hard to manage to be placed in family homes or orphanage" - forced dozens of boys, some as young as seven, to work in West County fields and canneries. Earlier essays have described the child labor situation here, but the 1908 newspaper coverage provided much additional detail.

The program was expanding every year; in 1908, "the Aid" brought here 170 youths, up from 130 the year before. In 1907, they had worked for the Barlows and two neighbors, picking 125 tons of berries. The following year they were hired out to 22 growers between Sebastopol and Forestville and picked 157 tons, plus "many tons" of peaches and plums. So popular were the child workers that still more farmers were planning to take advantage of the boys and not hire adults. One of the Santa Rosa papers reported, "arrangements are now being made for next year's picking by several who have heretofore depended on Japanese help, or any who came along."

Both local papers consistently portrayed the experience as a pleasant treat for the kids ("a delightful outing for many of them who otherwise could have had no vacation"), but the number of attempted escapes suggests differently. At least a dozen boys tried to flee the workcamp in 1908, including Raymond Onion and George Springer, who were named here earlier as possible suspects in the arson that destroyed the barns of Harrison Finley and another farmer that summer. If caught, the escapee was taken back to the camp in handcuffs, and the captor was paid a ten dollar reward. In one potentially dangerous situation, a couple of young men held a group of boys captive with a shotgun, only to find that they were ordinary and worthless runaways from their parents, not the workcamp.

The papers always trumpeted that the boys were allowed to keep some of their earnings, but here it was mentioned for the first time that the boys apparently had to pay their own railway fare between the camp and the area where they were required to work, and that their puny paycheck was docked "a small charge for camp expenses." (There was no mention of who paid the $10 bounty hunter reward, but we can safely guess it wasn't "the Aid.") And although it was expected that "nearly all will subscribe for magazines" with some of their earnings, the money mainly was spent on clothing and dentistry. Clothes I can perhaps understand, but the kids had to pay for their own dentistry?

Included below are also a couple of bonus juvenile escape tales: A boy who fled St. Vincent's Orphanage in Marin County and stole a horse and buggy was to be sent to Preston School of Industry at Ione (AKA San Quentin for Kids) and a pair of boys at the "Home for the Feeble Minded" in Glen Ellen used a rope made of blankets to get away from that institution. A few years later, Jack London wrote about a similar escape by two boys with epilepsy in a short story, "Told In the Drooling Ward."

MORE BOYS RUN AWAY
Five Escapes from Aid Society at Sebastopol

On Thursday three of the boys of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society camped at the Barlow ranch made their escape from the camp and up to this morning the officers had been unable to locate them. On Friday morning sometime between one and three two more of the lads left the camp, and in doing so, stole clothing from some of the other boys. It was thought that the first three lads had gone toward Occidental and taken the narrow gauge road from there to the city, but no trace of them could be found, and the officers are keeping a sharp lookout for them.

It will be remembered that a few days ago two little boys left the camp during the night in their night clothes. These later returned of their own accord regretting much that they had attempted to regain their liberty. There are 130 boys in the camp this year and many of them become very restless after they have been in camp awhile, and want to get off for themselves.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 24, 1908

ROBBED FATHER AND RAN AWAY
Boy Who Crossed Continent is in Hands of Law

The boys who escaped from the camp of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society on the Barlow ranch on Thursday and Friday of last week are all back in the camp. Two of them, Raymond Onion and George Springer, were brought in by ranchers in the vicinity and the other three came back voluntarily and reported in.

Raymond Onion is the boy who it will be remembered escaped on the 5th of the month and was picked up in Santa Rosa by the crew of the local train who very generously forebore collecting the usual reward of $10 offered by the Society for the return of wanderers from Camp.

This boy is an Eastern lad who stole a large sum of money from his father and traveled across the continent to San Francisco, where he was relieved of the remainder of the money by his traveling companion. Left penniless in San Francisco he was taken to the Juvenile court and sent to the camp temporarily until his parents could be communicated with. His father refused money to pay his fare back and it was intended to secure him passage on a sailing vessel. He and the Springer boy, who is a friendless orphan who was discharged from an orphan asylum, because of his bad temper, have been the instigators of most of the trouble which the management of the camp has had during the past three weeks. They each made two attempts to escape and were brought back each time and all the others returned voluntarily. They were returned on Saturday to the custody of the juvenile court for such disposition as Judge Murasky may think best. It is the desire of the Superintendent, Mr. Turner, to have the boys stay at the camp voluntarily and much is done to make it pleasant for the boys in his care.

The major part of the earnings at the berry picking is paid to the boys on their return to San Francisco each year and spent by them on clothing, magazines, dentistry, and pocket money or put in the bank. This summer the Society has cared for a large number of city boys during the summer vacation of the public schools, affording a delightful outing for many of them who otherwise could have had no vacation.

Over 40,000 trays of berries have been picked thus far and the boys are being engaged for prune and peach picking which will soon commence. One or two squads will be needed in the Sebastopol cannery when peaches begin to come in.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 28, 1908

USED SHOTGUN IN CAPTURE
Youths Held Up by Boys While Officers are Called

It was reported Wednesday that four boys have escaped from the Aid Society Camp near Sebastopol and the officers were kept busy looking for the lads during the forenoon. It was stated that they were seen near the depot about nine o'clock and Officers Boyce and Yeager started after them post haste but when they reached the freight house they boys were gone and on going down the railroad they found two lads at the freight cars on the siding below the trestle. These boys were arrested but were found to be other than the ones wanted and were allowed to go again. The officers started on down the track but learned that the boys had preceded them to Bellevue.

Two boys near the Ice Factory learned of the runaways and hitched a horse to a cart and drove to Bellevue where they headed off the lads and one of them remained while the other came back and notified the police. He stated that his companion was holding the other boys at the point of a shotgun and wanted to know what to do with them.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 29, 1908

ESCAPES WERE NOT AID SOCIETY BOYS

The article in Wednesday's paper to the effect that four boys who were supposed to have escaped from the Aid Society Camp near Sebastopol were arrested by two Santa Rosa lads near Bellevue, left the impression that the boys were escapes, whereas they were only suspects, and it is learned from the officials of the Society that there have been no escapes for over a week, or since the dissatisfied ones had been sent back to the city. The four boys mentioned were strangers here, and were evidently well started on the "vag" route.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 31, 1908

THE GOOD WORK DONE BY AID SOCIETY BOYS

The boys of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society passed through Santa Rosa Friday afternoon in two special cars en route to the home in San Francisco. There were 125 boys in the party, some having gone ahead.

The season has been very enjoyable and quite successful financially. Over 39,000 trays of ninety-seven tons of blackberries have been picked; 24,000 trays, or sixty tons, of loganberries, raspberries and mamoths, and many tons of peaches and plums gathered by the boys. They have been of great assistance in saving the enormous crop of peaches, having worked for twenty-two different growers between Sebastopol and Forestville, and have to their credit the sum of $4000.

The amount is credited to the 170 individual boys, who have enjoyed the benefits of the summer outing, and will be paid to them, less a small charge for camp expenses. The money is used for the boys for clothing, dentistry and in useful channels. Many put part in the bank and nearly all will subscribe for magazines on their return to the city.

Not all of this money is taken out of the county, however, as might be thought, as the expenses of maintaining the camp each year are heavy. About $2500 has been expended for supplies in the local markets at Sebastopol, Petaluma and Santa Rosa, it being the policy of Mr. Turner, the superintendent, to favor local dealers whenever he can do so without detriment to the society; $1500 has been paid out in salaries through a Sebastopol bank, a portion of which is spent right here and over $200 has been spent in local travel on the electric line.

More and more are the boys being recognized as a real help in handling the berry and fruit crop, and their reputation for thorough work is well established. When a berry patch is picked by the boys, the grower can depend on having it picked from start to finish at a uniform rate. With the growth of the work and the increased number of boys cared for each year, a larger amount of work is possible.

Originally only the berries on the Barlow ranch were picked, but now the society is in a position to handle the crops on 100 acres of blackberries, and arrangements are now being made for next year's picking by several who have heretofore depended on Japanese help, or any who came along.

- Santa Rosa Republican, September 11, 1908

WILL GIVE THE BOY ANOTHER CHANCE
On Witness Stand in Justice Court Frank Silva Freely Tells of His Escapade

Frank Silva, the youth who escaped from St. Vincent's Orphanage on more than one occasion, will be sent to the Preston School of Industry at Ione, and will there be given another chance to make a man of himself. He recently stole a horse and buggy from a Petaluma man, was captured and brought here. He was given an examination before Justice Atchinson yesterday, and was held over to the higher court. He told his story frankly and admitted everything. This lad has been give a number of chances, and it is hoped that when he goes to school he will make good.

- Press Democrat, August 22, 1908

BOYS ESCAPE BY MEANS OF BLANKET

Two of the boy inmates of the Home for the Feeble Minded at Eldridge escaped from the institution on Monday. The lads were named Holley and Boem, and made a rope of their blankets by knotting the corners together and letting themselves from the dormitory window. As soon as the escape was discovered the attendants at the Home started a search and the sheriff's office was notified. It is believe that the boys are in hiding on the farm of the home, and will be found in the woods there. This is the third effort of young Boem to gain his liberty from the place.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 13, 1908

AND WHEN THEY WERE BAD THEY WERE AWFUL

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Anyone who believes kids were better behaved in the "good ol' days" answer this: How often do today's ten-year-olds attempt to derail passenger trains?

This is the third and final item on Santa Rosa's juvenile delinquents, class of 1908. Earlier installments covered lesser crimes, such as vandalism and burglary. Misbehavior, to be sure, but nothing like 1907's summer of the incorrigibles, when kids were hustling stolen eggs, hijacking buggies, and starting fires. But the miscreants of 1908 were generally younger and their crimes more serious; aside from the aforementioned attempted train derailment, some of our great-grandfathers when young were robbing, stealing horses and bicycles, and riffling through the pockets of drunks.

The train incident involved a pair of boys, age ten and eleven. This was no spontaneous prank; they had planned it for a week, and wore blackface to disguise themselves. They placed the four-foot length of steel (apparently a scrap of old track) on a blind curve near Penngrove. "Fortunately the engineer of the Camp Vacation special noticed the obstruction and applied his brakes," the Press Democrat reported. "He could not stop in time to prevent hitting the piece of old steel rail, but fortunately the wheel of the 'poney trucks' [sic] threw it to one side" (the "pony truck" is the two-wheeled leading axle of a steam locomotive, unconnected to the engine).

Thwarted in their "fun train wrecking," the boys hung around the tracks until another train passed by, when they threw stones to break windows. Shattered glass cut passengers, and a San Francisco woman was hit directly in the face by one of the rocks. Chased down by two men, the boys were captured and sent to the county jail in Santa Rosa, where they were allowed to play outside their cells (although the jailer gave the 11-year-old and another boy a spanking "just to make them mind"). The 10-year-old was permitted to go home after a stern lecture; the other boy was sent to reform school.

Another 10-year-old was caught trying to sell a rented horse. The court turned him over to the custody of his father in Healdsburg, but soon he was in trouble again, this time for stealing a purse with $17 from a woman who gave him a lift in her buggy. The PD lamented that the young hooligan was probably going to reform school this time, even though "this youngster is a mere slip of humanity, who, when he goes to set himself in a chair has to step on the rung."

Then there was the gang of five boys who had a stolen bicycle ring. Plan A was to rent bikes from local cycleries and pedal as fast as they could out of town. Somehow the storekeepers got wind of this, and the boys were chased back to Santa Rosa, getting no farther than Kenwood. No charges were pressed, but a few days later the group was in court for stealing "a number of bicycles and numerous other articles" around town. Apparently in their future likewise loomed the Preston School of Industry, the reform school that was a sister institution to San Quentin.

UNGRATEFUL BOY STEALS A PURSE
Healdsburg Ten-Year-Old in Trouble Again--Dilemma as to Know What to Do With Him

A ten-year-old boy is in trouble again. Some time since he hired a saddle horse from a Healdsburg liveryman and rode to Petaluma, where he tried to dispose of the animal. He was turned over to the custody of his father, who promised to take care of him in San Francisco, and find a place for him. It seems that he may have been remiss in the fulfillment of this promise to care for the lad.

At any rate the boy came back to Healdsburg and the other day, in response to a request, a lady gave him a ride. On the buggy seat was her purse containing seventeen dollars. The boy is charged with purloining the cash and the purse. Among other things he bought a bicycle for a dollar and a half, and shortly afterwards left for San Francisco.

District Attorney Lea will have the boy brought to Santa Rosa on Friday and will then ascertain what is best to do with him. Mr. Lea dislikes to send children of such tender years to any state institution for fear that their contact with boys whose characters are worse than theirs may contaminate them. This youngster is a mere slip of humanity, who, when he goes to set himself in a chair has to step on the rung.

- Press Democrat, August 21, 1908

ATTEMPT TO WRECK A TRAIN JUST FOR FUN
Two Naughty Boys Are Landed in the County Jail
Place Obstruction on Track Near Penngrove, Hurl Rocks Through Windows of Passing Train, Severely Hurting Woman

Two children, would-be train wreckers and hurlers of rocks through the windows of passing trains, occupy an upper room at the county jail on Third street, where they were landed shortly after noon on Monday. One is ten-year-old Austin Davis Studerbaker, and the other is eleven-year-old Henry Fehler. They do not realize the enormity of their offenses, and to the charge of attempted train wrecking they plead "only fun."

The boys, who claim that when they put a four-foot length of heavy steel across the rail on a dangerous curve between Ely's and Corona, near Penngrove, they did it just for fun to see what a big engine would do if it struck it, never thought, they say, that they were imperiling many human lives by their act. Fortunately the engineer of the Camp Vacation special noticed the obstruction and applied his brakes. He could not stop in time to prevent hitting the piece of old steel rail, but fortunately the wheel of the "poney trucks" threw it to one side.

After putting the obstruction on the track the lads went further down the road and hurled rocks through the windows of the passing train. Then they ran back into the fields and escaped detection for some time. One rock thrown through a car window struck Mrs. T. J. Boone, a San Francisco woman, in the face and painful lacerations resulted. Splinters of glass also struck and cut other passengers. The crashing glass and splinters occasioned considerable excitement aboard. When Penngrove was reached A. J. Ronshelmer was notified, and in company with another man, he started in pursuit and captured the boys. Later Deputy Sheriff and Jailer Joe Barry went down from Santa Rosa and brought the boys to jail.

In their frolic and to give their deeds a touch of the dime novel flourish the lads disguised their faces with the application of black crayon.

When District Attorney Lea saw the boys and took their statements they admitted having put the obstruction on the track, stating that they desired to see what the "cow catcher" on the locomotive would do when it hit the same, and that they did it all for fun. It was only in a childish frolic--a decidedly dangerous one--so they say, that they threw the rocks through the windows of the passing car.

The elder lad will probably be sent to a reform school as his conduct has been bad. What will be done with the other lad remains to be seen.

- Press Democrat, August 18, 1908

BOYS IN FROLIC AT THE COUNTY JAIL
Youngsters Have No Idea How Near They Came to Wrecking the Camp Vacation Train

Detective Helmore, of the Northwestern Pacific railroad, was in this city on Wednesday, and called at the jail to see the boys who placed an obstruction on the tracks near Penngrove, and came near wrecking the Camp Vacation train. He heard their stories and will report the same to General Manager Palmer.

When a Press Democrat representative called at the jail the boys were having a fine frolic in the room they are occupying there. The lad's merriment was catching, and as Sheriff Smith remarked, they are "Just kids." The youngsters have no idea of the enormity of their offense, even though it has developed that they talked over the matter for a week before they blackened their faces and sallied forth on their "fun train wrecking" escapade.

- Press Democrat, August 20, 1908

"TRAIN WRECKER" TO REFORM SCHOOL
Decision of District Attorney Regarding Older of Boys--Spanking Follows "Game of Jail Break"

District Attorney Lea has decided the best thing to do with the elder of the two lads who attempted wreck a train near Penngrove several days ago, and who threw rocks through the windows of another passing train, is to send him to the Preston School of Industry at Ione. He will be given an examination before Justice Atchinson today and Judge Seawell will be asked to commit the boy to the school. Mr. Lea has not decided what is best to do with the younger boy. He will see what his home conditions are. The little fellow is the best behaved of the two, and as Jailer Joe Barry says: "He tells the truth." Barry was overheard telling the boy yesterday afternoon: "Tell the truth, my boy, whatever you do. I do like a boy who tells the truth, and I never punish one when he does." Pretty good advice.

On Thursday night, during the temporary absence of Jailer Barry, the two boys and another also confined in an upstairs room, thought they would have some more fun by playing at jail breaking. The trio, on account of their youth and good behavior, had been allowed the freedom of the corridor upstairs. They managed to tear loose the upper portion of a wire screen above the bars at the top of the stairs, and were having a game of hid and seek when Jailer Barry arrived. To their stock in trade the boys had added some old keys. They quickly scampered back to bed and the two older ones were given a spanking by Barry just to make them mind. Whatever intentions the boys had in their game of attempted jailbreaking, they came off second best, for yesterday they were denied the privilege of the corridor and had to remain in their rooms in solitude.

- Press Democrat, August 22, 1908

TEN-YEAR-OLD IS GIVEN HIS LIBERTY
Youngster Who Played Train Wrecker is Turned Over to His Relatives on Monday

"Now remember, I want you to be a good boy. Do every thing that your father tells you to do. Don't let foolish things come into your mind that will lead you to be a bad boy. You are going to be allowed to leave jail with him and make up your mind never to come back here or anywhere else on account of bad behavior. Let this be a lesson to you."

Under Sheriff W. C. Lindsay gave this good advice to ten-year-old Austin Davis, before turning him over on Monday to the care of his foster father, Mr. Studebaker, who resides near Penngrove. The lad promised obedience and good behavior in the future. He left his room in the jail with the broadest smile of satisfaction on his face, poor little chap. He was one of the duo who placed a bar of iron on the track in front of the Camp Vacation train, "just for fun and to see how the train would look going over the embankment." The older lad will go to the reform school.

- Press Democrat, August 25, 1908

LADS TAKE BIKES; COME BACK QUICK
Three Youngsters Do Not Proceed Far With Plan to See World Before They Are Balked

Three small lads named Allen, Ray and Davis, bethought themselves that they would leave their homes in Santa Rosa and strike out for themselves on Monday afternoon. They had arranged things pretty well to carry out their intentions, but they reckoned without the fast automobile that was to take after them and bring them back.

The lads chose the bicycle as the means of putting miles between their Santa Rosa homes and some other part of the country. Accordingly each lad went to a different cyclery in Santa Rosa and secured a wheel for a short time. Each boys had once in a while rented a bike and so the cyclery proprietors let him have one again readily enough.

The lads had a good hour and a half's start before word came to Proprietor Henry Jenkins of the Acme Cyclery that the boys did not intend to return with the bicycles unless they were brought back. Word was also passed to the Cash Cyclery and to Burmeister's Cyclery. The boys had been seen heading down the Sonoma road and Mr. Jenkins got out his automobile, and accompanied by Burmeister, gave chase. The automobile went the speed limit and one mile this side of Kenwood the boys were overtaken. Jenkins told them to "right about face" and head for Santa Rosa again as fast as they could ride. The automobile kept right up behind and the lads were not allowed to lag, but were encouraged by the men in the automobile to "keep going." And they did so.

Finally, when still a number of miles from town Davis jumped from his wheel and bounding over the fence was last seen heading towards the hills. His wheel was placed in the auto and Ray and Allen went it alone the rest of the way to town. While riding down Fourth street the Allen boy came into collision and fell from his bike and got in under the front wheel of the automobile. Beyond getting his suit muddy it was ascertained that he was not hurt.

All the cyclery men wanted was their bicycles and will not prosecute the lads. Jenkins and Burmeister both agree that the race the boys put up in making time after their capture was in itself worth the price of the trouble they were put to in getting their bicycles back.

- Press Democrat, December 15, 1908

BICYCLE THEFTS TRACED TO BOYS
Five Lads Arrested Here Thursday Afternoon and Will be Detained for Examination

The theft of a number of bicycles and numerous other articles within a few days past in this city was traced by the police to a gang of young boys Thursday and late in the afternoon five were in jail pending an examination for their offenses.

John and Willie Allen, Henry Davis, Ernest and Russel Rhea are those accused of causing all the trouble. Three bicycles were recovered in various parts of town where they had been left by the boys, as well as a complete camp outfit, where they had made their rendezvous.

Several of the lads are old offenders, having been in trouble numerous times. They are well known to the police and it is probable that they will be sent to the reform school. The boys will be taken into court probably this morning to answer to the charges against them.

- Press Democrat, December 18, 1908

TELEPHONE NUMBERS, VERSION 3.0

2011-11-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

Oh, look, junior's using the phone. How precious is that? Wait - is he talking to the chief of police?

Today, every family album has an adorable picture of a toddler sitting at a computer, and a century ago, it was too-cute when the little ones spoke on the telephone. It was even newsworthy; in 1908, both Santa Rosa papers had stories about kids using phones. Before Christmas that year, several children asked the operator to connect them with Santa Claus. After a bit of head-scratching at the telephone office, it was decided that their calls were to be transferred to the Chief Operator, who ho-ho-ho'd and took down their present requests. And then there was the five-year-old who called the police chief to report his missing tricycle; unable to understand what the child was saying, an officer rushed to the house to find out exactly why the boy had summoned help.

Telephones were still regarded as cutting-edge technology, and some adults remained uncomfortable or uncertain about how to operate the things; one of the Santa Rosa newspapers had printed articles on telephone use and etiquette the year before ("the undignified 'Hello' seems to have come to stay"). The UI was also in flux; although you still initiated a call by speaking to an operator, the procedure of indicating who you wanted to contact was becoming complex and confusing.

Until 1905, it was possible for someone in Santa Rosa to ask for a connection by name: "Get me John Smith." The proliferation of home and business telephones now required numbers be assigned to each line, which meant that telephone books also had to be printed and distributed. Exchanges were also added at the same time: In Santa Rosa there primarily was "Red," Black" and "Main," so someone trying to reach John Smith would be required to provide an exchange and number, such as "Red 333."

I also found four digit numbers sometimes mentioned in the newspapers around that time; if that many numbers were available there really was no need for an exchange system at all, as Santa Rosa's population would not surpass 10,000 for a couple of decades. And stranger still, I sometimes saw letters included after the numbers, such as "333Y." Huh? It was an odd little history puzzle and I probably never would have figured it out, had I not stumbled across the article below.

The core of problem was that there were still many party lines in use, and the operator had to know how many "rings" to send to alert a particular customer. Thus if John Smith expected two rings, his number might be "Red 3332" - the last of the four digits indicated the number of rings needed (it might be better understood as "Red 333-2," for ex).

Even with the "ring" suffix, it was the direct ancestor of the seven-digit system we use today. Similarly, Oakland and San Francisco were at the time using an exchange+4, such as "Kearny 4444." As the city grew, this provided the flexibility to create another exchange and be good for another 9,999 connections. But in 1908, some genius at the telephone company imposed a telephone ID system in Santa Rosa that made no sense whatsoever.

Gone were the exchanges; now you gave the operator a three-digit number, followed by the letter R, Y, J, or L. The first two letters corresponded with the old Red exchange, the latter two with the old Black exchange. The particular letter indicated one or two rings. So John Smith - originally "Red 333," then "Red 3332," was now "333Y." The reasoning behind the new system was not explained, although the choice of these particular four letters could have had sadistic racist inspiration; the Asian community might have had trouble expressing Americanized R and L hard consonants through the lo-fi transmitter, as Hispanics might have struggled with Y and J.

Judging by ads in the newspapers, this third mod to the telephone system in as many years was not widely accepted. Some advertisers used the suffix, others held on to the old Red and Black exchanges. Many downtown businesses continued to ignore all of it, providing only their old two or three digit number. Rather than making it easier for the operators, it suggests the customer attitude hardened: t'Hell with it all, I'll just let the "Hello Girl" figure it out for me.

SWEEPING CHANGE IN PHONE SYSTEM
After November 7 There Will Be No More "Red," "Black" or "Main," But it Will Be Easier For Patrons

On November 7, at midnight, the Telephone company will change over to its new system and move into its handsome new quarters on Third street. As a result, a number of innovations will be put into effect. As far as the general public is concerned, however, these changes will apply principally to the numbering of the phones.

The old prefixes of "Red," "Black" and "Main" will be done away with, and everything except suburb and rural lines will be known as "Santa Rosa." In the new directory this prefix will precede every number. Local subscribers calling main line subscribers will not find it necessary to use the prefix, but may secure the number wanted by simply asking for "268," or whatever the number may be. Out of town subscribers will merely have to ask for "Santa Rosa 268."

Another change that will apply to all two-party lines is that the letters "R" and "Y" will hereafter be used to designate the number of bells in the red, and "J" and "L" in the black, instead of the suffixes 1 and 2 as at present.

Everybody may not know that the last figure in the numbers now in vogue simply indicate the number of bells which should be rung, but such is the case. Take the number "Red 2861," for instance. The "1" means that in calling a subscriber the operator is to ring one bell. If the last figure were 2, the operator would ring two bells.

Under the new arrangement, as stated, these latter figures will be discarded on all two-party lines, and the letter "R" will stand for 1 bell in the red, while "Y" will mean two bells red. "J" will represent 1 in the black, and "L" will stand for 2 bells in the black. "Red 2742" will thus become "Santa Rosa 274Y," and "Black 2741" will become "274J" to local subscribers, and "Santa Rosa 247J" to subscribers calling up from other towns. By remembering this subscribers getting hold of an old directory will be able to secure the number desired by merely substituting the proper letter for the missing suffix, although the new directory will be out and distributed several days before the changed conditions go into effect. This directory will be effective on and after November 7, at midnight.

- Press Democrat, October 31, 1908

ALEX TRACHMAN CALLED POLICE
Youthful Citizen Invokes the Help of the Officers

Alex Trachman, the five-year-old son of Dr. and Mrs. H. J. Trachman, sustained a very material loss on Tuesday, when some miscreant stole his tricycle. For several hours during the morning the little chap endeavored to have his father call up the chief of police and report the loss, but to no avail, and so finally taking the matter in his own hands, he climbed on a chair and reaching the telephone, got the ear of "central" and told her that he wanted the chief of police. The connection was made with the office of Chief Rushmore, and Master Alex told his tale of woe in the ear of a sympathizing chief. The boy does not talk very distinctly as yet, and hearing the youthful voice over the phone the chief surmised that something must be wrong at the home, and after learning from the child that he lived on Humboldt street, Police Officer Nick Yeager was detailed to hurry over there and ascertain what the trouble was.

In the meantime Alex hung up the receiver and went into his father's office and told him he had reported to the chief the loss of his "wheel." In a few minutes the door bell rang and Mr. Yeager inquired what the trouble was and why he had been called. Mr. Yeager was panting and all out of breath when he reached the door, having made a "hurry-up" trip around the block, fearing that something was wrong at the home, and that the child had been used to summon help.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 11, 1908

CHILDREN PHONE TO SANTA CLAUS
Much Diversion Caused at "Central" by Numerous Messages to the Time Honored Gift Bestower

"Number, please."

"I want Santy Claus."

"Who?"

"Santy Claus."

"All right, just a minute."

This what has been going on over the telephone line at "Central" during the past few days. The first message came over the wire from a child who could barely lisp her desire.

At first the "Hello girl" at the receiving end was puzzled. Manager Morrill was called into conference and Santa Claus began coming in, and Manager Morrill is one of the most kind-hearted of men. And, like the rest of us, he was a child once himself. He is not very old now, either.

Other messages of inquiry for Santa Claus began coming in, and Manager Morrill not wishing to cause the little ones sending their messages disappointment, suggested that for a few days when such reports came for Santa Claus the Chief Operator might impersonate the gift bestower the children all look for on Christmas morn. Consequently the Chief Operator has been taking down names and list of presents desired by the children.

"Just as well to let the children have a good time anyway. Expectancy is half the fun, too," said Manager Morrill yesterday after he had taken a call for old Santy himself.

The children phoned for every kind of gift calculated to delight the child heart. In some instances parents took this opportunity of ascertaining what the youngsters wanted most for Christmas. In other instances, doubtless, hearts were heavy while the childish prattle went over the wire to the imaginary Santa Claus at the other end, for perchance the wherewithal to procure the presents was not available.

- Press Democrat, December 24, 1908

A WORLD-CLASS SWINDLER

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It was probably the first high-tech stock swindle to hit Santa Rosa: the man who had mesmerized the town In 1908 about the futuristic wonders of the "wireless" was actually a con man. Not since a vaudeville magician who called himself "The Great McEwen" convinced many in 1904 that he was a bonafide mind reader had Santa Rosans been suckered wholesale.

Over four nights, audiences packed the downtown Pavilion to see H. C. Robinson, who claimed to be a representative of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, perform "practical demonstrations of sending and receiving messages without wires, including several feats of ringing fire bells, lighting electric lights and operating danger signals through the mysterious agency of Hertzian waves," as the Press Democrat reported at the time. What the PD neglected to mention was that Mr. Robinson's real objective was to sell Marconi stock for $20 per share, and several local businessmen jumped on the opportunity.

About a month later, one of these Santa Rosa investors swore a warrant for Robinson's arrest. His Marconi stock certificates had not been delivered. Worse, he discovered the stock was only worth half that price, the company had never paid a dividend, and wasn't planning to build a transmission tower that could send messages as far as Honolulu, as Robinson had promised. Arrested at the tony St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, Robinson was brought back here, where he returned the $400 he had received from the investor. Case dismissed.

If the story ended there, it could be explained away as mix-up. Perhaps the investor misunderstood, perhaps Robinson exaggerated and lied, in a salesman-ish way, to close the deal. Perhaps a little of both; it certainly wasn't clear that there was criminal intent. But thanks to the breadth of newspaper archives now available on the Internet, we discover that Mr. Robinson was a swindler sought by police all over the world.

First, his name wasn't "H. C." as reported here; it was Horace Greeley Robinson - "Harry G," as the chummy NY Evening World nicknamed him - and just days before he appeared in the Santa Rosa court, authorities in New York shut down his offices at 80 Wall Street, charging that the firm of Robinson & Robinson existed only to sell bogus Marconi stock. Scotland Yard was chasing him, as was an investigator from the Marconi company. By the time the coppers finally caught up with Harry in May, 1909, it was estimated that he had cheated investors worldwide out of $1,500,000 - worth up to half a billion dollars today, it was a sum that would make even our modern Wall St. bandits sit up and mew.

Given the international scope of his crimes, it may seem surprising that he spent almost a week in Santa Rosa, but he apparently did a crook's tour of the entire Bay Area; another suit against him was for $800 cheated out of someone in San Jose. Likely the smaller places appealed because news of his scam might not travel very far or draw the attention of sophisticated investors. Police in New York even had a complaint from a victim in Box Hill, New South Wales, a village outpost of Sydney that currently has a population of under a thousand.

He was finally caught by a stroke of luck - a New York City police detective was tipped off that Harry had recently appeared in night court for a drunken brawl with a hotel detective. According to the newspapers, he told officers that he was a banker who had just returned from a trip abroad on government business.

For a man who sold fake stock in cutting-edge communication technology, there was irony in that he evaded arrest for years thanks to poor communication by police nationally and internationally. He never varied his shtick, which should have made him easy to find. As the New York Times reported in a front page story on May 1, 1909:

Robinson's method was to travel from place to place, lecturing on wireless telegraphy and asserting that it was desired to prove more valuable stock than Bell Telephone or Standard Oil.

"After each lecture, says the detective, Robinson received subscriptions for stock in the Marconi Company, giving in return receipts for the money and the assurance that the proper certicicates of stock would be sent forthwith..."

BUYS "WIRELESS" AND REGRETS IT
J. S. Rhodes of This City has H. C. Robinson Arrested on a Charge of Obtaining Money Falsely

As a result of a warrant sworn out in Justice Atchinson's court here by J. S. Rhodes, a well-known local merchant, H. C. Robinson, who spent some time here in June exploiting wireless telegraph stock, was arrested in San Francisco Wednesday, charged with feloniously obtaining money under false pretense, and will be brought back today to face trial.

According to the complaint of Rhodes, Robinson represented to him that the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co., Limited (of England) which he represented, had fixed the market value of its stock at $20 per share and that in 1907 the company paid 12 per cent dividends on its stock. It was further represented that the company was engaged in erecting a station in San Francisco, and would be ready by November of this year to transmit messages between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Rhodes asserts that he purchased 20 shares, or $400 worth of stock on these representations, but no learns and alleges that the company only holds its stock at $10 per share, has never paid a dividend, and is not engaged in erecting a station in San Francisco, and has no expectation of doing so at present. As a result of these facts Rhodes believes he gave up his coin on false pretenses, and seeks to have Robinson tell the wherefore in court.

Constable Sam Gillam goes to San Francisco this morning to bring the man back to Santa Rosa. The arrest was made in the St. Francis hotel by an officer who had been informed of the issuance of the warrant after Rhodes had pointed his man out.

It is stated that Rhodes is not the only one who bought stock here, and in many different places in the state on the same representations as those made to Rhodes.

- Press Democrat, July 30, 1908

RHODES GETS BACK "WIRELESS" COIN
H. C. Robinson Returns $400 to Santa Rosa Man and Case is Dismissed Here on Thursday Afternoon

H. C. Robinson, the broker and seller of Marconi Wireless Telegraph stock, who was arrested in San Francisco at the St. Francis Hotel last week on a complaint sworn out by J. S. Rhodes of the city, charging him with obtaining $400 under false pretenses on account of his failure to deliver stock and in non-fulfillment of alleged representations regarding the same, paid Rhodes back his money in Justice Atchinson's court Thursday afternoon and Justice Latimer of Windsor, sitting for Justice Atchinson made an order dismissing the case.

Rhodes had a number of witnesses subpoenaed from this city and San Francisco, but when Attorney W. M. Sims announced the intention of Robinson to pay back the money, as he had originally promised to do if Rhodes became dissatisfied, they were not wanted. In fact the proceedings were a very informal nature in the Justice Court. Rhodes having stated that all he wanted was a return of his money and if he got it further proceedings would not be taken, there's nothing left for it but for a dismissal of the case.

When Justice Latimer called the case, Wm. M. Sims, attorney for defendant, addressing the court, said:

"I will state, may it please your honor, that this transaction between the defendant and complaining witness was made in good faith and that the defendant had no intent whatsoever to make a statement that was not correct..."

[..]

Robinson was naturally much pleased with the outcome of the case and in company with his attorney left for San Francisco on the afternoon train. Before he left he stated that he had done exactly what he promised he would do and declared that he had acted in good faith all the time.

- Press Democrat, August 7, 1908

WHAT'S NEW IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, 1908

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A century before the Ridgway Historic District was recognized, there was a burst of construction between 1905-1908 that defined the neighborhood.

Mendocino Avenue was shaping up to be a boulevard of grand homes, even mansions, that could rival the best offerings on McDonald Ave. There were already two houses designed by Brainerd Jones: The Lumsden House (currently the Belvedere), and the spectacular, lost Paxton House. In 1905 another Jones design was added with the construction of Comstock House, and in 1908, the Saturday Afternoon Club, on the Josiah Davis street extension of Mendocino. The same year the James R. Edwards family, good friends of the Oates', built the fine brown shingle Craftsman style house that still stands at 930 Mendocino. And although not new, across the street from the Edwards family was a stately three story Queen Anne that was a jewel in its own right.

(RIGHT: Frank Todd home at 1101 Mendocino Avenue, as seen in 1915. A few years later it was demolished to make way for the new high school. CLICK on images to enlarge. Photograph courtesy Sonoma County Library)

The real activity, however, was taking place in the streets west of Mendocino Ave. Bungalows and cottages were popping up on once-vacant lots, and older properties were being remodeled. Some of the new cottages were being built specifically for the tourist trade: "It is expected that there will be a good demand for first-class, modern-built homes...to accommodate the rush of California-bound Eastern tourists this Spring," the Press Democrat reported.

Not many houses built in this period survive, except for an unusual trio at 1217, 1219, and 1221 Glenn St. described in an article below. The builder was W. E. Nichols, a contractor whose name can still be found pressed into sidewalks throughout older parts of Santa Rosa. Nichols, who lived at 414 Carrillo Street, has appeared before in this journal, including a 1907 pitch to the City Council that they should strongarm homeowners into laying sidewalks (and presumably, hire him to do it). He also placed an unusual ad in the paper after the Great Earthquake, announcing that he was "open to any kind of legitimate business proposition."

The oddball in this neighborhood is the circa-1880 Greek Revival two story house at 1290 Glenn St. The block between Benton and Berry Lane (now Ridgway) was once part of a small farm, and this was the farmhouse. Originally it faced the other direction, with an address on Healdsburg Ave. (which became Mendocino Ave. in 1906). At some point, probably around WWI, they moved it nearly a block west - typically with mules pulling a platform over rolling logs - while spinning it completely around. Quite a trick, that.

The James R. Edwards are now comfortably installed in their handsome new residence on Mendocino avenue. They have certainly good reason to be proud of their new home and the friends who have been privileged with an inspection of the interior furnishing and arrangement cannot say too much in compliment of the taste displayed.

- "Society Gossip", Press Democrat, November 22, 1908

IMPROVEMENTS IN SECTION OF CITY
Many Changes Noted Which, When Completed, Will Add Much to the Looks of Things

Henry C. Colwell, of 1109 Morgan street, is dividing his property into lots for sale, and will move his residence forward, placing it on cement foundations and will make a number of other improvements.

Burton H. Gilkey, of 1009 Morgan street, is completely remodeling his home and making a modern cottage home with all the latest improvements for comfort and health.

H. O. Malott, of Morgan and Tenth streets, has gravel on the ground will have cement walks laid on both streets along his property at once. Considerable new cement walk is being laid in that vicinity.

The concrete foundation has been laid for an eight-room, two-story home for Mrs. M. L. Waters-Thorne at Morgan and Berry lane. The concrete blocks for the basement will be laid next week.

Several of the old cottages on Davis street, near Ninth, are being remodeled, and made into attractive homes, while one new one [sic] has been built adjoining them. The improvements add to the appearance of the street greatly.

Cement walks are being laid on Carrillo, College and Tenth streets, where not already laid, from Healdsburg avenue to the railroad. Property-owners on cross streets are preparing to do likewise as soon as the work is completed. This will make that portion of the town very attractive for residence.

- Press Democrat, August 9, 1908

NEW RESIDENCES ON GLENN STREET

Glenn Street, between Carrillo and Howard streets, which has recently been put in order and macadamized, is to be built up and improved. W. E. Nichols has already erected three large and commodious cottages of six rooms each and basement story containing all modern and up-to-date improvements and accessories for comfort and convenience. He will continue to erect more houses on the adjoining property. The present cottages are good and strongly built in the Mission Renaissance style of architecture and consist of three distinct and separate styles. The inside finish will be of natural woods polished. H. O. Tiffany & Co., Santa Rosa painters, have the contract for this work and it will be finished first-class.

It is expected that there will be a good demand for first-class, modern-built homes of this description and Mr. Nichols is ready to fulfill the demand by erecting cottages to accommodate the rush of California-bound Eastern tourists this Spring.

- Press Democrat, December 20, 1908

WANTED: A HOSPITAL IN SANTA ROSA

2011-10-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa was a nice place to visit before WWI, but you didn't want to get sick here; until 1917, there was no real hospital in town.

It may seem odd that the largest town in the area - much less the county seat - would lack something as basic as a hospital, but at that time doctors usually treated the sick or injured in their homes or hotel rooms. (Because physicians spent so much time zipping from bedside to bedside, many were among the first to buy automobiles; in 1908, one doctor even argued that their cars should be exempt from city speed limits because they might be rushing to an emergency.) Doctors and nurses usually rented rooms in their homes for those needing continuing care, and in every town of any size there were convalescent and maternity homes available. For those with a little money, Burke's Sanitarium on Mark West Springs Road offered quackish cures for what-ails-you; for those with no money at all, there was the County Hospital, which only took in indigents (an excellent history of the County Hospital by Jeremy Nichols is available here). For those with a serious medical condition, there was a train to the San Francisco ferry.

Until its 1908 closing, there was also the "Santa Rosa Hospital" at 741 Humboldt St. - an address that no longer exists, but was directly across the street from the present Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. Little is known about it, except that it was founded by a pair of doctors around the turn of the century, as Gaye LeBaron wrote in her second volume of Santa Rosa history. Although the place must have been a whirlwind following the Great Earthquake, the papers only mentioned that so-and-so was at the hospital and "doing nicely" - and, of course, the discovery that a con man was posing as a doctor and swiping stuff from patients and staff. Even the hospital's closing merited only a single paragraph in one of the newspapers; you had to read the San Francisco press to learn that the two women who owned it had filed for bankruptcy, owing the substantial sum (in 1908 terms) of $2,878.50 to employees and suppliers. Why would the local papers shy from any mention of the Santa Rosa Hospital? Likely because the facilities were small and out-of-date, drawbacks which were not in keeping with the booster image of Santa Rosa as a community that offered all amenities of other Bay Area cities.

The only thing worse than a dinky and old-fashioned hospital was none at all, but that's what Santa Rosa now faced in June, 1908. There was talk that a Catholic order intended to build a Sister's Hospital, but nothing came of it. Then late in the year came the happy announcement that the Mary Jesse Hospital was open.

Named after the mother of Dr. Jesse, the hospital was the doctor's former home at 815 Fifth street, on the corner of King st. It probably wasn't much larger than the Santa Rosa Hospital - it would eventually offer twenty beds - but it did have modern services, including an operating room and an elevator. Not that these features always worked in harmony; Martha Comstock Keegan, who had her tonsils removed at the hospital around 1943, recalls that lights in the operating room would blink out for a moment whenever someone pressed the button to call the elevator.

For about forty years, the Mary Jesse Hospital - later renamed the Eliza Tanner Hospital - served the community. General Hospital was built in 1917, when public health officials were understandably anxious about the spreading Spanish Flu epidemic, and Memorial Hospital was established in 1950, after a fund-raising drive led by Hillard Comstock.

With Santa Rosa General and Memorial, the town finally had the sort of antiseptic, built-from-scratch hospitals that everyone expects to die in today. But gone was the small town charm of recuperating in someone's former bedroom, tended by a small, tightly-knit medical staff. A story from 1913 reveals what charm was lost:

One of the Mary Jesse nurses apparently couldn't shut up about the fun she had stealing watermelons from a field. The next day, according to the San Francisco Call, Dr. Jesse "bundled four or five of the girls into his auto and whirled them all out into the country. They climbed cautiously over a fence, swooped down on a patch of fine, big melons and carried them away with terrified backward glances and suppressed giggles. This proved such great sport that the doctor repeated the performance about twice a week."

The good Dr. James Jesse (!) of course, had previously arranged the "robbery" with the farmer, paying him in advance.

Photographs courtesy Sonoma County Library

SANTA ROSA'S NEW HOSPITAL IS OPEN
Splendid Equipment of the Mary Jesse Hospital on Fifth Street--Ready For Patients

Santa Rosa is now equipped with one of the neatest little hospitals in the state, thanks to the public spiritedness of Dr. J. W. Jesse. It is known as the "Mary Jesse Hospital," in memory of Dr. Jesse's honored mother.

The hospital was formerly the large residence of Dr. and Mrs. Jesse at 815 Fifth street which has been entirely remodeled on the second floor so as to provide half a dozen private wards, besides an operating room, drug and bandage closets and sterilizing room, as well as nurses quarters.

The east side of the lower floor has been converted into general wards, one for men and the other for women. The hospital will at present accommodate 16 patients and there is room to add six other beds in case of emergency or necessity at any time. In addition to the patients' rooms there are three find porches for sleeping and resting which will be enjoyed by convalescents.

The hospital is in charge of Mrs. Jesse and is open to the public and physicians of the city generally on equal terms. There will be no discrimination and it is hoped that the medical fraternity will make good use of the opportunities thus offered them as for sometime past there has been no place where an injured person or one seriously ill could be taking for treatment.

An elevator has been placed in the building so that a patient brought into the hospital in the ambulance can be placed on it and taken direct to the operating room or individual ward on the second floor without any inconvenience or trouble. The operating room is enameled in white and fitted with all the latest appliances for the use of the operators. Miss Helena Liersch, a graduate of the California Women's Hospital in San Francisco, is in charge as head nurse and will be assisted by a full corps of well-trained and experienced nurses.

Dr. Jesse is complemented on the complete manner in which he has equipped the new hospital. The hospital is not ready and patients will be received after today. A number of applications were received during the past week for admission but owing to the incomplete condition of the equipment they all had to be refused.

- Press Democrat, November 22, 1908

PAINTERS OF SUNSHINE AND PATHOS

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Want a nice painting to hang above the sofa? Bruner's was the place to go in Santa Rosa for the first half of the Twentieth Century.

While you could also pick up paint and wallpaper at Clement Bruner's Fourth St. shop, in the store window was displayed fine art, such as paintings by Grace Hudson, the Ukiah artist who produced hundreds of portraits, most depicting local Pomo Indians in native dress. A specialty of hers were too-adorable views of infants such as the one shown at right, sometimes with puppies thrown in for extra sap. Hudson turned out scores of these popular tableaus, and one of these paintings was sold "for a large price" in 1908, becoming a news item in the Press Democrat.

That year Bruner's also displayed oils and watercolors of fruits and flowers commissioned by the Cree Publishing Company of Minneapolis, which were to illustrate a 10-volume encyclopedia on Luther Burbank's "secrets." The newspaper article also claims that the books were in the window which is impossible, as the series was never produced, thanks to Burbank's disorganization and objections by the Carnegie Institution.

One of the still-life artists mentioned was Carl Dahlgren, nicknamed "The Sunshine Painter" because his landscapes usually included a prominent beam of sunlight. Dahlgren specialized in bucolic, idyllic scenes that could bring no offense; a magazine commented that "In hundreds of homes his canvasses are hung, carrying with them, like silent missionaries, their message of sunshine and happiness to lift the gloom and grief that comes inevitably at times into the most ideal of homes." Reference material on Dahlgren describes him as a San Francisco painter who received a commission from Burbank in 1917, but his associations with Sonoma County nine years earlier are never mentioned; so familiar was he in this area that the Republican Santa Rosa paper referred to him as "Carl Dahlgren of this city." Also mentioned in the newspaper coverage was a Dahlgren landscape painted from the view at Hood Mansion.

A personal comment regarding Grace Hudson: She was a gifted artist and many of her Indian portraits portray the dignity of her subject, but the unctuous "papoose" paintings trouble me greatly. At that exact same time, Pomo and other Indian youth were being forcibly taken from their families by government officials and shipped off to Indian boarding schools that might be a great distance away. (Googling researchers: Here's a hard-to-find list of California Indian Schools.) Once there, it was required that the children abandon their birth language and culture and everything else they held dear. It was one of the most shameful episodes in our history as a nation. In my view, Grace Hudson's infant portraits exploited the children she painted. It might be too much to expect of Hudson to have acknowledged the abuses outright, but it's another thing to make a living by cranking out mawkish images that betrayed a horrible truth.

{RIGHT: Indian children at boarding school - the portrait that Grace Hudson didn't paint. One of the infants painted by Hudson could well be revered Pomo basket weaver Elsie Allen, who was born in 1899 near Cloverdale and was snatched from her grandmother around 1910 and sent to a government Indian school. )

A SMALL CANVAS SELLS FOR LARGE PRICE

C. M. Bruner, the local art dealer, has had a small canvas by Grace Hudson, the celebrated Indian painter, on exhibition in his window for the past few day, which, though only four or five inches square, sold during race week for a large price.

The subject is an Indian pappoose [sic]. and it is handled in Mrs. Hudson's best style. Mr. Bruner made a special hand-carved frame of oak to go with the picture, the design used being an oak leaf. The purchaser was James B. Smith, a wealth horse man of San Francisco.

Another picture on exhibition at Bruner's that has been attracting attention is a view on the Kearns ranch near Kenwood. This canvas is by Carl Dahlgren, the Danish painter now in Santa Rosa for the purpose of preparing a series of pictures showing Burbank creations. The orchard and meadow are shown in the foreground, in the middle distance is the old homestead, and Mr. Hood towers majestically in the background.

The work of reproducing fruits and flowers in all their various shadings and colorings is very tedious, and for relaxation Mr. Dahlgren has made a number of fine sketches in the vicinity of this city, as well as several in the Guerneville region, some of which are also on exhibition at Bruner's store. Mr. Dahlgren is very enthusiastic over the beautiful scenery in Sonoma county, and says he will put as much of it as possible on canvas before he leaves.

- Press Democrat, August 6, 1908

TWO NEW PAINTINGS THAT ARE TALKED ABOUT

Two paintings now on exhibition at Bruner's art store are attracting much attention from the people who make it a point to notice such things. One is a large scene near the headwaters of Los Alamos Creek, with Mount Hood in the background. The other is a little sketch on Santa Rosa Creek, not far from town. Both are splendidly done, although the treatment in each is entirely different.

Both canvasses are by Carl Dahlgren, a German painter, who sent here some two or three months ago by the Cree Publishing company to do some of the more important of Burbank's creations from life in oils and watercolors, so that they may be reproduced in colors in the 10 volume history of Burbank and his achievements which the Crees are now getting out.

The general opinion among local art critics is that the two paintings mentioned are among the very best Mr. Bruner has ever had on its exhibition at his store. Mr. Dahlgren has done one or two others in this vicinity, and hopes to find time to do two or three more before leaving. He said yesterday that he had no idea there is so much beautiful scenery in this part of the state. "Oh, in your coundy it iss beautiful, b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!" said Mr. Dahlgren yesterday, as he have closed his eyes and gazed dreamily out towards the Eastern Hills.

- Press Democrat, June 21, 1908

MAKES DISPLAY OF BURBANK WORKS

The Cree-Binner Company, which is engaged in the production of a splendid work on the creations of Luther Burbank, has a display of the books in the window of Bruner's art store, which is certainly attractive. There is a large amount of the oil and water color painting of the various fruits and flowers which have been the subject of Mr. Burbank's efforts, and then several pages of the books with the binding in handsome leather are to be seen. The paintings are by Carl Dahlgren of this city, and C. L. Starks and Mr. Hudson of the east.

Mr. Binner, who is spending the winter here and looking after the interest of the work in this city, states that a widespread interest is being taken in the books and already many applications have been made for its reproduction in foreign countries. The work is to be the most exhaustive ever issued upon the life and works of Mr. Burbank and will be the most modern and complete acquisition to the botanical libraries of the world. The display is well worth seeing and Mr. Binner deserves special credit for the attractive form in which he has made the same. The fine large window affords a particularly good place for the arrangement.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 24, 1908

KEEP THE RECKLESS DRIVING AT THE RACE TRACK

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I tell you, this automobile fad might catch on. About 4,000 spectators crowded the Santa Rosa racetrack in 1908 to watch the fastest cars on the West Coast zoom around the dirt track at the inconceivable speed of 60 MPH.

Some details of the races appeared here earlier in the profile of Fred J. Wiseman, who won the "Santa Rosa Cup" in the Sunday 25 mile race. At one terrifying point, it appeared that an accident had occurred. The Santa Rosa Republican reported: "While the Stearns machine was in the lead, one of the hind tires blew out, causing the machine to skid close to the fence while coming around the three-quarter mile pole, and the machine hit the [inner] fence. The machine skidded across the track directly in front of Wiseman's machine, and in the clouds of dust it seemed that a collision had occurred. When Wiseman emerged from the dust everybody breathed easier." When the Stearns auto limped across the finish line, part of the fence was still hanging on the car.

(RIGHT: Fred Dundee in the White Steamer that set a speed record at the Santa Rosa Fairground race track in the first day of the 1908 races)

Although this wasn't the first auto race at Santa Rosa (there was a small exhibition race in 1906), it was the first time the town was packed with tourists since before the Great Earthquake. "It was a gala scene," enthused the Press Democrat. "Several hundred automobiles, each with its merry crowd, were lined up on both sides of the track. In addition there were scores of characters. It was a well behaved, courteous crowd. Among those present were many of the prominent people of San Francisco and the bay cities. In fact, all roads lead to Santa Rosa on Sunday. The hotels were crowded on both Saturday and Sunday."

Not everyone welcomed the influx of racing fans, however. On the day of the big race, police officers in Petaluma stopped and arrested several drivers for speeding, and quickly word spread in Sonoma and Marin Counties to "Beware of Petaluma." Amid griping that the business for the town's restaurants and hotels had suffered because of the crackdown, the Petaluma Argus sniped, "Now that the city authorities have made an example of several outside automobilists, it would be well to punish half a dozen local mahouts who daily violate the speed ordinance." (Like "chauffeur," "mahout" was slang for anyone driving an automobile.)

The Petaluma Courier also worried that motorists would boycott the town in the future, and they probably had some cause to worry. Many examples have appeared here of the auto clique resenting any restrictions placed upon them, from speed limits to the requirement of headlights after dark.

But an incident later in 1908 found the newly-formed Sonoma County Automobile Club acting in a newly responsible manner, offering a $25 reward for information leading to the ID of a reckless driver. Near Kenwood, a horse frightened by the car reared back and broke its neck, also injuring the man driving the attached buggy or wagon. The auto drove on without stopping. "Such conduct as related on the part of the chauffeur is inhuman and should not be tolerated," the club announced in a statement.

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ATTEND THE SANTA ROSA AUTOMOBILE RACES
"Comet" Wins Four of the Events Yesterday

Automobile racing is a great sport and it arouses much enthusiasm. This was demonstrated at the track on Saturday at the first days races under the auspices of the some Sonoma County Automobile Association. There was a great assemblage of people, men, women and children, and they all entered heartily into the sport. The grand stand was filled and along the fences on both sides of the stretch there wer scores of automobiles, each car crowded with spectators, while hundreds of other people sat or stood and mingled discussing the respective merits of the machines tearing off the fast miles in the various events.

A new track record was established for Santa Rose on Saturday by the White Steamer, driven by Fred Dundee, which reeled off a mile in 1:01. The previous track record was driven by Al Pipenberg at 1:02.

[..]

- Press Democrat, August 23, 1908

4,000 PEOPLE WITNESS THE AUTO RACES SUNDAY
Fred J. Wiseman Wins The 25 Mile Free-For-All

The greatest crowd of people ever gathered at the Santa Rosa race track, conservatively estimated at 4,000 people, witnessed on Sunday afternoon some of the best automobile racing ever given on this Pacific Coast. They saw two spectacular miles by the little Comet, in which the car broke the Coast record. Each of the miles was reeled off in 58 seconds. They saw a magnificent contest in a 25 mile free-for-all as well as the most amusing novelty race, in addition to the other equally interesting events.

Any question as to the popularity of automobile races was removed on Sunday afternoon by that vast crowd of men, women and children, all keenly interested in the sport. The track, grandstand and all places of vantage were occupied. It was a gala scene. Several hundred automobiles, each with its merry crowd, were lined up on both sides of the track. In addition there were scores of characters. It was a well behaved, courteous crowd. Among those present were many of the prominent people of San Francisco and the bay cities. In fact, all roads lead to Santa Rosa on Sunday. The hotels were crowded on both Saturday and Sunday. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the outing and the sport.

The Stoddard-Dayton car proved the victor in the 25 mile free-for-all, after one of the best contested and most spectacular races ever held in the state.

Six cars lined up for the start and the Stearns went out in front at the first turn. Before a mile had been traversed the Comet, the car which made a sensation on Saturday by capturing four events and which had already won two races Saturday, went to the front with the phenomenal burst of speed, and at the end of this first mile it was 30 yards to the good. In the second round it had to stop and the Stearns again went to the front. With the Stoddard-Dayton hanging on an eighth of a mile behind, the Stearns reeled off the miles at a 1:02 clip. In the twelfth mile the Stoddard-Dayton began to creep up and a thrilling race ensued for six miles.

In the fifteenth mile the two cars came down the stretch together, but the Stearns had the pole and held the lead until the eighteenth. Coming into the home stretch Bonney, who had been driving a splendid race, cut the corner too fine and the car crashed into the inner fence, tearing away a part of the fence, and swerving across the track. The spectators held their breaths as the Stoddard, which had turned wide, swept along and escaped hitting the Stearns by what seemed from the stand to be a few inches. Bonney had to stop and the Stoddard-Dayton kept on by itself and won a popular victory, as Fred J. Wiseman, its driver, is a Santa Rosa man. The Comet injected a lot of excitement into the race by resuming after it had lost six miles. The little car went at a wonderful clip and was timed several miles in one minute flat. It gained on its rivals, but the lost ground could not be recovered.

The ten mile race for autos listed at $1,500 resolved itself into an exciting duel between the Comet and the Buick and the spectators were kept in a high-state of excitement as the cars raced around close together; first one and then the other took the lead. The Comet went to the front in the ninth mile and going very fast in the last half won out by a hundred yards.

A great race was expected in the ten mile event for cars listed at $2,500 and over, but it proved to be a procession with the Stearns acting as the band wagon all the way. Four cars lined up for the start-- the Stearns, Peerless, White Twenty and Stoddard Dayton. The White Thirty was entered, but did not start. Bonney, in the Stearns, drew the pole and immediately took the lead, and in the first three miles he opened up a gap of half a mile. The Stearns reeled off the first five miles in 5:19, which equals the state record made by the same machine a year ago. The Stearns ran smoothly all the way and finished over half a mile ahead of the White Twenty.

In the novelty race in which of the drivers had to run 100 yards, drove their car a mile and then run another hundred, Frank Free, in the Comet, easily took the honors. The drivers were lustily cheered during their sprint and seemed to like the sport equally as well as the spectators.

[..]

- Press Democrat, August 25, 1908

AUTO DRIVERS ARRESTED IN PETALUMA

Regarding the arrest of auto drivers in Petaluma on Sunday, the Courier of Monday night says:

Vigorous complaint has been made by the Petaluma business people today over the action of the local authorities in holding up automobiles Sunday.

The ground assumed is as follows: They say it is notorious that local automobiles are often driven at a great pace without interference.

The action Sunday has been construed as discrimination against strangers who should have been merely stopped, warned and allowed to proceed.

Those who were detained telephoned to Santa Rosa and the county seat was posted with notices. "Beware of Petaluma." The result was that fully 150 autos avoided Petaluma and there was considerable loss to Petaluma hotel and restaurant people. It is feared that Petaluma will be avoided by strangers in the future.

The news was also flashed San Rafael way, for Harry Smith receive a warning while down there.

Steiger Bros. sent out their auto to warn the autoists. Loss of revenue to the town was the chief complaint.

The Petaluma Argus says:

Now that the city authorities have made an example of several outside automobilists, it would be well to punish half a dozen local mahouts who daily violate the speed ordinance. Names do not have to be mentioned. Everyone knows them.

- Press Democrat, August 25, 1908

INHUMAN DRIVERS BETTER BEWARE
Reward of $25 Offered for Discovery of the Identity of the Careless Chauffeur Near Kenwood

The Sonoma County Automobile Club will not stand for careless and inhuman conduct of chauffeurs in driving of machines, the kind who after causing an accident drive ahead and do not stop to see whether anyone has been hurt or whether help is needed. They will stand back of the prosecution of such offenders.

After reading the reports of the accident on the canyon road leading to Warm Springs, near Kenwood, the other day, in which Mr. Dugan of Kenwood was rendered insensible and the horse he was driving killed by the animal taking fright at an approaching automobile, and rearing back, breaking its neck, after which the chauffeur drove on without stopping to see what damage had resulted. President J. Rollo Leppo of the Sonoma County Automobile Club and Director S. S. Bogle held a consultation.

The result of the conference between the president and local director of the club was the offering on Saturday night of a reward of $25 for the discovery of the identity of the chauffeur, and the promise that the club would stand back of the prosecution of an action for damages.

"Assuming that the facts of the accident as reported are correct, will you please state for the Sonoma County Automobile Club that we hereby offer a reward for the discovery of the identity of the chauffeur, and state further that the club will stand back of the prosecution of such cases. Such conduct as related on the part of the chauffeur is inhuman and should not be tolerated. The club will not uphold it, I can assure you."

Any information regarding the subject matter mentioned leading to the identity of the chauffeur can be forwarded to District Attorney Lea, President Leppo, Director Bogle or Secretary Don C. Prentiss. The public will undoubtedly approve of the action of the president and directors of the Automobile Club.

- Press Democrat, November 29, 1908

EVERYBODY HATES THE ELECTRIC COMPANY

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Members of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce were mad as hornets. Electrical service that autumn of 1908 was unreliable; the "juice" might go off for hours in the middle of the day, shutting down factories and stores, even the electric railroad that connected the towns of Sonoma County. Sometimes the power would be on at night, yet the streetlights still would be dark. Or maybe there would be on-again, off-again blackouts, forcing workers to continually reset all those swell newfangled electric clocks that were being installed in offices and hotels around town. You could never tell.

Seeking answers and a forum to vent, the Chamber called the superintendent of the Santa Rosa Lighting Company to their October meeting. Likely they were surprised to hear that he could shed no light on the problems. "All I know is that when we ask what the trouble is we are told that there is 'trouble on the main line,'" Superintendent Petch told them. "All I can do is suffer like you do."

Mr. Petch may not have even have been able to tell them who supplied the electricity. Small electric and gas companies had been gobbled up years before, and now the larger ones were being absorbed. Originally Santa Rosa's power plant was built after the turn of the century by California Central Gas and Electric Company, which was acquired by the Bay Counties Light and Power Company (more commonly known as just the "Bay Counties Company"). This was the company that built the hydroelectric plant on the Yuba River that supplied power to the entire North Bay and East Bay. (Your Trivial Pursuit item for the day: The plant was named "Colgate" after company president E. R. Colgate, apparently no relation to the toothpaste people. You're Welcome.) Bay Counties was in turn swallowed up by the California Gas & Electric Corp. in 1903, which reorganized five years later into the monster everyone still loves to hate, PG&E. If you're keeping score, that's four ownership changes in about six years.

By 1908, Santa Rosa's power situation was nearly in the complete control of a monopoly that had no particular interest in the town. Regarding the streetlight situation, Mr. Petch told the Chamber that he only did as he was told by a boss in another county. "I receive a message from Napa to cut out the street lights until further notice. Out they go. I must obey orders as a sailor or railroad man if I hold my job. When the order comes to 'cut the lights in' they are turned on. There is never any explanation offered when the orders are given us."

Petch lamented that the town had decommissioned the power plant that had once made Santa Rosa self-sufficient - "If we had a steam plant [like we used to,] I could go crazy" - but as it was, the only hope that we could avoid PG&E's electrical whims lay in service from the Snow Mountain Water and Power Company, which was formed a few months earlier. Their hydroelectric dam on the south fork of the Eel River supplied electricity to the Ukiah area, and in Sept. 1908, their lines were connected to the grid near Santa Rosa. Alas, it was still six weeks before Snow River could bring power into Sonoma County. The Eel River dam immediately shut down for planned maintenance, probably in part due to damage caused by eels gumming up the works.

FIRE BURNS DOWN POLE AND "JUICE" IS CUT OFF
Some Inconvenience Caused in a Number of Places

To a forest fire, four miles and a half from Sonoma, and between that place and Napa, that burned over a considerable area on the Poletti Ranch and burned down a number of poles on the potential line of the electric company, must be charged up the inconvenience that resulted yesterday afternoon and up to a quarter to nine o'clock last night in this and other places attendant upon a cutting out of the electric current. This was the information sent over from Sonoma last night. A large number of poles were burned down and the wires were distributed over the ground. Consequently it took some time for the linemen to get to work after things had cooled off and set up a fresh poles and connect up the wires again.

The "juice" went off suddenly about three o'clock and with its disappearance the ,machinery in the factories and other places using it, including the newspaper offices stopped also. The establishments fortunate in being provided with gas engines connected them up and got along as best they could. When night came on and with it darkness in places having no gas connections lamps and candles were put in commission. The streets were dark for some time. At a quarter to nine the lights appeared.

Owing to the absence of the "glim" the places of amusement were dull until the lights came on again. Several fraternal gatherings were late in calling to order, and in at least one instance an adjournment was taken.

The electric railroad was forced to to suspend operations when its auxiliary supply of "juice" ran low. When the current went off a heavily laden car for Sebastopol and other points was standing at Fourth and Mendocino streets. The passengers sat patiently, some of them for nearly an hour, hoping that the motive power would be on at any moment. There would have been enough power possibly to have run the car to Sebastopol, but it would have been taking a chance, and the company did not want to have a car stalled on the road half way between points. So the people left the car and most of them to the steam train to Sebastopol. For a while cars were hauled by the auxiliary supply.

The Sunday school of the Methodist Church at Petaluma held a picnic at Graton yesterday, and on the return trip was were held over at Sebastopol for some time. The latter incident was taken as a joke by the children.

But the inconvenience suffered here also shared by many other places, including Napa, Vallejo, Petaluma, Sonoma and San Rafael.

A message sent from Sonoma to this city at ten o'clock last night stated that the forest fire was under control.

- Press Democrat, July 18, 1908

WILL CONNECT THE TWO POWER LINES

The Snow Mountain Water and Power Company has made a deal with the Bay Counties Light and Power Company whereby the transmission lines of these two companies will be connected near Santa Rosa. This connection will insure a neverfailing source of power and light, according to the Ukiah Dispatch Democrat. The Bay Counties Company own and operate one of the longest transmission lines in the world, and can furnish practically unlimited power, while the possibilities of the local company are equally as great.

The connection of the two systems will be completed by next Sunday, and then the Snow Mountain Company will shut down its plant to make some needed repairs to the tunnel and pipe line. This will insure to our city a continuous flow of electric current without having resource to the local municipal electric plant, and all patrons of the Snow Mountain Company need have no fear of a shortage of power.

Besides furnishing Ukiah with light and power to the extent of 50,000 kilowatts of power a month, the Asti Colony in Sonoma county are using 40,000 kilowatts every thirty days, and this new arrangement will prove of great benefit to all concerned.

In the past, during the winter months, the Bay Counties Company have had more or less trouble with floods and freshets, and on several occasions all power has been shut off from its subscribers. The plant of the Snow Mountain Company is rated as a safe winter plant and by connecting the two a continuous operation and delivery of power is assured.

- Press Democrat, September 5, 1908

MORE LIGHT IS THE CRY
Inefficient Service Causes Comment at Meeting

At the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on Thursday evening one theme on the occasion was more light and power for the City of Roses. The members of the commercial organization severely criticized the present service being given by the lighting company, and expressed the belief that the inefficiency is causing the city great damage in the exclusion of manufacturing interests that would otherwise come here. One firm was reported to have recently changed over from a steam plant to electric at a cost of several thousand dollars, and then they were compelled to allow their men to stand idle for hours waiting for the "juice." Manager Petch of the lighting company states that he is as much in the dark about the matter as any of the people here, and whenever the juice fails and he calls up to ascertain the trouble, the answer is "with the main line." He also reports that he has been ordered to "cut out the street lights" until further notice, and acting upon orders he has obeyed.

There is no doubt but that the trouble lies with the attempt to carry more business than the company has power to supply, and the recent connecting of the Snow Mountain Company with the local local line caused an additional load upon the supply of juice. On Thursday the Eel River Plant was started again and this will help to relieve the congestion and will supply some juice for the local consumers whenever there is "trouble with the main line" below here.
- Santa Rosa Republican, October 16, 1908

CITIZENS DEMAND BETTER LIGHTS
Uncertainty of "Juice" Supply Made Topic of Discussion at Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce

The Santa Rosa Lighting Company came in for considerable discussion at the regular monthly meeting of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce...

[... duplication of details from above article..]

"All I know is that when we ask what the trouble is we are told that there is 'trouble on the main line.' If we had a steam plant and the service was like it was here yesterday I could go crazy, but as it is all I can do is suffer like you do," [said Superintendent Petch of the Lighting Company.]

"Why are the street lights out when the other circuits are working?" was asked.

"It's orders. I receive a message from Napa to cut out the street lights until further notice. Out they go. I must obey orders as a sailor or railroad man if I hold my job. When the order comes to 'cut the lights in' they are turned on. There is never any explanation offered when the orders are given us."

The complaints from businessmen, manufacturing plants, and residents has grown from a murmur to a "roar," which is heard all over town. There is little doubt but that the company is trying to carry too much business with a power available.

For several weeks past the Colgate system which furnishes power and light to the city has been furnishing the new Snow Mountain Company with "juice" for the main line from this city north. The supply for the Snow Mountain was cut off Thursday and the company hopes that in a short time the new company will be able to turn its extra voltage into the lines of the old system which will protect the section of the country when the trouble occurs on the main line in the future.

- Press Democrat, October 16, 1908

MANY ELECTRIC CLOCKS ARE BEING INSTALLED

Many new electric clocks are being installed by the Western Union Telegraph Company in this city, and there will be a total of thirty-three of these clocks in use here when those now at the office of the company are installed. Those who will install these electric clocks at once are the Rose City Market, Spirito Brothers, Hall & Richardson, C. C. Donovan, Bacon Bros...Donovan is the only one in Santa Rosa who has a calendar clock, telling the day and month, as well as the correct time, and the only one who has a quarter-sawed oak finished timepiece. His clock was made to order from his design.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 23, 1908

THE WEDDING OF MISS ANNA MAY BELL

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Santa Rosa society, prepare yourselves for nonstop supper parties, elegant receptions and high teas: Anna May Bell is coming to town, and she's engaged to be married.

Miss Bell lived in Southern California, but spent her summers here as a guest of Mattie and James Wyatt Oates, to whom she was something of a godchild. The parties given in her honor were always the most talked-about of the season; three hundred attended a 1905 reception at the Paxton home, just two doors down from the Oates. And despite the somber mood of the town in the months following the 1906 earthquake, Anna May's appearance that year inspired the first parties since the disaster. But something was in the winds come 1907; she didn't visit Santa Rosa at all. Instead, the Oates family spent Christmas and New Years' at her home in Visalia. Then in the summer of 1908 came the announcement - she was to marry Samuel Cary Dunlap, a Los Angeles grain dealer.

The Oates and her other friends were delighted at the news, and although her 1908 visit lasted less than three weeks, at least ~~four~~ five events were held for her, including the largest party probably ever held at (what would become known as) Comstock House, where two hundred guests filled the rooms. A small orchestra fiddled away, presumably behind potted palms in the library, as had been the entertainment at an earlier party.

The wedding that October received full coverage in the Santa Rosa papers, even though it was held in Anna May's hometown of Visalia. A local woman was a bridesmaid, traveling with the Oates to the event. But at the last minute, Wyatt bowed out of attending the ceremony, staying home because of the "press of business matters just at this time."

What was important enough to have kept him here is a mystery. Nothing in the papers around this time suggested that he had critical legal business before a court or that he was closing a big deal. (One possibility is that he was needed to intercede on behalf of the local electric company, which had the town spitting mad over recent power outages; Oates had represented the company a year earlier when they obtained a franchise from the county. See following post for more on the town's "juice" problem that year.) But when it comes to James Wyatt Oates, it's easy to always assume the worst - that he refused to go because some incident incited him into a fit of pique, or that he couldn't bear to be separated from his first automobile, which had just been delivered a couple of weeks before.

Whatever his reason for not attending her wedding, Wyatt and Anna May maintained close ties until the end of his life. She was at his deathbed as he died of double pneumonia, following a visit to her home in Los Angeles.

The marriage of Samuel and Anna May Dunlap lasted over two decades, ending when he died at the age of 64 (he was twelve years older than she). They had one child. Anna May did not remarry, and apparently did not return to academics, although as a 1900 Stanford graduate, she had taught English at the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School. During WWII, she had leadership roles in several Los Angeles war-relief women's groups, including Bundles for America, the Committee for Navy Reserve, the War Finance Committee. of Southern California, and more. She was also the state president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, being the grandchild of Gen. Tyree Harris Bell, C.S.A.

Anna May Bell Dunlap died on June 14, 1967, ninety years old. Her last appearance in the Santa Rosa newspapers occurred in 1950, when she returned to town to make a donation to the library and commissioned a local student to design a bookplate to be pasted in the books purchased through her grant. The gift was made to the memory of James Wyatt Oates.


LEFT: Anna May Bell at Stanford University graduation, 1900 RIGHT: Engagement portrait, 1908 (CLICK to enlarge)

Colonel Oates Home

Colonel J. W. Oates, who has been visiting with his wife in Visalia and Fresno for a couple of weeks, returned home last night. Mrs. Oates will remain for a longer visit in Fresno.

- Press Democrat, January 4, 1908

Mrs. James W. Oates and Mrs. M. S. Solomon have returned from their visit in Visalia and Fresno. Accompanied by Colonel Oates the ladies went south on December 22. Colonel Oates returned several days ago, and Mrs. Oates and Mrs. Solomon came home Tuesday.

- "Personal Mention" Press Democrat, January 17, 1908

MISS BELL'S ENGAGEMENT

The Los Angeles papers have announced the coming marriage of Miss Anna May Bell in that city. Miss Bell has often visited Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Oates at their home in Santa Rosa and has made many friends here. The groom-elect is Samuel Dunlap, a grain merchant of Los Angeles.

Miss Bell is a charming and delightful girl, who has visited in the City of Roses frequently, and she is popular here in social circles. She is handsome and vivacious and her many friends here will learn with pleasure of her the approaching nuptials. During her visits here Miss Bell has always been the object of great attentions, and many parties were arranged in her honor. She is a decided favorite here with a large number friends.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 9, 1908

DAY IN THE REDWOODS

Judge James W. Oates and Captain I. T. Bell, the latter of Visalia, left here Friday morning for Guerneville and Monte Rio, and from there they expected to go to Cazadero for the day. On their return they think of coming by way of Occidental and across the electric road at Taylor's and thus make a complete circuit of the western Sonoma County. Captain Bell is very much elated over the county and climate, and remarked before taking the train that they enjoyed 35 days at this his home this summer during which the temperature registered 110 or over.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 7, 1908

Colonel and Mrs. J. W. Oates are entertaining Captain Bell, of Visalia, the father of Miss Anna May Bell. Colonel Oates and Captain Bell have enjoyed a couple of days in touring the beauty spots to be found at Guernewood [sic], Camp Vacation, Bohemian Grove, Armstrong Grove, Montrio [sic] and other places. Captain Bell is delighted with the City of Roses and Sonoma County.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, August 9, 1908

DELIGHTFUL EVENT FOR BRIDES-TO-BE
Colonel and Mrs. Oates to Entertain in Honor of Miss Anna May Bell and Miss Irma Woodward

On Friday evening, August 21, Colonel and Mrs. James W. Oates will entertain at their beautiful home on Mendocino Avenue, in honor of two fair brides-to-be, Miss Anna May Bell, daughter of Captain Bell of Visalia, and the Miss Irma Woodward, daughter of Senator and Mrs. E. F. Woodward. Colonel and Mrs. Oates have issued cards for a reception from eight until eleven o'clock on the evening named. It is sure to be a very delightful event.

- Press Democrat, August 14, 1908

A society event of this week which is anticipated with much interest by those receiving invitations to be present occurs on Friday night at the handsome colonial residence of Colonel and Mrs. James Wyatt Oates on Mendocino Avenue. On that evening they will be "At Home" in honor of two charming girls whose engagements were recently announced. Miss Anna May Bell, daughter of Captain and Mrs. Bell of Visalia, and Miss Irma Woodward, daughter of Senator and Mrs. Edward F. Woodward. Both Miss Bell and Miss Woodward are very popular here and deservedly so,. The host and hostess of the occasion are always delightful entertainers, and in consequence their guests know that neither nothing will be wanting that can in any way enhance the pleasure of the evening.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, August 16, 1908

Miss Anna May Bell has arrived here from Visalia, and is a guest at the home of Colonel and Mrs. James W. Oates, arrived here last night for a visit with Colonel and Mrs. Oates.

- "Personal Mention" Press Democrat, August 19, 1908

SOCIETY FUNCTION ON WEDNESDAY
Mrs. Paxton and Mrs. Marshall Hostesses for Tea in Honor of Miss Anna May Bell and Miss Holmes

At the beautiful Paxton home on Mendocino Avenue on Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Blitz W. Paxton and her mother, Mrs. Mary Marshall, were the hostesses at a tea which was attended by a large company of their lady friends. The parlors were beautifully decorated for the occasion, and the ladies entertained in a very charming manner.

Miss Anna May Bell of Visalia, and Miss Ellie Holmes of San Francisco, two very popular young ladies who are visiting Santa Rosa, where the motif for the delightful function.

- Press Democrat, August 20, 1908

An interesting quartet composed of two prospective brides and grooms-to-be was the center of attraction at the delightful "at home" given by Judge and Mrs. J. W. Oates at their residence Friday evening. It was a recepion to Miss Irma Woodward of this city, who will sortly become Mrs. J. Allen Wallis, and Miss Anna May Bell of Visalia, whose title is soon to be Mrs. Samuel Cary Dunlap. Fully 200 guests thronged the beautiful flower-decorated rooms during the evening, meeting and congratulating the two brides and the future partners.

Judge and Mrs. Oates are the most hospitable hosts, and when entertaining neglect nothing that will added to the enjoyment of their guests. During the three hours of the reception an orchestra discoursed exquisite music, a pleasurable feature of the occasion. Throughout the supper hour a number of young ladies waited in serving in the assisted in the serving.

Mrs. Oates was assisted by Mrs. S. S. Solomon, Mrs. E. F. Woodward...

- "Pencil Gatherings" Santa Rosa Republican, August 22, 1908

BRILLIANT EVENT AT THE OATES HOME
Reception Tendered by Colonel and Mrs. Oates in Honor of Miss Anna May Bell and Miss Irma Woodward

Reception at the beautiful home of Colonel and Mrs. James W. Oates on Mendocino Avenue last night was a brilliant social function. It was in honor of Miss Anna May Bell of Visalia, and Miss Irma Woodward of this city, two very popular brides-to-be. Two hundred invited guests had the pleasure of formally tending very hearty congratulations to them and their prospective husbands, Mr. Dunlap, who is to wed Miss Bell, and Mr. Wallis who is to claim Miss Woodward as bride.

The scene in this richly furnished reception rooms, enhanced with exquisite floral arrangements, was a captivating one, and from eight until eleven the happy throng of guests mingled. The hospitality of the Oates home was never more graciously extended than on this occasion. The minutest to detail that could add in any way to the pleasure of the evening were not overlooked and the host and hostess were highly complemented.

Naturally attention was centered upon the young ladies in whose honor the reception was given and they in turn were most cordial in their acknowledgement of the good wishes extended.

An elaborate supper was served in the dining room and a number of young ladies assisted in serving the refreshments. It was indeed an auspicious occasion in every way.

- Press Democrat, August 22, 1908

LAUNCH PARTY WAS A DELIGHTFUL ONE
Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Woodward Entertain Many Friends on San Francisco Bay

Mr. and Mrs. Edward F Woodward gave a very delightful launch party on San Francisco Bay on Sunday in honor of their daughter, Miss Irma Woodward and Miss Anna May Bell, both brides-to-be. Fifty of their friends from the city and a number of young people from Berkeley were invited guests.

At Tiburon the party embarked on the government launch "Golden Gate," and first went out o the Heads and inspected Uncle Sam's battleships of the Pacific squadron. The cruiser Pennsylvania was boarded and the party conducted over the big vessel.

Goat Island was visited and the naval training school inspected. The visitors were in time to see one hundred young, sturdy lads pack up and start for the Pennsylvania for the purpose of entering active service in the Navy. Angel Island and the immigration inspection quarters were also visited.

Aboard the "Golden Gate," Mr. and Mrs. Woodward entertained their guests at luncheon, and in every way the cruise on the Bay was very pleasant and entertaining. Mr. and Mrs. Woodward were cordially thanked by their guests.

- Press Democrat, August 25, 1908

ENTERTAINED FOR BRIDES-TO-BE

Mrs. Henrietta A. Hahman entertained two charming brides-to-be at her handsome home on Third street Tuesday evening. Miss Irma Woodward of this city and Miss Anna May Bell of Visalia were the guests of honor, and many were present at the reception.

Cards formed the principal feature of entertainment, five hundred being played during the evening. Mrs. C. A. Wright was successful in capturing the ladies' first prize, and Miss Bell took second honors. The gents' prizes went to J. Allan Wallis and Miss Alma Keser, while Miss Woodward secured the slam prize and Mrs. Charles F. Rohrer got the consolation prize.

The Hahman residence was handsomely adorned, a pretty decorative scheme being shown, and the card games took place in a veritable floral bower. The Misses Hahman assisted their mother in entertaining, and Miss Clara Hahman rendered a number of vocal selections during the evening. Following a delicious tete-a-tete supper, served at midnight, a social season followed, and the guests departed for the homes at an early hour Wednesday morning.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 26, 1908

One of the most elaborate functions of the season was the luncheon in honor of Miss Anna May Bell, given by Mrs. John S. Taylor and Mrs. Zana Taylor, on Wednesday at the beautiful Taylor residence on Mendocino Avenue. The decoration scene was carried out with exquisite taste. Pink and white were the prevailing colors, and white and pink roses and pink amaryllis the flowers used. It was a progressive luncheon. In the dining room, where the decorations were in white, five tempting courses were served, while for the desert and confections the guests moved to another room, all in pink. Covers were laid for a dozen guests. The name cards were decidedly unique. They were of "bride" design included a dainty little bride's veil. A toast to the bride-to-be, Miss Bell was heartily proposed by the guests and some very pretty sentiments were voiced as the handsome loving cup was handed around the table. The cup was handpainted, displaying Miss Taylor's handiwork. The loving cup was presented to Miss Bell as a souvenir of the occasion. It was a very happy occasion for all present and one that will be fraught with many pleasant memories.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, September 6, 1908

Miss Anna May Bell departed of the first of the week for her home in Visalia after a visit here with Colonel and Mrs. James Wyatt Oates, during which she was certain made much of in view of her approaching marriage. Her visit on this occasion served to cement more firmly the ties of friendship that exist between herself and a large coterie of friends in the City of Roses. She is a very charming girl and her great popularity is deserved.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, September 13, 1908

Miss Anna May Bell is to become a bride on October 20 and Miss Irma Woodward will be the bridesmaid at the wedding. This is certainly very nice in view of the large number of joint social functions at which these two popular girls were entertained in the City of Roses.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, October 3, 1908

Col. and Mrs. Oates have received their new automobile. They anticipate enjoying my much pleasure out of the machine.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, October 3, 1908

WEDDING IS TO OCCUR THIS EVENING

Mrs. James Wyatt Oates and her mother Mrs. Solomon, and Miss Irma Woodward, left yesterday morning for Visalia, where they will attend the wedding of Miss Anna May Bell, which takes place this evening at eight o'clock. Miss Woodward is to be the bridesmaid for Miss Bell. Mrs. Oates and Miss Woodward will return home Saturday but Mrs. Solomon is to remain in Visalia for couple of weeks. Colonel J. W. Oates was prevented from going to the wedding on account of press of business matters just at this time.

- Press Democrat, October 21, 1908

Cards have been received your announcing the marriage of Miss Anna May Bell and Samuel C. Dunlap which was solemnized last Wednesday night in the M. E. church at Visalia. It was in every detail a brilliant function. Mrs. James W. Oates, Mrs. M. S. Solomon and Miss Irma Woodward, of this city, were among those present, Miss Woodward being one of the bridesmaids. In addition to gifts on her wedding day the telegraph carried many congratulatory messages from the City of Roses. Much was said in the press of the southland about the marriage. Here is one of the accounts:

Miss Anna May Bell, one of Visalia's most popular young women, was wedded at the M. E. Church South last night to Samuel C. Dunlap of Los Angeles. Rev. J. E. Moore of Fresno officiating. It was a brilliant affair. The bridesmaids were Miss Irma Woodward of Santa Rosa, Msiss Myrtle Harrell of Fresno, and the maid of honor Miss Eva Gray of Los Angeles. The ushers were Messrs. S. S. Stitt, L. H. Allen and G. H. Schneider of Los Angeles. Mrs. H. G. Parish and Mrs. H. H. Holley rendered "Oh, Promise Me," on piano and violin.

The bride was attired in a dainty imported dress of messaline with point lace trimmings and carried a large bouquet of lilies of the valley. The matron of honor, Mrs. Connick of San Francisco, herself a bride of a few weeks, was attired in a gown of lace. The bridesmaids wore directoire gowns of yellow satin, and carried yellow chrysanthemums.

Following the ceremony the relatives and out-of-town guests repaired to the Bell residents where a collation was served and a reception was held until 11 o'clock, and the newly-married couple left for Tulare by auto and took the Owl for Los Angeles, where they will make their home.

The church decorations, which were arranged by Miss Kate Parsons and Miss Myrtle Harrell of Fresno, were among the most elaborate seen in Visalia in some time.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, October 25, 1908

Colonel and Mrs. Oates and other Santa Rosa friends have received a number of letters from Mrs. Dunlap (Anna May Bell). Mrs. Dunlap always likes to be pleasantly remembered to her large circle of friends in the City of Roses. Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap are now at home to their friends in an attractive residence in Los Angeles.

- "Society Gossip" Press Democrat, November 22, 1908

ASK THE BARON ABOUT HIS LAST JOB

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Never had Santa Rosa seen someone with money like this: Coming to live here was an incredibly rich German aristocrat. When asked about his fortune, the Baron would only offer a long whistle to indicate that it had no end. Trouble was, all that great wealth actually belonged to his wife, who was so frugal that he was forced to sometimes ask his new friends for loans to cover his living expenses.

Uh-oh.

"Baron Von Senden" was a con-man, of course, and the smooth-talking young fellow fooled Santa Rosa's real estate agents who hoped he'd buy a large ranch in the area, possibly even the sprawling McDonald property, which was about half the size of Santa Rosa at the time (it was a square-ish plot of land between Summerfield Road and the city reservoir, including all of Spring Lake Park and most of Howarth Park).

But it was the society swells in San Francisco who really got rooked by the "Baron." who treated him to fine dinners and nights at the theatre, all the while forcing upon him wads of their cash to ease his terribly embarrassing lack of pocket money. As a show of his gratitude, he gifted them with boxes of cherries, fresh butter, and suckling pigs, all from his huge dairy in Point Reyes and his grand orchard in Santa Rosa. In reality, the "Baron" was just buying these treats in the San Francisco markets.

When he finally fled the area with some $900 in his pockets, the San Francisco Call discovered that this charming young man was actually Edward Miller, who came to the United States from Germany around 1890. (Miller probably read the name "Baron Von Senden" in a newspaper; the real man with that title was then an admiral in the German Navy and diplomat. And, by the by, some fifteen years later, another Baron Von Senden, presumably his son, was involved in the Black Reichswehr, the banned pro-Nazi faction inside the German Army as Hitler was rising to power.)

Miller had worked on land owned by the governor of Tennessee, drifted to Michigan, and then the Bay Area in October. 1907. He arrived here just in time for the Bank Panic of 1907, which nearly derailed the entire U.S. economy. He was employed at an Oakland stable for a time, but circumstances apparently forced him to take one of the worst jobs imaginable: He became a San Francisco rat catcher.

(RIGHT: A crew of San Francisco rat catchers pictured in a 1908 magazine article about efforts to eradicate sources of plague. The men were paid per rat captured and killed, with the dead vermin sent at the end of the day to the "ratatorium" where the rats were skinned and examined for signs of infection. CLICK to enlarge)

A little over a year past the great 1906 earthquake, San Francisco was facing another outbreak of bubonic plague. During the first four years of the century, over 100 people had died in the city; now another epidemic loomed. The hero of the day was Dr. Rupert Blue, who mobilized the city's Bureau of Health into an efficient machine that searched for rats, checked them for disease, and promptly dispatched public health officers to wipe them out. The foot soldiers in this army were the motley crew of rat catchers, men either desperate to earn a dime per rat or just in it for the killing fun. It was a dangerous business that paid poorly, and Dr. Blue tried incentive schemes to motivate them, while his assistant wrote an instruction manual, "How to Catch Rats," that included the instruction that a chick or duckling should be placed near the trap to offer come-hither cheeps.

The intriguing aspect of this story comes down to the moment that Edward Miller, a rat catcher with the dimmest of futures, decided he would transform himself into the brightly gilded Baron Von Senden. How he gathered the nerve to make that metamorphosis must have required a good measure of desperation mixed with a criminal slant, and maybe a hearty dash of Don Quixote-like madness as well.

THE "BARON" WAS IN CITY OF ROSES
Bogus Titled Foreigner Negotiated for Ranch Property But Did Not Come Through With the Coin

A number of Santa Rosans, including the real estate men, read with interest of the disappearance of the bogus Baron Von Senden, alias E. Miller, from San Francisco, leaving a host of unpaid bills in his wake.

It was stated in the metropolitan newspaper that the "baron" had been to Santa Rosa and had negotiated for the purchase of a fine ranch. This statement is true. The baron was here on several occasions and was accompanied by an attractive woman, brunette, whom he introduced as his wife. They stopped at a local hotel and the supposedly titled foreigner gave people the impression that he was a man of considerable wealth.

It was ascertained here yesterday that all the "baron" did was to negotiate but did not invest any of the coin in land hereabouts. He did a whole lot of inspecting of places, particularly the big McDonald ranch, near the city pumping station.

- Press Democrat, October 25, 1908

POSES AS BARON; REAPS BIG CROP
Edward Miller Cuts Wide Swath and Disappears, Leaving His Creditors to Mourn

With no more capital than a bogus title, an easy manner and a colossal nerve, Edward Miller, a young German, who post as Baron von Senden, was able to win his way into the most exclusive clubs of San Francisco, to gain the friendship of men high in finance and society, and incidentally to extract from them sums of money reaching a total of $900. When he made his final cleanup the young "baron" made a hurried departure to fields unknown. Now the story is being told in the clubs and cafes and those who were in the confidences of the young foreigner are bending every effort to establish an alibi.

There was no limit to which the baron would not expand his riches if occasion demanded. He had been a rat catcher on Dr. Blue's staff, he had worked in an Oakland livery stable, but after he made his grand entry into society he became, according to his own tales, the owner of a vast dairy ranch in Marin County and a wonderful orchard near Santa Rosa. He sent rolls of butter to his friends from his "dairy"; he sent boxes of cherries tied with pink ribbons from his orchard, and to those for whom he had borrowed the largest sums he sent sucking pigs from his farm--all purchased in lower Washington street with the coin he had coaxed from his benefactors.

He was received at the Pacific Union club, he autoed with Manager Meyerfeld of the Louvre, he drank champagne with Antonio Blanco of restaurant fame, he inspected Marin county with President M. T. Freitas of the Portuguese-American bank, he dined sumptuously with Dr, von Horstman of the German hospital, he rode to the theater in Kelly's carriages at Kelly's expense, and he sipped tea with a young society matron from whom he accepted, with many protestations, a temporary loan of $50.

The baron was a devotee of the automobile, the wine supper and the night life of the ocean boulevard. HIs 250 pounds rocked with laughter at every jest, with an entertaining accent he told pleasing stories and the thought that the baron was not the Pierpont Morgan of the kaisers realm never entered the minds of those with whom he dined and motored.

The baron was an artist in his line. His wife, he said, was the wealthy member of the family. She had the money and the baron would give a long whistle to indicate that it had no end. But his wife was frugal and he was "compelled to borrow occasionally" from his friends. The early advances he repaid only to enlarge his credit. The end came when he made his great coup and departed with $900 tucked under his velvet vest.

Miller came to America 18 years ago with the letter of introduction to the governor of Tennessee. He became the manager of the governor's estate, and while in the South married a young woman of excellent family. She was with him in California, but was ill a great part of the time. From Tennessee Miller drifted to Milwaukee, and came to San Francisco in October of the last year.

At first he worked in an Oakland stable and then joined the rat catching regiment. It was while working in this capacity that be conceived the idea of capitalizing his nerve, with highly successful results.

Meyerfeld was good enough to advance him $250, Bianco thought he was to have a partner in his business and made general contributions to the visitor's cash account. Freitas also made generous donations. A number of cafe proprietors were on the list for large amounts. In fact, the list of contributors resembles the subscription list for the entertainment of the fleet.

The baron was not satisfied with the local field, but worked the suburbs as well. San Rafael remembered him, as does San Jose and even the pleasant little village of Point Reyes. It was at Point Reyes that the baron had his mythical dairy with 6,000 cows.

The baron was a gifted talker. He could discuss military affairs and politics, but he appears to have been at his best at finance.

- San Francisco Call, October 23, 1908

ONCE THERE WAS A PLACE CALLED BELLEVUE

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A century ago there were scores of tiny communities in Sonoma County that appeared on no map, yet everyone knew where they were. Explored here earlier was Hinton, which was large enough to have its own post office for a time; nearby was Vine Hill, Trenton and Peachland. And then there was a string of farms south of Santa Rosa known as Bellevue.

You've passed the ghost of Bellevue countless times without knowing it. (See map.) When driving south on Highway 101, the Hearn Ave. exit leads to "auto row" along Corby Ave. After the last car dealership, the road takes a sharp turn to the west. That's Bellevue Avenue, a desolate mix of gritty homes and industrial buildings near the highway, but nicer a few blocks further down the street where Elsie Allen High School can be found. On the east side of the freeway there's the other part of Bellevue Ave. off of Santa Rosa Avenue; this spur is part of a modern subdivision, with landscaped streets, a park, and a grade school, a world apart from its poor relation on the other side of the freeway.

It was the construction of the highway that split Bellevue, the state of California seizing land for the road under eminent domain. The last we hear of Bellevue is in a 1957 Press Democrat article about a jury trial where an 84-year-old Bellevue farmer and the state fought over the fair market value for his place. The state's attorney argued it wasn't worth much because it was only good for truck-farm agriculture; witnesses for the farmer said it had potential for an industrial and/or subdivision site, and, of course, that's exactly what the two wings of Bellevue became.

The 1908 item below jokes that residents of the "lively settlement" of Bellevue were having so many children that they might rename the community after President Theodore Roosevelt, who held nutty concerns about "race suicide" unless "old Colonial stock" white Americans kept their birthrates up. As discussed in an earlier essay, Teddy's views weren't really Nazi-ish, but awkwardly expressed encouragement of American exceptionalism.

MAY CHANGE NAME TO "ROOSEVELT CORNERS"

Bellevue, the lively settlement just south of Santa Rosa, is establishing new records with alarming frequency. They not only raise splendid fruit, large poultry and many fine eggs from the flocks there, but in other lines they also excel. Wednesday night Mrs. Harry J. Barnett presented her husband with twins--two handsome baby girls, and the proud father is receiving congratulations on the momentous event in a dignified manner. Eleven children have been born in that vicinity within less than a year and the residents declare there is nothing resembling race suicide in that section. It is in serious contemplation to change the name of Bellevue to "Roosevelt Corners," in honor of Teddy and his race suicide theories. The mother and daughters are doing nicely, and Mr. Barnett is certainly the happiest man in seventeen states over the important event.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 15, 1908

THE KILLER RACCOON OF THIRD STREET

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Sounds of a spring evening, downtown Santa Rosa, 1908: Crickets chirping, horses clopping, men blasting guns skywards into trees, blindly, with no light for aiming except for flickering candles and lanterns. It was probably a good idea to stay safely indoors that night.

The quarry was a formerly pet raccoon, who had escaped and developed a taste for caged chicken. As it wasn't mentioned that this 'coon was minus a leg, it presumably was another animal than the one shot out of a tree by a cop back in 1905.

The story ended with a boy selling the dead raccoon in Santa Rosa's little Chinatown, but given that many old-timers from the Southern U.S. were quite fond of raccoon recipes, the enterprising young man might have made more by selling the carcass to a cook along McDonald Avenue.

COON HUNT IN THE HEART OF TOWN
Animal Treed and Killed in the Grounds of the Hahman Residence on Third Street

There was a coon hunt right in the heart of Santa Rosa at a late hour on Friday night and the game was treed and finally dropped into earth.

For some time the tell tale nightly slaughter in chicken roosts, particularly on Second and Third streets, and the knowledge that the animal was abroad in the land, having escaped from a pen were it had been kept as a pet, has kept householders on the qui vive and officers and civilians have been on the lookout for Mr. Coon.

About 10:30 o'clock Friday night a commotion in the chicken house in the grounds of the residence of Mrs. Henrietta A. Hahmann on Third street--a place previously visited by the animal--warned members of the family that the four-footed prowler was around making a another call. The fine Plymouth Rock hens, tasted once before, had called back an appetite for more.

A telephone message to police headquarters for Chief of Police Fred Rushmore and Police Officer I. N. Lindley to the scene. There was an exciting chase and the animal took to a tree. It was some time before the hiding place of the chicken thief could be located and then Chief Rushmore took a shot into the leafy bower and missed in the uncertain light afforded by candles and lanterns. Policemen Lindley joined in the fusillade. C. Louis Kolf who lives a little way further down the street, and is a great hunter, was attracted to the place and he brought his rifle with him. The rifle proved Mr. Coon's undoing. Rushmore took aim and this time the bullet found a billet in the animal's anatomy, and it fell with a dull thud to the ground. Another bullet from Kolf and all was over.

A lad with an eye to business and a recollection that Chinese make mysterious dishes with just such pot luck, came along. He shouldered the chicken-fed coon and wended his way to Chinatown. There was much rejoicing in Mongolian quarters. He found a willing purchaser and before long the aroma of cooking with doubtless a coon-chicken flavor, came floating out of the shack in which the feast was in course of preparation.

- Press Democrat, May 10, 1908

HE'S HERE TO KILL ANIMALS FOR "THE DEAD ZOO"

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His story sounded like something made up on the spot: Honest, officer, I was hired by Lord Rothschild to kill these birds. The Lake County game warden must have thought the poacher before him was a clumsy liar or maybe daft; why would one of the world's richest men send some guy to Lakeport to illegally shoot birds?

Incredibly, the story was true. The man was Dr. Charles M. Harris, a renowned taxidermist who could skin fifty birds in a day. For more than a decade, he had indeed worked for Walter Rothschild, the eldest son of fabulously wealthy London banker Baron Rothschild. While other powerful bankers in the late 19th century loaned money to giants of industry, the House of Rothschild funded nations, having built the largest fortune in modern world history. Walter, however, wanted to spend money as fast as possible. He was an amateur zoologist, and a collector on a scale that made William Randolph Hearst look like a piker. He seemingly wanted one specimen of everything that flies, walks, crawls, swims or slithers, alive or dead. He was an eccentric but fascinating man, often so obsessed with his collections that his sanity was in doubt.

Before charging down the trail that led Dr. Harris to Lake County in 1908, indulge me a paragraph of rant. The story of Walter Rothschild is now my quintessential example of how unreliable the Internet can be for research. Except for a bare-bones Wikipedia page offering random facts, there are only a handful of online resources (biblio below in addition to article links) that tell even a part of his remarkable tale, and sometimes the facts are cockeyed or the rough patches are sanded flat. In a couple of my research dead-ends, Google Books blocked critical pages in "preview view" or hinted in "snippet view" that intriguing information may (or may not) be found in a book. Look, I would happily buy a digital copy of the book (or even just that essential page!) on the spot, since a scanned copy is obviously on their hard disks. But that's not an option, even though these are books long out of print and usually can't be obtained through inter-library loan. If I hadn't lucked across a copy of "Dear Lord Rothschild" - a biography written by his niece and difficult to find in the U.S. - I wouldn't have even known how to properly research his life. The takeaway lesson is threefold: Even in 2011, loads of critical information is still not available online; Internet articles - including this one - have no standing next to a real book that took years (decades?) to research and write; also, a Google Book search is no substitute for a good book index and bibliography. End of rant.

The first anecdote usually told about Walter Rothschild (1868-1937) has him announcing at seven years old that he was going to build a little museum of insect specimens in a garden shed. But an incident from age five was even more revealing. He brought a dead butterfly to his mother, which she told him was a "nice Tortoiseshell." The little boy disagreed: "No, it's not. It's different." And he was right - that butterfly really was from another, rarer species.

The next vignette from Walter's youth finds him at 13, when he met Albert Günther, head of the zoology department at the Natural History Museum in London. Walter quickly attached himself to Günther and made him a mentor, writing through his teenage years hundreds of letters to the man ten years older than his father. Günther was cautious in encouraging the boy, aware that the powerful family was expecting Walter to become a financial Napoleon instead of a hunter of bugs.

Walter had no formal childhood education, but attended colleges in Germany and at Cambridge for three years (at the latter, he brought along a flock of brown kiwis, which can grow as large as a big chicken). When he turned twenty-one in 1889, Walter and his father came to an understanding; he would join the bank to learn the trade, and his father would give him a plot of land on the outskirts of "Tring Park," the family's six square-mile country estate where he could build a museum to house his collections. In truth, his father probably wanted the museum to be built as much as Walter; the manor house, sheds and rented buildings were overflowing with boxes stuffed with hundreds of thousands of mounted beetles, butterflies, moths, and things larger.

If Baron Rothschild hoped his son's interest in zoology would wane as he grew older, he was quite wrong. From his banker's chair over the next twenty years, Walter would fund over 300 collecting expeditions, including Dr. Harris' bird-hunting trip to Northern California. If anything, his collecting mania grew out of control, and some thought he was mad. When Walter ordered Dr. Harris to the Galápagos islands with the mission to capture every single giant tortoise they could find, Harris first secretly told Albert Günther about the planned trip, giving him the opportunity to intervene (he didn't).

The Galápagos expedition is well-documented, and shows that these trips came with considerable risks. Four men died and Harris was nearly killed by yellow fever. Walter found his expedition budgets swelling with payments to doctors, widows, morticians, and collectors seriously injured - on another trip, a man had his arm ripped off by a leopard. But Dr. Harris managed to bring sixty live giant tortoise to England. (Capturing a giant tortoise is the easy part, as it turned out. When Harris and the others would find one, they turned it onto the back of its shell and weighted it down with a rock before going off to search for more. But when they returned, they would sometimes find the animals had shaken the rocks off and flipped themselves back over. Thus the mission became not the hunt for rare tortoise, but the search for nice heavy rocks.)


(Images courtesy of Natural History Museum at Tring)

Walter's herd of giant tortoises became the signature part of his menagerie; one of the most famous photographs of him is the one at right, wearing a proper Edwardian morning coat and top hat while riding on the back of a tortoise being coaxed along with a leaf of lettuce on a stick. The other best-known picture has Walter driving a four-in-hand carriage pulled by zebras, a stunt he performed in a courtyard of Buckingham Palace to demonstrate they could be tamed - although he later admitted he was terrified of what might happen when a young girl in the royal family tried to pet one of them. Also roaming the grounds of his museum were kangaroos, ostriches. wild horses, emus, deer, turkeys, cassowaries, a tame wolf, a monkey, an anteater, and an opossum, which slept under his desk during the day. And when these pets died, he had them skinned and stuffed for his museum, which became known by local children as the “Dead Zoo.” (His 'evolution of the dog' exhibit is particularly creepy.)

Although there was a trench separating the museum grounds from the rest of the estate, escapes likely added to the tensions between Walter and his father. The kangaroos would regularly tear up the flower beds surrounding the manor house, causing the Baron's staff of gardeners to often have to replant daily. One of the cassowaries - a flightless bird that can grow taller than an adult human - attacked the Baron's horse when he was on a morning ride, and a dingo bit several horses in the stables.

The crisis came in 1907-1908, when it became clear that Walter's spending had gone off the rails. Most of the property he owned had been mortgaged, and the museum was deeply in debt. The Baron disinherited his son, and Walter resigned from the bank. The estate would go to his younger brother Charles, who remained in banking. (Charles, by the way, was also a lifelong entomology buff, building the world's top collection of fleas and discovering the identity of the plague flea.) Walter would inherit the title (becoming the Second Lord Rothschild) and £1,000,000, more than enough for him to continue expanding his museum and funding new expeditions.

The one thing that Walter desired most he could not buy: Membership into the scientific community. He had pissed off everyone at the Natural History Museum except Günther with his fits of pique; once he threatened to break his promises of specimen donation when the curator named one of "his" giant tortoises without Walter's permission. Rarely would a scientific journal publish his letters or studies, and when his work was questioned or rejected, he responded with tirades insulting the editor. And despite having amassed the most significant collection of bugs on the entire planet, he wasn't even allowed to join the Royal Society until 1911. Stymied in gaining any foothold in this fraternity, he gave up and launched his own scientific journal, with himself as editor.

In many ways, Walter Rothschild was like Luther Burbank. Both expected (demanded, really) due respect as scientists even though they ignored the basic precepts of the scientific method, such as keeping good notes on your research. More than once, Walter mistakenly claimed to have discovered a new species when the creature was actually still a juvenile or only had individual variations in color or markings. And of the millions of butterflies in his collection, he liked to boast, "I have no duplicates," a claim that defies belief.

Walter also had a career as a Member of Parliament, and played a key role in the movement to establish modern-day Israel, a topic explored in depth on many other web pages. He continued to expand his museum, set back only by the 1931 purchase of his entire stuffed bird collection by the American Museum of Natural History. That Walter sold anything - particularly one of the crown jewels of his life's work - seems antithetical to his nature, and it was. But he needed to raise $225,000 because he was being blackmailed by a former mistress, said to be a peeress and her husband. While he could have tapped the family coffers for the sum, he couldn't bear the thought of his elderly mother learning of his indiscretion.

In the end his collection included 300,000 bird skins, 2,000 stuffed birds (presumably stuffed after the blackmail sale) and over 2 million butterflies and moths. He left it all to the UK Natural History Museum, and exhibits are still on display in his museums. If you visit, skip gallery six with the creepy dogs, all of them with glass-marble eyes sadly looking at you as if they want someone to explain why their old companion did this to them. (UPDATE: There was a dog cemetery at Tring, so few, if any, of these animals were actually pets of the family.)

Whatever his failings and foibles, what Walter Rothschild created was simply incredible, never attempted before by an individual and rarely by nations. A member of the Rothschild Archive summed it up well:

It is hard to absorb the scale of these numbers, but the logistics of collection which lie behind them is, to me, still more staggering. Walter was employing collectors and arranging expeditions, as we have seen, from the time he was up at Cambridge. He continued throughout his life. The journey for each one of his specimens, ending in a drawer in Tring, begins in some remote part of the globe and involves, in each case, a collector, a packer, a sequence of transporters, in some cases a dealer, a taxidermist or setter in the case of insects and, finally, one of the Tring trio to identify, label, record, file and perhaps publish. All of this repeated millions of times. And at the heart of this, one man’s drive, organizational ability and finance.... It was equally significant that, perhaps for the first time, the man with resources could conceive a scheme on a global scale and actually have a chance of pulling it off. As a Rothschild, Walter would have been used to hearing his relatives in business talking in such global terms: their day-to-day business involved resources and finance for virtually every corner of the globe. And as a Rothschild, he had access - or so it seemed - to unlimited resources.

But wind the clock back to 1908, the crucial year that Dr. Harris found himself under arrest in Lake County. What a loss that neither Press Democrat editor Ernest Finley nor other local newspapermen knew who he was, or his link to one of the most eccentric and interesting persons in the world. What a story it would have made to sit down with him and ask, "tell me about your boss. Tell me what it was like to sail a ship with a cargo of sixty giant tortoises around Cape Horn. Tell me about all your other adventures hunting for the great Dead Zoo."

FOR FURTHER READING
Something in the Genes: Walter Rothschild, Zoological Collector Extraordinaire
A sheltered life: the unexpected history of the giant tortoise
The Aurelian legacy: British butterflies and their collectors
Introducing Walter Rothschild (interesting but whitewashed video from The Natural History Museum at Tring)

CLEVER CAPTURE OF BIRD KILLER
Deputy Lea Lands a Man Who Claims He is Securing a Collection for the Rothschilds

In order to provide the Rothschilds, the wealthy London bankers, with a collection of California birds of all descriptions, Charles N. Harris says he went gunning in Lake County. When arrested he already killed about 140 birds. Deputy Game Commissioner A. F. Lea made the arrest in Lakeport the day before yesterday, and Harris is awaiting trial.

Deputy Lea stated yesterday that Harris was in the habit of killing the birds and then take them back to San Francisco where they were stuffed and mounted. The Rothschilds are to pay a big sum for the collection when it is completed, according to Harris' story. Some of the birds he secured in Lake County are said to have been Mountain Quail.

- Press Democrat, March 25, 1908

MORE ABOUT MAN WHO KILLS BIRDS
Case is Unique in Annals of Prosecution of Violations of the Game Laws

Mention was made in the Press Democrat Wednesday morning of the arrest in Lakeport of Charles N. Harris, who is securing an exhibit of stuffed birds for the Rothschilds of England, on a charge of killing birds out of season. The Lakeport Press adds these additional details of the case:

"Game Warden Alonzo Lea and A. M.. Fairfield dropped into town Thursday and yesterday arrested Charles M. Harris, a cousin of Jack Wilson, who has been in the county about five weeks. The charge against the man was that of killing quail out of season. He appeared before Justice Bruton, pleaded guilty and was released on $150 cash bail, and April 4th was set as the date for pronouncing sentence. Seventeen charges are held pending against him but will probably not be prosecuted.

"The case is an interesting one and unique in the annals of the prosecution of violations of game laws. Harris is an expert taxidermist and has traveled over much of the world in his business, and is said to have been in the employ of the Rothschilds, the millionaire bankers of Europe, preparing specimens for their private collection. The Sunday Examiner a short time ago had a page account and pictures of some of his work. Here he has been making a collection of the native birds of this county, and the Wardens seized 148 specimens of various bird skins, particularly prepared for mounting. The killing of protected birds is permitted by law when they are taken for public institutions of science on a regularly authorized permit but Harris admitted that he was collecting for private sale and had no permits.

The collection was a revelation of the wealth and beauty of bird life in this county. The confiscated skins will probably be presented by the Game Commission to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, which lost all his collection in the big fire."

- Press Democrat, March 26, 1908

THAT'S MRS. LADY UNDERTAKER, PLEASE

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You have to wonder which came first: The marriage proposal or the suggestion that she should also become an embalmer. But here's Mrs. Moke in 1908, a newly minted graduate of the United States College of Embalming, only the second woman in the state to be certified.

Moke's first wife, Lottie, died along with a daughter in the great earthquake, and he married again about a year later.

In July, the Mokes welcomed another undertaker into their business: W. B. Ward of Ft. Bragg. The funeral parlor was renamed Moke & Ward.

MRS. MOKE IS GRADUATE
Takes Degree From School on Embalming

Last Thursday evening Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Moke return from San Francisco, where they have been attending the United States College of Embalming. Mrs. Moke passed the examinations and received a diploma and is now an embalmer and undertaker. She has the distinction of being one of the only two lady graduates of an embalming school in the state of California. Mrs. Moke put in some hard hours studying during the four weeks they were away and she is glad to be back home again. Mr. Moke also took the examinations again, as his diploma was destroyed in the earthquake and fire, and he took this means of getting it renewed. Mr. and Mrs. Moke attended a banquet Wednesday evening at the Jefferson Hotel, which was given by the class of which they were members. There were 13 in the class and a jolly time was had. Mr. and Mrs. Moke came home by way of Sacramento to spend a day with Mrs. Moke's mother, who resides in the capital city.

- Santa Rosa Republican, March 23, 1908

LET'S DUMP THE PROSTITUTES ON THE ITALIAN DISTRICT

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Santa Rosa's 1908 leaders faced a dilemma: They wanted to close the redlight district, yet still keep the prostitutes around - somewhere.

Following the city elections that year, the mayor and City Council were expected to crack down on prostitution (see the previous entry for more background). Trouble was, many of the most powerful men in town profited from the trade, either directly or indirectly. Some, like Con Shea, actually collected rent from the brothels; others made a buck because vice in the downtown area was a driving factor in Santa Rosa's economy. There were never fewer than 30-40 saloons where gambling was common, particularly in horse-racing season. Before the earthquake Santa Rosa had the reputation of being a wide open town after dark, and little had changed; pre-quake Santa Rosa had eleven brothels, now slightly chipped down to eight. (For those curious how these numbers are known with certainty: The Sanborn Co. fire insurance maps in this period identified brothels as "Female Boarding," or just "F. B.")

It was decided - exactly by whom, it is not clear - that the brothels would have to close, or at least move away from the area of First and D streets, by August 1. Yet a debate over what to do about the redlight district stumbled on through the summer, and past the deadline. There were three possibilities being hashed out:

THROW OUT THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE AS WELL It was proposed immediately that if Santa Rosa was to rid itself of its tenderloin, then the nearby Chinese and Japanese community also should be evicted. Most of the City Council and several prominent men quickly chimed in agreement, but it was a senseless display of pure racism; that tiny neighborhood - mostly the half-block of Second St. nearest D Street - was accused of no crime. And while all kinds of anti-Chinese rhetoric was common in that era (particularly in the Press Democrat), it's surprising to find the Japanese were now lumped in as part of the "objectionable element." The Santa Rosa papers usually portrayed the Japanese community with respect - a marked contrast to most Bay Area dailies. Just a few months earlier, the Santa Rosa Republican had reported a warm-and-fuzzy tale of a Japanese woman from Geyserville who nearly died before reluctantly seeking medical help in Santa Rosa, and a followup article expressed the family's deepest gratitude to her caregivers; now the same paper was offering a letter headlined "Proposition to Clear Away Filth." (The letter's author was John Robinson, the former proprietor of the quake-destroyed Eagle hotel that was on the corner of Main and 2nd, at the end of the same block as Chinatown.)

BUILD THE MAYOR'S PARK The final dirty trick of the election of 1908 was the last-minute announcement by the "Good Ol' Boy" candidate for mayor that he was making deals to buy up the properties in the tenderloin district, level the buildings, and transform the area into a park (Santa Rosa's first). Little had apparently happened since the election, except for rumors that a Catholic order might be interested in building a hospital in the area, and an offer from Luther Burbank to donate an adjoining parcel for the creation of a "Burbank Conservatory" where some of his plants could be put on display. Although the PD gushed that the "project is now assuming definite shape," it was all just big talk. The area remained mixed residential/commercial/junkyard until after WWI, when this section of town became the local "gasoline alley" for the repair of cars and trucks.

RELOCATE THE REDLIGHT DISTRICT TO THE ITALIAN NEIGHBORHOOD The craziest idea emerged less than a month before the deadline for the prostitutes to leave: Create a new tenderloin on West Sixth Street, in the Italian section of town. Something like that was apparently discussed a few weeks earlier: "T. C. Johnson offered it to purchase a tract and erect the necessary buildings for the occupants. This would leave them within the city limits and thus under police control, and yet they would be away from practically everybody." Nothing came of this idea for a planned community (or theme park?) and the next we heard of a plan to relocate the ladies was a denial that the City Council wanted them moved to West Sixth. Then on August 3 - after the deadline for them to leave their current digs - the Republican reported, "Arrangements have been underway during the day to lease a piece of ground on lower Sixth street from Max Reutersham, where all of the houses of this character will in future be assembled, if the proposition now being worked out is carried." Probably needless to say, the Italian community had a fit. In two days, they collected 293 names on a petition and presented it to the City Council. Nothing came of this plan, either.

The plan to dump the prostitutes on the Italian neighborhood showed there was no plan whatsoever, and no city leadership. It was one thing to posture and make fine speeches about cleaning up the town, but not so easy in practice. Apparently several madams owned their houses of ill-repute, and were not about to evict themselves. Even Sadie McLean, the infamous madam whose brothel was closed after being sued by a neighbor, only moved a couple of doors down to 710 First street, which was an even larger building. A year later, the newsletter from the prohibitionists decried, "We would like to ask with all due respect for Mr. Gray, what has been done while in office? He was going to clean up the notorious 'red light district.' He has not done anything in that line. The town is going on in the same old way."

OBJECTIONABLE ELEMENTS ARE TO BE REMOVED
Mayor and Councilmen Declare Against Redlight District

An effort is in progress to get rid of the "red light" district in the city. Mayor Gray and the Councilmen have the matter in charge and they are hopeful of success.

Councilman Forgett stated that he was in favor of the plan, provided that they would take the Chinese and Japanese houses along with the sporting houses and this seemed to meet with the favor of all, and so the plans have been worked out.

Councilman Barham when seen about the matters stated: "They should go. That's all there is about it. I have always said that. Is one of the finest parts of Santa Rosa and the removal will improve the property there. It's a duty we owe to the people of Santa Rosa to remove that blot."

Councilman Bronson was also interviewed and he remarked, "Well, I am in favor of removing them when the time comes and that time is pretty soon. And then force them to stop the selling of liquor. I believe that could be a little beauty spot along the creek instead of the present eyesore."

T. C. Johnson offered it to purchase a tract and erect the necessary buildings for the occupants. This would leave them within the city limits and thus under police control, and yet they would be away from practically everybody.

It was also found that a number of the parties who are interested in the properties which are now occupied by the sporting women are in favor of the change and they would encourage the same by helping financially. Mayor Gray, in speaking of the movement Thursday, stated that while everything is not yet completed and no official action has yet been taken, it is so arranged that the plans can be carried out and that the council will doubtless make an order for the cleanup. There is also some talk of taking the liquor away from the sporting houses and allowing nothing of the kind to be carried out there.

The removal of the undesirable section from the vicinity of First and D streets and also along Second street between D and Main streets, will open to the public one of the most desirable locations for a residence section, and it is expected that the banks of the creek will then be available for a park, and with a dam in the creek below the new steel bridge, will afford one of the most beautiful natural pleasure spots to be found anywhere.

Mr. Gray has also interviewed Mr. Burbank regarding the project and it is understood that the latter has looked favorably upon a plan for the erecting of a conservatory on the rear of his property and near the proposed park, and in this will be kept a fine collection of his creations. This is to be open to the public and will be in charge of the city gardener. Thus the people coming here will have a chance to see the best of Mr. Burbank's works, and yet not call at his home and bother him.

There is another move that may result from the plan proposed, and that is the probable location of the new Sisters' Hospital in that section and it is stated that a large donation for a site can be obtained there after the other houses have been taken away. This will tend to enhance the value of all property in the vicinity, and the property owners will be anxious to have the hospital located there.

Con Shea, one of the property owners of the section, was seen about the matter and at first was not inclined to say anything about the movement, but when urgent exclaimed: "The sooner the better!" He then continued and stated that if the movement was to be a success he thought the Chinese and Japanese should be taken along too, and then he would be heartily in favor of the same. The presence of the foreign element there would leave the place in as bad shape as ever, even though the women were ordered out, and if there is to be a general cleanup there should be nothing left of the objectionable feature. That can be made a splendid section of the city if all will lend a hand.

- Santa Rosa Republican, June 4, 1908

ROBINSON FAVORS A BETTER CITY
Indorses Proposition to Clear Away Filth

EDITOR REPUBLICAN:
Your issue of the fourth contained very cheering news in relation to the removal of the "red light" district from First street. Mayor Gray and the council will certainly deserve and receive great credit for inaugurating and carryout such a desirable move. The councilmen who have so far expressed themselves in relation to the matter are certainly right and I heartily agree with the statements Councilman Forgett and Mr. Shea, that the Chinese and Japanese should also go; otherwise the good work would only be half done. After being in business close to that locality for more than 15 years I know of the surprise expressed by many that such condition should exist so close to the center of our beautiful Santa Rosa. If arrangements could be made to extend the park north along Main street to Second, and east to D street, it would be a good thing and very desirable and finally pay every laudable interest in Santa Rosa. Of course all know that Mr. Burbank will do everything in his power to make the move a grand success, and his aid, counsel and advice will be of great value. Mayor Gray and the council, assisted by those whose interests are directly involved, have a fine opportunity to do a great and lasting benefit to their city, our Santa Rosa, and at the same time do what will reflect credit on themselves for generations to come.

Let all give them encouragement.

J. Robinson.
Santa Rosa, June 5, 1908.

- Santa Rosa Republican, June 5, 1908

GREAT PUBLIC PARK PROJECT IS NOW ASSUMING DEFINITE SHAPE
Plan Includes Clean-up of First Street Section--Chinatown and Japanese Quarter to Go--Lake for Boating and Burbank Conservatory

Mayor Gray's plan for the removal of the red light district together with Chinatown and the Japanese quarter, and the transforming of that part of town into a choice residence section, with a park and boulevard along the creek bank, and a lake with boating facilities adjoining, mention of which was made in these columns sometime since, appears to be rapidly assuming shape.

The members of the City Council, as well as many of the citizens most interested, have publicly announced themselves as being heartily in accord with the idea, property required for the change has been bonded, surveys have been made, plans for financing the undertaking have been discussed at length, and all that now seems necessary to ensure the successful fruition of the plan is for the public to do its part and get out and help push the project through.

A ten-acre tract inside the city limits, and therefore within the police zone, and at the same time so situated as to minimize most of the objectionable features, is under bond and available for the location of the interests that are to be abated at their present location. Luther Burbank has given his approval of a plan for the erection of a conservatory on one corner of his property, or in the park itself, where his creations can be shown. The location of the proposed Sister's Hospital in that vicinity is also planned as part of the great work of transforming that part of the city into a thing of beauty and the home off refinement and peace.

As at present contemplated, the plan calls for the transformation of everything south of First street to the water's edge into a park, together with certain properties on the south side, the construction of a dam and footbridge, and the abolition of both Chinatown and the Japanese quarter to the north. Where the most opposition is expected--from people owning property in that part of town rented or under lease to the Chinese, Japanese and other interests effected--very little has been encountered, most of those seen being quick to realize that their property would greatly increase in value by reason of the change, and soon become about the most desirable in the city.

Several plans have been suggested for financing the proposition. Private parties are said to be ready to look out for the initial necessities, which include the providing of new locations for the people who will have to move. The general opinion seems to be that the residents of that part of town would jump at the chance to subscribe a sufficient sum to start the project going, after which the Woman's Improvement Club, or the Park Commission recently authorized by the Chamber of Commerce, or both working in conjunction, could carry it along until such time as the funds necessary for the completion of the work could be provided by bond issue. It is freely conceded that the bonds would carry by practically a unanimous vote as soon as the project is sufficiently well under way for people to see what a splendid improvement is contemplated, and help perfectly feasible is the plan for transforming what is now a disgrace and an eyesore into a beautiful park and pleasure ground, with handsome residence surrounding it on all sides.

- Press Democrat, June 5, 1908

The rumor that the tenderloin district would be located on West Sixth street has evaporated. A councilman stated Monday that while the redlight must go from its present location it will not go to West Sixth street or that part of the city. The city council is not interested in the future location, but that those women must move from First and D streets. A number of the women in that locality are preparing to move out, but several others who own their own property will remain and in a lawsuit will oppose any measures to remove them from their homes.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 10, 1908

MAKING NEW TENDERLOIN
Plan to Rendezvous Women on Sixth Street

The women of the tenderloin have been given until this evening to vacate their places of residence on First street under the notices recently served on them to change their location.

Arrangements have been underway during the day to lease a piece of ground on lower Sixth street from Max Reutersham, where all of the houses of this character will in future be assembled, if the proposition now being worked out is carried.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 3, 1908

THE PASSING OF THE REDLIGHT
Determination that Present Location Must Be Changed--Mayor Gray Makes Statement

Last night was the time set for the closing of the redlight district in accordance with the instructions given by the city council sometime since. It is understood that no drastic measures will be taken for a few days as some of the residents of the houses in the district have not been able to complete their arrangements for a place to locate, either here or elsewhere.

Mayor Gray stated emphatically last night that the city council has nothing to do, nor will have, with any proposed change location of the tenderloin. He said, moreover, that it had been fully determined that the present location of the district would have to be abandoned.

- Press Democrat, August 4, 1908

CITIZENS REMONSTRATE
Do Not Want the Redlight District

A remonstrance bearing 293 names signed generally by citizens living west of the Northwestern Pacific railroad was presented to the city council on Tuesday evening protesting against the removal of the redlight district to that locality. It contain the following statement:

"We desire to call your attention to the fact that those residing within this district believe themselves to be as good as any within our city, and although not favored as a rule, with the wealth of other districts in our community, are entitled to a just and fair discrimination by those whom we have assisted in placing in charge of our city government. The depreciation of property values, in the event of the carrying out of the proposed action, would be as great to us as any other district within the limits of the city."

Mayor Gray stated that he could not understand why the remonstrance was sent to the council as the city was not selecting a place for the redlight people or that any member of the city government was interested in choice of locality. The nuisance was to moved from the present location and if those women had any idea of occupying any other locality in the city the matter was up to those residents to object in proper form. Nothing was done with the remonstrance and the matter was laid on the table.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 5, 1908

HOW DO YOU CLOSE A TENDERLOIN?

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Once Santa Rosa's municipal elections of 1908 were over, it came time to make good on the big campaign pledge: To shutter the town's infamous red light district. The new government was soon to find this was far easier said than done.

Santa Rosa voters that year had to choose between two radically different slates. On one side was a "fusion" ticket created jointly by the Democratic and Republican parties that represented the old guard that had long held a political grip over the town. Running against them was a new grassroots coalition of progressives and prohibitionists, led in part by Luther Burbank. To steal the election, the powers-that-be pulled dirty political tricks; polling places were moved a few days before the election; out-of-towners were allegedly registered as city voters; and on the very morning of election day, it was announced that the fusion candidate for mayor had a trick up his sleeve to transform the blighted tenderloin into Santa Rosa's first public park. (Election results and final analysis can be found here.)

Prostitution was the bellweather issue for that election because the outgoing City Council had legalized full Nevada-style prostitution the year before, and although the large tenderloin district centered on First and D streets had existed since the 1870s, church groups erupted in outrage. A few months later, Miss Lou Farmer - who actually lived a block away from the red light district - won a suit against the nearest brothel on the judge's decision that the city ordinance did not explicitly authorize "the occupation of prostitution."

With that court ruling and the continuing angry winds howling from the pulpits, it was only a matter of time before the law was changed and the red lights were ordered extinguished. And that became yet another cynical trick of the election of 1908; the lame duck City Council, with no member facing voters that year, had the chance to revoke the controversial ordinance - but chose not to. Outlawing prostitution before the election would have undermined the primary campaign plank from the Good Ol' Boy fusion ticket. "After the voting had been completed," reported one newspaper, an outgoing councilman remarked, "he would not take from the incoming council the pleasure of repealing the ordinance for anything. This caused a smile to again animate the features of the councilmen and spectators."

As expected, the fusion candidates swept the election, and the new City Council repealed the prostitution ordinance at their first meeting. Points for courage go to dissenting Councilman Luther Burris, one of two members who had not been up for reelection, and the only member who voted nay. "In his opinion it was a impossible to eradicate the 'social evil' and the best thing was to regulate it," according to the newspaper. Burris was referring to a provision in the now-voided law that was little mentioned; besides licensing the bordellos and their liquor sales, the ordinance had required that the prostitutes submit to regular medical exams for venereal disease.

The Council declared that the brothels would lose their liquor licenses at the end of June, and arrests for illegally selling hootch began just a few days later. Through newspaper items on these arrests we glimpse something of the colorful denizens of the tenderloin; fined $30 was the dramatically-named May Tempest, and the next day, the same fine was given to Kittie Gallagher, alias Kittie Hermann, alias Kittie Hatcher. Then there was Fred Yoder, "a flashy barber [who] practically made his home at one of the houses of prostitution." Yoder and his consort celebrated with a champagne supper when one of the policemen was relieved from duty, and loudly boasted that night he would see to it that the entire police force would be replaced. After being arrested on vagrancy, Yoder apparently was run out of town - and I'll wager he left the jail with more than a few fresh scrapes and bruises.

With prostitution again unregulated and unlicensed and a steady income coming from liquor violations, Santa Rosa turned its attention to closing the red light district itself. This plan failed for a variety of reasons (mostly, the lack of any plan whatsoever), but along the way, racism surfaced that was rarely exposed in public. The story of this effort continues in the following essay.

ORDINANCE IS NOT REPEALED
"Boarding Houses" May Still Flourish Here

Councilman Robert L Johnson, chairman of the ordinance committee, introduced a resolution Tuesday evening providing for the repeal of the "boarding house" ordinance of the council, passed about one year ago. The resolution was promptly laid on the table by the vote of four members. Mayor Overton casting the deciding ballot on the question.

The reading of the resolution handed to Clerk Clawson by Councilman Johnston caused many smiles to pass around the council chambers. It came as a distinct surprise and was almost the last thing to be presented to the council.

At the conclusion of the reading, Councilman Burris moved that the resolution be laid on the table. The motion was seconded by Councilman Donahue. Councilman Wallace moved that resolution be adopted and his motion was seconded by Councilman Reynolds. The motion to lay the matter on the table, having been made and seconded first, it was voted on.

Councilman Burris, Donahue and Hall, the first three members to vote, cast their votes in the affirmative, to lay the resolution on the table. Councilman Johnston, Reynolds and Wallace voted against the tabling of the resolution and this passed the matter up to Mayor Overton. The latter voted "aye" on the proposition.

After the voting had been completed, Councilman Hall remarked that he would not take from the incoming council the pleasure of repealing the ordinance for anything. This caused a smile to again animate the features of the councilmen and spectators.

- Santa Rosa Republican, March 4, 1908

FAMOUS "BOARDING HOUSE RESOLUTION" REPEALED
Action Taken by the New City Council Last Night

True to the obligation of the platforms of the Democratic and Republican conventions, which stood for the repeal of the "boarding house resolution" licensing the sale of liquor in the red light district, the above resolution was introduced at the first meeting of the new city council last night by Councilman Fred Forgett and was passed. On June 30 the license for the current quarter will expire.

After Councilman Forgett had offered though rescinding motion Councilman L. W. Burris mentioned that the resolution had been passed by the former council after much deliberation and investigation of existing conditions, believing that it was the best way to handle the matter. In his opinion it was a impossible to eradicate the "social evil" and the best thing was to regulate it. He instanced the old custom of arresting and fining the landladies and urged that the requirements of the "boarding house resolution" were far ahead of such a course. If Mr. Forgett or anyone else had a better solution the problem to offer then he was willing to vote for a rescinding of the resolution. If not then he would not vote for it. He went fully into the situation as it presented itself to him.

Councilman Forgett said his reason for offering his motion was because both the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties upon which he and the other councilmen had been elected were pledged to repeal the license as many people were opposed to it. He said he desired to do what the people wanted.

After a little more discussion the question was called for and when City Clerk Clawson called the roll the resolution stood: For repealing--Councilman Forgett, Johnston, Barham, Bronson and Steiner. Against--Councilman Burris.

Councilman Forgett said the future handling of the matter was a problem that the mayor and council would have to deal with.

- Press Democrat, April 22, 1908

NO MORE LIQUOR IN THE REDLIGHT DISTRICT

The licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor in the redlight district expired at midnight Tuesday night and they will not be renewed. The people in that locality have been notified that on their premises they cannot sell or give away liquor. They also have been notified that they must vacate that part of the city by August 1. Chief of police Rushmore states that the ordinance will be strictly enforced.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 1, 1908

WOMEN ARRESTED FOR SELLING LIQUOR

Two women of the redlight district were arrested by Officer I. N. Lindley a few days ago and the same are held to appear before Judge Bagley Wednesday for violation of the city ordinances. The order for stopping the dispensing of the liquor in that district went into effect on July 1st.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 6, 1908

WOMEN FINED $30 FOR SELLING LIQUOR

May Tempest, a woman of the redlight section, who was arrested by Policeman John Boyes, charged with selling liquor without a license entered a plea of guilty before City Recorder Bagley yesterday evening and was fined $30. She was informed that a second offense meant a fine of $150, and was told to notify all the women of the street that it was the intention to strictly enforce the laws regarding the sale of liquor in that district.

- Press Democrat, August 19, 1908

CAUGHT KITTIE SELLING BOOZE
Officers Determined to Have Law Enforced

The police officers of this city are determined that they will break up the practice of women of the tenderloin of selling liquor without a license. Wednesday May Tempest was find $30 for the offense, but other landladies of that section of the city do not seem to have profited by the experience of this woman.

Last night officer boys caught Kittie Gallagher, alias Kittie Hermann, alias Kittie Hatcher, selling liquor. He promptly filed a complaint against her and $30 bail money was deposited with Recorder William P. Bagley to insure that much surnamed Kittie's appearance when she is wanted.

In police circles, where the evidence against Kittie is best known, it is not believed she will appear for trial, but will forfeit the bail. The trial is set for Friday afternoon.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 20, 1908

ANOTHER WOMAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED

Officer John Boyes caught Kitty Gallagher of No. 1 D street selling liquor at an early hour Thursday morning. A complaint was filed against the woman and she put up $30 cash bail in the afternoon with City Recorder Bagley. She announced that she will not appear for trial at 2 o'clock Friday, and the bill will be forfeited. This is the fourth case from the neighborhood, and all have paid similar fines.

- Press Democrat, August 21, 1908

FRED YODER SAYS GUILTY
Flashy Barber Changes His Plea to Charge

Fred Yoder, a flashy barber, has left town. Before leaving he was arrested on a charge of vagrancy by Officer Lindley, the specific charges against him being that he practically made his home at one of the houses of prostitution. This he indignantly denied when taken before Justice A. J. Atchinson. Later, through his attorney, he changed his original plea of not guilty to one of guilty.

Yoder and the woman with whom he consorted celebrated the departure of Officer Ed Skaggs with a champagne supper the night the officer was relieved from duty. They did not like the strict enforcement of the law which Officer Skaggs compelled in the district, and his removal was gladsome news to the denizens and habitues of that section. No better evidence could be obtained that the officer was doing his duty than the fact that he was unpopular there.

Following the champagne supper in the tenderloin, Yoder and the woman went about town the same night bragging that one of the "bulls" had lost his job. Yoder loudly proclaimed that he would see that the other policemen lost their positions also and that he would secure an entirely new force in Santa Rosa before he ceased his activities.

Justice Atchinson find Yoder $25 of the bail bond he put up to secure his liberty after his arrest.

- Santa Rosa Republican, August 5, 1908

THAT WILD STORY ABOUT OATES

2011-08-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

James Wyatt Oates purchased his first car in 1908, which gives us a likely date for the most infamous story told about him. The complete tale is reprinted below, but here's a summary, for the purpose of discussion:

Late one evening, a man came to the home of Press Democrat editor Ernest Finley to warn him about death threats made by Oates. "If I were you, I would get out of town for a few days. Take a trip to San Francisco until Oates cools off. He says he is going to cut your heart out." Finley cooly replied, "[G]o back and tell Oates, tell him for me that I said he will never cut anybody up, because he hasn't got the guts. Tell him I said he had been talking around here for thirty years about killing people, but in that time the only man he ever tackled was a cripple, and then if the crowd had not been prevented, the cripple would have beaten him to death with his crutch."

It's a spiteful little story intended to make Oates look a fool, but the joke was on Finley - he didn't know Oates actually had killed a man. From a biography of Oates' brother, we learn that he shot someone dead in a fit of anger when he was sixteen, and was acquitted only after his brother paid a "considerable sum of money" to the prosecutor - who happened to be the father of the victim. Apparently no one in the West knew of his crime; in her oral history, Helen Comstock said the story was told that Oates had shot a man, but not fatally.

(RIGHT: A previously unknown portrait of James Wyatt Oates that appeared in the San Francisco Call, October 23, 1900)

Finley's tale appeared in "Santa Rosans I Have Known," a compilation of profiles he penned for the newspaper which were gathered together into a book after he died in 1942. Oates was the only "pioneer" he disparaged, and the essay rankled Hilliard Comstock, who told his family he thought it was mean-spirited of Finley to insult the memory of an honorable man.

While there's no doubt that Oates was a hothead of legendary proportions, Finley certainly confused facts, and might have confabulated parts of the story. Finley's late night visit could not have happened before Oates bought his first car in August, 1908 - yet the event that supposedly sent Oates into a rage was Finley's criticism of "his" city charter, which had been adopted back in 1904 (the PD editorial mentioned by Finley appeared on Sept. 14 of that year). Also, he claimed this all happened when Oates was city attorney, which was in 1912. And lastly, Finley misidentified his brother as a senator instead of a congressman.

Finley's lack of factchecking aside, I'm unable to find evidence the other two anecdotes he mentioned even happened. Finley wrote that Oates once led the local delegation to the Democratic party state convention, but stormed out when "he could not have his way." Oates was a delegate for many years, but only was Sonoma County chairman in 1892. No mention of an incident like that can be found in local or state papers.

I also can't find any account of Oates being beaten by a "cripple," although that story is harder to sleuth because no year is mentioned. John M. Carter was a Santa Rosa councilman from 1896 to 1904, but Finley wrote vaguely that the incident happened when he was "a member or perhaps a former member of the city council." While it wouldn't be surprising to learn there was a scrap (see above, re: Oates, hothead), I doubt it was nearly as dramatic as Finley claimed. Like Sherlock's "dog that didn't bark in the night," the lack of evidence is evidence itself. Newspapers of the day loved this kind of juicy story, often giving it front-page coverage. (In fact, I stumbled across just such an item while researching 1892 politics: Following election primaries in Los Angeles, a man named Ignacio Bilderrain cracked a political foe's head open with his cane.) If a man as prominent as Oates really had been badly beaten with a crutch, it undoubtedly would have been reported far and wide.

Why Ernest L. Finley felt the need to posthumously whack James W. Oates is a mystery. They didn't appear to be bitter personal enemies; Finley attended a 1906 card party at (what would become known as) Comstock House. Won first prize, even.

My guess is that clues can be found in Finley's opening sentence: "Oates came here as a young lawyer from Alabama, expecting to control Democratic policies in Sonoma County." Yes, Oates wanted to launch himself into politics, but Sonoma County's political world was controlled by a "good ol' boy" clique. Oates lacked the temperament to be a cog in anyone else's political machine, and famously always said he had no interest in dealing with people who he felt weren't "square" with him. Oates also didn't have the Missouri pedigree that greased entry into the clique. In all ways, he was the unwelcome black sheep.

By contrast, Finley was always the defender of the good ol' boys, and his Press Democrat was their official organ. His editorials viciously attacked anyone who challenged the status quo, much as he savaged Oates in this profile. Perhaps here Finley was settling (very) old scores related to Oates' threat to their power. Or perhaps Finley simply didn't like black sheep who didn't get along with his pals.

Colonel Oates is one of the latest devotees of the automobile and he has purchased a fine machine. For a long time the Colonel has had the "auto fever" and finally the impulse to own a car became irresistible.

- Society Gossip column, Press Democrat, August 30, 1908

James Wyatt Oates came here as a young lawyer from Alabama, expecting to control Democratic policies in Sonoma County. A man of many fine qualities, he possessed none of the attributes of political leadership and died a disappointed man. He could not brook opposition in any form, and when opposed either developed a violent fit of temper or gave up the fight.

He once went to a state convention in Sacramento as the head of a delegation from this county, and he could not have his way jumped on the train and came home, leaving the delegates to work out their salvation alone.

Oates came out of a prominent Alabama family, a brother being governor of that state and afterwards United States senator. He talked a great deal about the South, and frequently boasted about being a great fighter, but he usually managed to keep the peace.

One night about 11:30 o'clock, a then well-known automobile salesman here drove up to my house, rang the doorbell and said he wanted to talk to me. I had not yet retired and we went for a drive. It appeared that he had sold Oates an automobile and delivery had been taken that day in San Francisco. When he and the salesmen were driving home together, Oates, then city attorney, had begun talking about the new city charter at that time up for adoption. We did not consider it much of an improvement over the old one and had said so editorially. Oates considered himself responsible for the charter, having prepared a good part of it, and he had argued himself into the belief that the paper's opposition was prompted by personal feeling. This was not true, but as he talked he grew extremely angry and became greatly excited.

"If I were you, I would get out of town for a few days," said the automobile man. "Take a trip to San Francisco until Oates cools off. He says he is going to cut your heart out."

"Do you want to do something for me?" I inquired with grade apparent solicitude.

"I certainly do," replied my friend.

"Then go back and tell Oates, tell him for me that I said he will never cut anybody up, because he hasn't got the guts. Tell him I said he had been talking around here for thirty years about killing people, but in that time the only man he ever tackled was a cripple, and then if the crowd had not been prevented, the cripple would have beaten him to death with his crutch."

Not too long before Oates had passed John M. Carter, a member or perhaps a former member of the city council, while the latter was seated in his buggy. Some altercation arose and Oates attempted to strike Carter. The latter, a one-legged man, jumped clear out over the buggy wheel and onto the sidewalk, brandishing and striking out with his single crutch in a deadly fashion. He was an angry man, but bystanders prevented serious casualties.

No man could have been more courteous and charming in his own home than James W Oates. He entertained extensively, and had many warm friends. He could be a delightful companion wanted he chose, but he possessed an unfortunate disposition that in time caused him disappointment and sorrow, and brought pain and anguish to some who were extremely near and dear to him. Oates enjoyed a good law practice here for many years, confining himself largely to probate practice. He would have gone further and gotten much more pleasure out of life if his had been a less tempestuous nature.

- "Santa Rosans I Have Known" by Ernest L. Finley, pg. 29-30

SANTA ROSA'S LOST FIREHOUSE

2011-08-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

Not long after the 1906 Santa Rosa Earthquake, plans were underway to build a replacement courthouse and firehouse downtown, both critical buildings destroyed by the quake or fire. For the courthouse, which also held the offices for county officials, no expense was spared; financed by a whopping $280,000 bond, the building was artistic and grand, even palatial. For the firemen, an adequate replacement building would have to do.

Plans for a state-of-the-art firehouse and adjacent City Hall were drawn up by John Galen Howard, one of the most respected architects on the West Coast, who had recently designed the Empire Building (then the Santa Rosa Bank) downtown. From the drawing that appeared in the newspapers, the design was in the same style as that building - sans the out-of-scale retro clock tower.

Alas. Santa Rosa went on the cheap. John Galen Howard's buildings were to be funded by a $75,000 public bond, but a bond issue was never placed before the voters. The City Council quietly decided instead to build a modest firehouse at the old Fifth Street location, using only the $11,000 in the town's building fund.

As explained by the Press Democrat, selling firehouse bonds was actually Plan B. The original idea was that local banks would jointly provide a special loan to the city to be paid back through the general fund over many years. But lenders everywhere turned skittish after the Bank Panic of 1907, which nearly brought about the collapse of the U.S. economy.

There also may have been political problems. The new firehouse/city hall was to be on the corner of Third and Main Street - now the B of A building, but at the time it was the former location of the Grand Hotel, and owned by the Savings Bank of Santa Rosa. This bank was controlled by the current mayor (J. P. Overton) and Con Shea, who separately owned much of the prime real estate downtown. The bond called for paying them the rather large sum of $18,000 for a parcel that nobody else apparently wanted; in 1908 it was still mostly a vacant lot, with a small Salvation Army chapel. Buying the land and building there became somewhat of an issue during the 1908 city election campaigns, when reformers trying to oust the "good ol' boys" questioned the wisdom of bonding the town for another $75,000 and purchasing overpriced land when the city already owned the old firehouse site on Fifth St. and the former City Hall site on Hinton Ave.

Another factor might have been that some felt the Third and Main Street location was also on the "wrong" side of town, adjacent to the little Chinatown on Second and the red light district on First Street. And directly next door, the unsightly earthquake wreckage of the Eagle Hotel still remained, despite complaints to the City Council.

But the John Galen Howard plans were abandoned sometime in early 1908, becoming yet another of Santa Rosa's lost opportunities. The new firehouse/city hall would have been kitty-corner from Howard's Empire Building, and the three buildings together would have given the neglected side of downtown something of the elegant feel of UC/Berkeley, which was being created by Howard at the same time.

SANTA ROSA'S PROPOSED NEW CITY HALL AND FIRE STATION, SOON TO BE BUILT

The above picture shows the proposed new city hall for Santa Rosa and also the proposed new fire station from the plans adopted by the City Council and prepared by Howard & Galloway, engineers and architects of San Francisco. Both buildings are to replace those destroyed in disaster of the memorable morning of April 18, 1906.

Both buildings are confessedly much needed, and the City Council has decided to submit the question of voting bonds in the sum of $75,000 for the purchase of the site, erections of buildings etc. The buildings will cost not to exceed $60,000. The matter of issuing bonds will be submitted to the voters of Santa Rosa at the municipal selection to be held in this city in April.

The city hall will be a commodious building, two stories high, and will be built of steel and reinforced concrete. The steel frame will be a massive one. It will contain the offices for the several city officials, police department, Jail, council chambers and public hall. The public hall will be located in the second story. The Mayor, members of the council and the architect in the consideration of the plans have arranged to have the building modern in every particular and one of which the citizens and taxpayers will be proud.

The fire department building (the smaller of the two shown in the picture) will be located on the same site as the City Hall. The ground floor will be used for the firefighting apparatus, and the stabling of the horses. The upper story will be devoted to the sleeping and living quarters of the firemen. Like the city hall the new fire station is an absolute necessity and much time has been spent by fire chief Frank Muther, the mayor and council and the architect in having the department housed in a building that will be second to none in point of usefulness and modern equipment in the state.

As is well known it was first planned that the financing of the erection and equipment of the municipal buildings should be undertaken by a combination of banks in Santa Rosa, and when completed the city was to pay them back in yearly installments from the general tax fund. With this idea in view the city council is making the tax levy for this year set aside $10,000 which is now in the building fund. Owing to the recent financial flurry, however, the banks did not feel at liberty at this time to assume the obligation.

- Press Democrat, February 2, 1908

Councilman Forgett stated that he had expected to have the plans for the steel frame of the new fire house on hand, but one of the firms had failed to come through and he desired that the matter go over. Mr. Kirby had was present and explained his plans for an all-steel frame building. The building on these plans was not to cost over $11,000.

- "Council has Long Session," Santa Rosa Republican, June 4, 1908

CALL FOR BIDS FOR NEW FIRE STATION
Plans Adopted for Building on Fifth Street at Last Night's Meeting of the Council

Plans and specifications have been adopted for the fire department station on the city slot on Fifth street. Action was taken at last night's meeting of the city council. Bids were also invited for construction of the same. The building will be of steel and brick.

Separate bids were invited for the supplying and erection of the steel frame and for the brick work and completion of the building. Mrs. Sadie McCann prepared the plans under the direction of the structure committee of which Councilman Forgett is chairman. They provide for a neat and imposing building.

- Press Democrat, June 17, 1908

Chairman Forgett of the structure committee declared flushes were required in the fire department houses for the stalls. Is necessary to flush these stalls frequently and cause fresh water to remain in the traps to be sanitary. He reported good progress being made on the fire house structure. The council deemed the flushes a necessity and referred the matter to the structure committee with powers to act.

- "Business of the City Council," Santa Rosa Republican, October 7, 1908

THE SALESMAN'S TALE

2011-08-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a ranch outside Boonville where they raised special pigeons for their down, which was used to make the finest cloth. Tended by 75 mountain men who never left (and who doubtless only spoke Boontling), the flock was so enormous that it would obscure the sun for hours when the birds took flight. Really!

No, not really. It was a tall tale - a once-popular genre of newspaper stories sometimes called "quaints" that were intended to fool readers (and if possible, reporters and editors) as introduced in an earlier essay. Here, traveling salesman I. F. Ramacciotti pulls one over on The Denver Post, the hoax mirthfully reprinted by the Press Democrat.

(RIGHT: A pre-plucked pigeon. Photo courtesy Patty Hiller)

The PD's introduction suggested that "Rammi" was familiar to locals, although I suspect he was a seasonal visitor known mostly to the businessmen who idled in the downtown saloons. He had no direct ties to Santa Rosa, living most of his adult life in San Francisco; I can find only a single reference of him being in Sonoma County, and that appeared in an advertisement just a year before his death. When he died in 1911, neither paper mentioned his passing, so it's safe to assume he had no family or deep frendships here.

But the more I stirred around through his dust, the more he intrigued. He was such a fine example of a guy who struggled his hardest to make a go of it in the late 19th century West, yet never found traction. He couldn't leverage his good connections back East, and apparently couldn't (or wouldn't) tap relatives for a grubstake. In California he became a hustler who could obviously spin a swell yarn; he owned a business (briefly); he was also a deputy, and after that allegedly a crook. He was truly the spiritual ancestor of poor, damned, Willy Loman, the everyman supremely confident that fortune would fall into his lap if he only kept plugging away.

Italo Francis Ramacciotti was born in New York City in 1855, the third of five children to father Francis Ramacciotti, who found a way to make a better piano bass string. Such an invention might invite a good yawn today, but until the birth of the amplified loudspeaker in the 1920s, pianos were the primary source of musical entertainment. Papa Ramacciotti's company and a few others became so powerful that in 1913 there were Congressional investigations into piano string price fixing to see if their monopoly on the valuable commodity was a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. (Take a moment to cringe for having drifted from funny phony pigeon farms to the forlorn weeds of century-old House Ways and Means Committee hearings.)

Italo was settled in San Francisco by the time he was thirty with a wife and two young children. Voter records list him as a "manufacturer" in 1886, a clerk two years later, then an "agent" in 1889. The next year he was a deputy sheriff, assigned as bailiff for a Superior Court judge. Asked why the sheriff had replaced the existing bailiff, he was quoted in the SF Call as saying he believed Ramacciotti was a better man.

For the next twenty years his trail is cold, except for 1896, when he was arrested on three counts of forgery and one of obtaining goods under false pretenses. He was charged with passing forged checks made out to himself to two San Francisco grocers, and passing another fake check in Los Angeles. None of the amounts were over $25. According to the Call newspaper, Ramacciotti was "a small politician" and recently "a traveler for the well-known St. Lous brewers, Anheuser & Busch." One of the articles sneered, "Ramacciotti is well known in this City and has held various positions of trust, but on more than one occasion was found wanting." Was he behind bars at the turn of the century? Of all the millions of newspaper pages and old documents now available through the Internet, nothing can be (currently) found.

Except for this pigeon nonsense, we don't hear again of him until 1910, when opportunity's door appeared to open. Thanks to his father and elder brother who took over the string-winding biz, the family name was famous in the music world, and now I. F. Ramacciotti became president of the Manufacturers' Piano Company, San Francisco. Both the job title and company name were misleading, however.

The Manufacturers' Piano Company actually manufactured nothing - it was a nationwide retailer based in Chicago, and "president" I. F. Ramacciotti owned something like a franchise. They sold obscure brands of generally poor quality - yet the company prospered for about thirty years, thanks to a unique business model. Piano stores at the time were like awful car dealerships; no prices were marked, and unless you were foolish enough to pay the arbitrary price quoted by a salesman, you dickered over the cost. At a Manufacturers' store, however, there was a sticker price posted on every piano.

Ramacciotti's store seems to have had everything going for it, including a prestigious address on San Francisco's Sutter Street "piano row," but he couldn't make a go of it; the display room opened in February and was closed by July. The trade press then reported he was traveling East to "settle all existing obligations, for which ample funds will be provided." It sounds like it may have been an expensive trip - maybe ruinously so.

The last we hear about Italo is in Santa Rosa, appropriately enough. A couple of months after his store closed, he was in town to liquidate the stock of the Barrett & Decker music store at 250 B Street. The ad that appeared in the Republican paper called him a "factory representative."

I. F. Ramacciotti died on Nov. 9, 1911, his minimalist obituary published in the San Francisco papers by his Elks lodge. He was 58. He likely died a salesman still, even though success always eluded. Hopefully for him it was enough that there would always be something that he could find to sell, and a real corker of a story he could tell along the way.

HIS LATEST STORY IS A "CORKER"
Commercial Traveler Gives Interview to Reporter of the "Denver Post"--Santa Rosa Gets Mention

Here is "Rammi's" latest. "Rammi," as he is familiarly known to his friends in Santa Rosa, and in the commercial traveler's world on the Pacific Coast, is I. F. Ramacciotti, of San Francisco. His latest was told to a reporter of the Denver Post, while he was a visitor in the Colorado city recently. A copy of the Denver Post has been received at the Press Democrat office. He gave Santa Rosa and Mendocino County a "boost" in his interview, which is as follows:

"I. F. Ramacciotti of San Francisco, one of the principal owners of a unique industry, is at the Oxford. He has a pigeon farm of 10,000 acres situated on an almost impenetrable mountain top, not far from Boonville, Mendocino County, California. 30 miles from the Pacific coast. The company has 80,000 pigeons and the down is mixed with Australian wool and a cloth of the finest texture made. The wool is bought by the Oregon Wool Company, which pays $2.90 per pound for the down to the owners of the pigeon farm.

"The industry is the result of a secret discovered by George Maxwell, Santa Rosa, Cal. The feed given the pigeons makes the down valuable. There is a trick in the shearing of them that no one else in the world is said to know except the employees of this particular farm. Mr. Ramacciotti says it has cost a fortune to start the unique industry, but it is now on a paying basis.

"The farm had its inception from a flock of about 300 fancy imported pigeons brought to America from Australia by Mr. Maxwell. They cost about 60 cents each and the duty and other incidentals run the cost of each pigeon up to $1 before they were installed in California. The average loss in the number of pigeons about 3 per cent in shearing. In the past it has been the practice to kill the pigeons after they were sheared about three times and bury them instead of selling them for squabs, as they were too old.

"Each pigeon gives from 2 to 3 ounces of down at each shearing. They are breeding so rapidly that the owners cannot keep track of them. The pigeons are allowed to fly about the farm and never leave it. And most of them are in action the sun is obscured for hours.

"There are about 75 employees on the farm and many of them have never seen a railroad train. They were born in the mountains and are content to live their lives as caretakers of the big flock of pigeons. The farm is worth about $4 per acre. It was established five years and in that time only one man has visited it. He promised on honor not to reveal anything he saw. Two of the men with shotguns guard the place at all times of the day and night."

- Press Democrat, May 19, 1908

NOW IT'S THE WATER METER WARS

2011-08-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa's water wars ended in 1907, when post-earthquake upgrades allowed it to provide a reliable (albeit foul-tasting) water supply. But water woes continued because the town screwed up installation of the new water meters.

Santa Rosa introduced water meters in 1905 after years of fumbled efforts to enforce conservation. Policemen, firemen and city inspectors were turned into water cops, empowered to write hefty $2.50 citations for leaky faucets. Lawns could be watered only at certain times of the day announced by a steam whistle, and there were additional monthly fees for every water fixture (having an indoor toilet cost 25¢ and was worth every penny). Once meters were installed, each home was supposed to be billed only for water use over 10,000 gallons/month. In theory.

As it turns out, the city inspectors should have been keeping a close watch on the guys installing the expensive new meters. In one case mentioned below, two homes shared the same meter - an arrangement the owners asked the city council for permission to continue, as it would be expensive and bothersome to install separate water lines for each house (the request was denied).

In a far more outrageous SNAFU, it was revealed that five businesses - including a bakery and one of Santa Rosa's largest saloons - were connected through a water meter for a private residence. The homeowner understandably refused to pay the excess-use water bill, so the city shut off the meter, and thus the water supply to the home and businesses alike. Two of the businesses agreed to pay the flat business rate, but the other two balked, leaving the water turned off. "Without the necessary water, sinks and toilets go without flushing and the neighbors are wondering 'how about the sanitary condition' of the block," commented the letter's author.

WATERLESS PLACES

Editor Republican:

Like Banquo's ghost, Santa Rosa's free water spook will not down, but comes up to flap its dry cerements around the town. The domestic 10,000 gallons frequently fail to flow, or will flow in a flood, the meters fail to meet the matter and the claims for the excess liquid fall of liquidation. A property owner who is paying his water bond tax had his water shut off and is carrying the question into a court of law. Two citizens appeared before the city council Tuesday night asking that the single meter which marks the gallons of water running into their two separate residences, and into no other, be permitted to do double duty for the present. The petitioners gave as a reason for the request that the change, the laying of extra pipes, the digging of trenches through lawns would cost them fully $30. The extra meter room cost the city about $8. Mr. Ross, one of the petitioners, thought that even if the city would not consider the matter of saving a property owner $30 [in] these rather hard times, by the simple exercise of a little discretion, it might in view of the fact that the public warrants are held up every month by reason of municipal poverty, hold on to that $8.

Notwithstanding the fact of that three practical councilmen were ready to grant the request, it was turned down because the water ordinance called for a meter at each and every residence, and the council proceeded to order $400 worth of meters. Mr. Ross will have a nice new meter in front of his home, which will be $8 off his $30 bill.

On the north side of Fourth Street are five business places--Ketterlin Bros. hardware store, Young Bros. store, Greek-American Candy Kitchen, Santa Rosa Bakery and the Germania saloon, which are all hooked on to the meter in front of the residence on Fifth street occupied by Mrs. Gore. There are no other meters in the bunch of six places. The July excess bill amounting to $14 was sent to Mrs. Gore and the August bill amounting to about $4 went to the same person. She declined to pay the bills on the ground of that she is away from her home all day employed in a restaurant, and her two roomers occupy the building only at night, also that five other places were included. Yesterday the water was turned off at the meter on Fifth street and the six places went dry. Young Brothers and the Germania proprietor finally paid their flat rate bills for the two months, but they are still without water because the other four parties have not settled. The inmates are without the necessary water, sinks and toilets go without flushing and the neighbors are wondering "how about the sanitary condition" of the block. One of the waterless storekeepers says he will stand pat even if the Board of Health takes a hand. So the ghost will not down, the meters will not meet and the free water will not be free.

SANTA ROSAN.

- Letter to the Santa Rosa Republican, October 7, 1908

DON'T MENTION THE COFFIN FACTORY

2011-08-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

Nearly every year, one of the Santa Rosa newspapers produced a promotional supplement on the wonders of Sonoma County: A great place to start a farm, build a factory, or just settle down. Santa Rosa itself was overflowing with churches, secure banks, Luther Burbank, and prosperous businesses; they would praise the leather tanning companies, the fruit canneries, the flour mill, the pharmacies and even the hardware stores. Yet they never, ever, boasted of the town's casket factory.

Until 1908, Kobes & Huntington provided almost everything a contractor might need to finish a building - or that a downtown business might need for repairs after Saturday night drunken revelries. The shop, which was in Railroad Square at 115-121 Fifth Street (currently the large, white warehouse across from the Last Day Saloon), sold plate glass and art glass, mirrors, bank and saloon fixtures, stairways, refrigerators and all kind of mouldings and other millwork made on the premises. But from 1908 forward, they turned out one thing only: Redwood caskets and coffins.

Almost immediately the company was the second-largest coffin maker in the state, their assembly line building up to 700 caskets a month under exclusive contract to a San Francisco dealer. It was certainly one of the most successful Santa Rosa businesses and was in the process of expanding rapidly, all good reasons for the newspapers to tout the company in their annual supplements and town boosters to point at it with considerable pride. Yet except for one small article about the changeover - which only appeared in the Press Democrat on a slow news day - locals were quiet about the busy factory on Fifth street. Quiet as a tomb, you could even say.

BIG BUSINESS AT THE CASKET FACTORY
Between 400 and 700 Caskets Are Made at Kobes & Huntington's Establishment on Fifth Street Monthly

Few residents of Santa Rosa are aware that the second-largest manufacturing plant for caskets in California is located in the city, and is turning out from 400 to 700 coffins of various sizes monthly. Such is the fact.

Kobes & Huntington, who for a number of years conducted a planing mill and cabinet shop on Fifth street, some months ago secured a contract from the San Francisco Casket Co., of San Francisco, to furnish them caskets and boxes for the next eight years, and the plant was remodeled to make it suitable for the new purpose for which it was to be used. Over $2,000 worth of additional machinery was installed and for some time past now shipments of a car of caskets has been made weekly, and two cars of boxes monthly.

The manufacture of such quantities of caskets requires 40,000 feet of lumber per month, and the firm has now on hand 250,000 feet. The lumber must be bone dry, the steps are being taken to secure a steady supply from one mill during the lifetime of the contract. A steam plant is to be installed this fall for the purpose of having a place to kiln dry lumber, and also furnish a steam room where the boards maybe bench to be used the making of coffins. In trade parlance there is a difference between caskets and coffins.

The firm makes at present four styles of caskets, the square, which is the cheapest grade; the octagon, the elliptical and the chancellor. These all take their names more or less from their shapes. The "coffin" is different from any of them in that it takes the peculiar shape given it while the material is heated by steam before being put together.

The redwood lumber to be used in the manufacture of caskets is cut into various lengths before being taken into the shop and loaded on hand trucks. It is then wheeled to the various parts of the shop where it is to be used and machinery cuts it into the desired shapes, makes the moldings, cuts holes for the various attachments, and then it is taken to the assembling room. Here skilled men put it together rapidly.

There is little or no waste. The smaller pieces are all used in making the small sections and even sticks not larger than good kindling are used in forming the rounded head board confined between two veneer boards and glued in place. In all nine men are employed in the shop and each one does only his part of the work as it passes along from bench to bench.

The caskets when completed are shipped to San Francisco where they are covered and finished into the handsome products seen in many undertaking parlors. The question is often asked what becomes of the caskets made? The State Board of Health reported 2900 deaths for June, and there had to be a casket for each body. The Santa Francisco dealers furnish a large share of the supply for the Islands and Oriental trade, so it will be seen there is a large demand.

- Press Democrat, July 28, 1908

THE EMPIRE BUILDING AND THE CLOCK TOWER

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Next time you're walking in downtown Santa Rosa, take an eyeful of the "Empire Building," and notice that something's wrong. The building itself is quite 20th century - but the clock tower harks back to America in the years after the Civil War. What were they thinking? Slapping an old-fashioned clock tower on an elegant new building does not fine architecture make.

Now the most well-recognized structure downtown, it was originally the Santa Rosa Bank Building, built at the same location of the bank destroyed by the Great Earthquake of 1906. John Galen Howard, one of the top architects on the West Coast, designed the new building at the same time as he was creating the campus for University of California/Berkeley and most of its key buildings and landmarks (Sather Gate, the Greek Theatre, the Campanile, California Hall, Doe Library, for ex).

Howard's drawings of his original design appeared in both local papers in 1908 (the copy at right was taken from the May 16 Santa Rosa Republican - click to enlarge). It shows a building very much in his Beaux Arts style; it would have looked quite at home at the university, and in fact, his exterior for the Santa Rosa Bank resembles an office building version of the Hearst Mining Building, which he had completed the previous year. On the ground floor is rusticated masonry with ornamented keystones above each arch. The roof line has a wide overhanging eave that sits on the top like a crown. The primary difference with what they built was that the overhang was scaled back considerably and simplified. And, of course, a clock tower was added.

To anyone schooled in architecture at that time, the clock tower must have been jarring. John Galen Howard's building was classically-inspired modern architecture, with strong clean lines; the clock tower was in the too-busy Second Empire style from about forty years earlier. Almost identical clock towers can still be found on courthouses and government buildings built 1870s-1880s, particularly in the South and Midwest; the one here in Santa Rosa might well have been ordered from a factory that prebuilt the things. And, of course, Santa Rosa even added the garish touch of a gilded dome with a weather vane on the peak. All in all, it was a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies plopping a double-wide on the roof of their nice mansion to house Jethro's less sophisticated kin.

But why the clock tower at all? In "Santa Rosa's Architectural Heritage," Geraldine and Dan Peterson write that "...community sentiment toward the clock tower of the earlier building on the site was strong enough that the roof line was redesigned..." If there was any discussion of this in the papers, I've overlooked it - but it's certain that the earlier building did not have a clock tower. The image below is an enlargement of a section from a postcard showing pre-earthquake Santa Rosa, and the old place clearly had neither a tower nor clock.

More likely adding the clock tower was another manifestation of the town's love/hate attitude towards progress, as has been often discussed here. Some Santa Rosans were undoubtedly ecstatic that a world-class modern architect was designing the tallest building in town; but I imagine a few of the powerful good ol' boys looked at the plans and remarked, "put a clock tower up there, like we have back in Missouri - you will see it for miles when the sun hits its glory."

Today no one notices that the building and clock tower clash in style and scale; all focus is on the quaint old tower, and John Galen Howard's building has become simply its base. There are dozens of photographs found on the Internet but none are of the building itself with the tower cropped out; however there are many closeups of the tower alone. And whoever thought of painting the dome gold was inspired - nothing shouts "what a classy place!" like bling.

Obl. Comstock House connection: One of the first tenants to move into the pretty new building was lawyer James Wyatt Oates. A 1914 view of his offices at rooms 300-301 can be seen here in a photograph of junior partner Hilliard Comstock at his desk.

(Right: Detail of postcard showing the Empire Building c. 1917, when it was the Bank of Italy. Both postcard views courtesy the Larry Lapeere Collection)

Colonel Oates' New Offices
Colonel J. W. Oates has moved his law offices into an elegant suite of three offices in the third story of the handsome Santa Rosa Bank Building. The furnishings will be very artistic and everything will be very neat.

- Press Democrat, June 3, 1908

SANTA ROSA BANK QUARTERED IN NEW BUILDING
Handsome Structure Completed and Occupied

The Santa Rosa Bank has moved into its magnificent new building on Exchange Avenue, a structure that rises four stories high and ranks among the best constructed buildings in the state, a credit to the well-known and old established financial institution, a monument to enterprise and a prominent landmark in the new and greater Santa Rosa.

The progress of construction of the new bank building has been watched with interest during the months that work has been under way. It is a "Class A" steel structure, and at once appears to everybody on account of its solidity and massiveness. And now that the finishings have been installed, the effect is most pleasing.

The bank's quarters in the new building are ideal for the transaction of business--care having been taken that this should be so. It is admirably lighted and the tiled floor, the fixtures and all other points are in pleasing accord. The work of moving into the new building was begun last night so that everything could be in readiness for the commencement of business on Monday morning.

The handsome furnishings, including the desks, chairs and the furniture are all solid mahogany. The fixtures and finish, also of mahogany, were made by P. H. Kroncke of this city. It is a compliment to Mr. Kroncke and Santa Rosa that such work could be turned out here. Lomont & Co. did the painting and decoration work.

In the right hand corner of the main building is the president's office, attractively arranged and furnished for the purpose to which it will be put. Next in line is the receiving teller's window, then the paying teller's window. The cashier's office and then the bookkeeper's department are all provided. All these departments are thoroughly equipped with everything necessary.. There is a handsome frontage of heavy plate glass. The directors have a nice room. Taken severally and as a whole the furnishings could not have been selected with more taste in order that they should be in keeping with the general appearance of a very fine modern bank building.

The safe deposit department is complete in its arrangement, and the double burglar and fire-proof vaults, and the new book vault cannot be excelled. A personal inspection imposes one with the strength of the vaults.

From the entrance doors on Exchange avenue one steps into the main room, and while the requirements of the bank officials have been looked after in every particular, the comfort and convenience of the bank patrons has not been lost sight of. There are desks and seats and other accessories for their use. An elevator runs from the ground floor to the roof. The three upper stories are fitted up as offices for professional men, and others, and many of them have already been taken, and are occupied. The building throughout is well ventilated and has all modern conveniences in the way of heating apparatus, lighting, etc.

Nearing completion on top of the immense structure is a great clock, whose dial can be seen for miles all around the city. This will be lighted at night and will be the finishing touch to a building of which many larger cities would be just justly feel proud.

The directors of the Santa Rosa Bank are...

[..]

Frank E. Cherry was the superintendent of construction, and he naturally feels proud of the results obtained. The building has been completed under the estimated cost by the architects, Howard & Galloway. In fact, at considerable less cost than the original estimate.

It has been suggested to the officials that in view of the fact that the bank building is one the publicly generally would like to inspect that they set apart some evening for this purpose.

- Press Democrat, July 26, 1908

10 MPH IS FAST ENOUGH, MR. SPEED BURNER

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If the newspapers could be believed, 1908 Santa Rosans faced great risk of being run over by a thirty horsepower car being driven at the breakneck speed of 25 MPH.

Although there were several arrests for speeding the previous year, the problem became endemic as more people bought automobiles. "There are several auto drivers in the city who are running their machines very near the danger line," commented the Santa Rosa Republican. "Sooner or later, if the brakes are not put on, there will be trouble... city authorities are determined that the crowded streets shall not be made speed tracks by speed-mad auto drivers."

The speed limit that year was 10 MPH, up from 6 MPH in 1904, then raised to 8 MPH the year after. A quick search of 1908 Bay Area newspapers shows that city speed limits varied between about 10-20 MPH. Oakland had a limit of ten miles per hour for the business district, and 18 MPH in residential areas. In the cross-country races between Oakland and San Francisco via San Jose, drivers were expected to stay below 20 MPH.

Car owners objected to the 10 MPH limit, claiming that their "big engines" would stall if not driven faster. Also at a City Council meeting, Dr. McLeod argued that physicians should be exempt from the speed limit because they might be rushing to an emergency. (This wasn't the first time a doctor wanted special treatment. Dr. Crocker of Healdsburg, who in 1905 struck a wagon carrying a family of five and seriously injured at least one passenger, tried to avoid a fine by claiming auto regulations were unfair.)

Part of the problem was that it was still the age of horses and bicycles, and few could accurately judge how fast a car was moving - and that included some drivers; speedometers, sometimes called "speed-markers," were not yet standard equipment on all vehicles. So the Republican newspaper offered a helpful article comparing speeds of bikes and wagons and cars, pointing out that a bicyclist on a smooth road could easily reach 15 MPH. That article concluded with a sympathetic nod to the motorists, noting that "few of the large automobiles can get down to 5 or 8 miles without 'killing' the engines, the machinery being constructed for higher speed." Still, "there is no doubt that many autoists here get 'speed mad' and drive their cars at a dangerous clip. Some regulation is doubtless needed." The speed limit was set to 10 MPH with a maximum fine of $50.

Given the uncertainties, it was promised that enforcement would be lenient. "While a speed of 12 or 15 miles may slip by the observant policeman, 30 and 35 'won't go,'" a policeman said. Not that everyone slowed down; a month later, it was noted that "Officer Lindley has recently come in for a lot of abuse for arresting automobilists who violate the speed ordinance." (It's also possible, however, that the police department had discovered that traffic violations can be a lucrative cash cow for local government.)

The same article reported George W. Davis had to do some "lively moving to get out of harm's way" of one driver. "The young man at the throttle condescended to blow the horn, but there was never any shutting off of power to prevent an accident. The speed burners seem to think that if they give a man warning they are coming they have done their whole duty. It is then up to the individual to get on the way or be maimed, according to the way of thinking."

RECKLESS AUTOIST IS ARRESTED HERE
Arthur Parent of Petaluma Makes a Speedway Out of Fourth Street Monday

Arthur W. Parent, a young man of Petaluma, who is said to be a reckless auto driver, was arrested by Police Officer Boyes Monday afternoon for making a speedway out of Fourth Street at a time when there were many women and children and vehicles on the street.

When Parent dashed up the street people stood aghast, expecting to see an accident. Police Officer Boyes caught the number of the car and send his bike along at a lively pace. Parent stopped at the local establishment and then Officer Boyes took him over to the police station, where he put up $15 for bail. It's not likely that he will appear for trial for there are too many witnesses as to his speed to make it worth the while. He gave his name to the office when arrested.

According to statements made here Monday afternoon it seems that this young man runs his machine regardless, and has come nearly getting into trouble in Petaluma. The arrest on Monday afternoon should be a warning to several young chauffeurs here who have been doing a little scorching themselves.

- Press Democrat, April 28, 1908

PACING A BIG AUTOMOBILE
Reporter Tries Out an Auto a Car and a Bike

With the idea of getting some correct information on "speeds" of different classes of vehicles in the city, a Republican reporter this morning paced an automobile, then an electric car and finally himself. The auto belongs to Mr. H. H. Bowers of Sebastopol Avenue, a fine machine of about thirty horse power capacity and about a 40 mile speed limit. With Chief of Police Rushmore and Officer John M. Boyes aboard to see that the newspaperman did not get mobbed or smashed up, the "pacers" started. At the rate of ten miles an hour by the speed indicator the auto was 33 seconds going along Fourth Street from B to A, or a distance of about 490 feet. This is one of the longest blocks in the city. Ten miles an hour spells 880 feet a minute--14 2/3 feet a second, so with this second base, the mathematical timer can follow it out to an infinitesimal figure.

On the upper part of Fourth Street the party paced an electric car and the little speed -marker on the auto caught the big machine going 17 miles an hour. The speed was lower, however on the business portion of the street. To get a more practical idea of what 10 miles an hour looked like, the reporter on a bicycle paced the auto, or rather, let the big 40 horse power machine pace him. He learned that quite a slow speed on the bike will be about 5 miles and the ordinary work on the pedals will reach the 10 mile rate. On the smooth pavement of the bicycle rider, at 15 miles, could easily keep in touch with the gas burner, but at 20 miles it left him behind pumping his "durndest."

Ten miles an hour is not a rapid speed and a passenger can safely jump from the auto at that rate, while 5 miles is slow. A man can walk 4 miles an hour and a buggy or light vehicle will ordinarily travel 12 to 15 miles in that time. Few of the large automobiles can get down to 5 or 8 miles without "killing" the engines, the machinery being constructed for higher speed. On the whole it seems that the auto speed limit proposed to the City Council Tuesday evening is somewhat low. However, there is no doubt that many autoists here get "speed mad" and drive their cars at a dangerous clip. Some regulation is doubtless needed.

- Santa Rosa Republican, April 29, 1908

SPEED LIMIT TO BE 10 MILES AN HOUR
Dr. McLeod Asks that Physicians When Responding to Emergency Calls Be Given Immunity Bath

At the meeting of the City Council last night Chairman Johnston of the Ordinance Committee, introduced an ordinance making it a misdemeanor for drivers of any automobile, motor car, etc. to drive faster than 10 miles an hour within the city limits of Santa Rosa. Violation of the ordinance is made punishable by fine not to exceed $50. In lieu of payment of which find to be jailed at the rate of one day for each two dollars. In the regular course of the ordinance it was referred back to the Ordinance Committee to report again at the next meeting.

Dr. J. H. McLeod addressed the Council and stated that a physician in cases of emergency would exceed the ten-mile limit, and he thought in cases of life or death the arrest and fining of the physician violating the law should not follow. The doctor spoke from experience, and said the flyer he had to put up was a clear loss as the case he attended was a charity case. City Attorney Ware opined that one law must govern all.

- Press Democrat, April 29, 1908

SPEEDING AUTOS BEYOND LIMIT
Speed-Mad Chauffeurs Racing Through the Streets

There are several auto drivers in the city who are running their machines very near the danger line and some day the public will be interrogating in a fierce "why?" It is becoming the usual thing to see a great 30 horsepower car plunging down a city street at a speed prohibited by state, county and municipal laws, and sooner or later, if the brakes are not put on, there will be trouble.

Late Sunday afternoon when the streets were thronged with pedestrians out to enjoy the cool evening, after the blistering day, a big touring car appeared on Mendocino Avenue going north. Five or six young men where the occupants and they were enjoying themselves to the limit. As they passed the residence of Chief of Police Fred Rushmore the machine was not at its greatest speed, but the officer called out a warning. Near Cherry the car had attained a speed of 35 or 40 miles an hour. As the great vehicle rushed roaringly passed it made as much noise and tore up as much dust as a railroad train. At College avenue a carriage containing several ladies hurriedly pulled to one side and the auto slowed down slightly to prevent a smashup. These young man--all well-known-- had been on an all day ride in the country, but had concluded to return to town and take in the streets. The shaded thoroughfares are more comfortable, possibly.

The speed limit was set by the city council June 17, the ordinance went into effect on the 18th. Any auto driver moving more than 10 miles an hour within the city limits may be arrested and fined for the offense $50. Signs will be placed at different points in the city lines for the information of strangers, but the local chauffeurs need no such warning.

"The city authorities are determined that the crowded streets shall not be made speed tracks by speed-mad auto drivers. In the country they may have at out with the supervisors, but in town they must consider slower vehicles and pedestrians." This is the statement of a city official and it means everybody. Ten miles is not a rapid rate and the automobile people complained that it "kills" the engine of the big 40 horsepower machines to slow down to that speed, but this theory will have to be concreted into a fact and moreover law is law. While a speed of 12 work or 15 miles may slip by the observant policeman, 30 and 35 "won't go," the cop says.

- Santa Rosa Republican, June 29, 1908

TO ENFORCE ORDINANCE
Police Will Arrest All the Speed Burners

The local officers intend to strictly enforce the city ordinances providing for a speed not exceeding 10 miles per hour in the city limits. Some men have been arrested recently for violating the ordinance, and persons on the streets assert that these men were traveling at a rate exceeding 20 miles an hour. One enthusiastic automobilist who is experienced in these matters, asserts that a machine driven by a local man came whizzing around a corner Thursday evening traveling at a rate of 25 miles an hour.

Recklessness on the part of chaffeurs and automobile owners brings the sport of running machines into disrepute and brings forth the displeasure of the people on the heads of all who run autos. This is not as it should be. There are many careful and conscientious drivers, as compared with the reckless ones, but all are judged hastily with those who break the laws.

George W. Davis came near being run down Friday by a youth who came through town too lively for the speed limit and the safety of pedestrians. It required lively moving to get out of harm's way. The young man at the throttle condescended to blow the horn, but there was never any shutting off of power to prevent an accident. The speed burners seem to think that if they give a man warning they are coming they have done their whole duty. It is then up to the individual to get on the way or be maimed, according to the way of thinking.

Officer Lindley has recently come in for a lot of abuse for arresting automobilists who violate the speed ordinance and this should not be so. An officer should be upheld by all the people for doing his duty, and be made to feel that the people appreciate his efforts to enforce the law.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 25, 1908

COULD NOT "SQUARE CASE"
Offender Against Speed Laws Taken Into Custody

Officer John M. Boyes taught an offending auto driver a valuable lesson on Monday, when the man passed through this city at a rate of speed estimated to be about 50 miles an hour. The man was arrested at Petaluma by Constable Jimmy Sullivan on the request of Officer Boyes, who was fortunate enough to have learned the number of the auto driven by the offender.

The car was numbered 12570 and the name of the man arrested with the car by Constable Sullivan was given as McDonald, a San Franciscan. The man called up Officer Boyes after being taken into custody in the southern city and try to "square" the case with the officer, but the latter is not the kind of man that can be "squared" with, and he promptly told the offender that the only way he could secure his release would be to put bail for his appearance here when wanted.

Those who saw the speed developed by the driver passing through the city were wrathy, and the good work of the officer is being committed not only by the public in general, but by automobilists in particular. These men want the laws enforced and will give their aid to the officers whenever they can to prevent infractions of the speed limit.

- Santa Rosa Republican, July 25, 1908

AND GRADUALLY THE QUIET ENDS

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In 1908, Santa Rosans flocked to see the first demonstration here of the latest technological marvel: Something they called "radio." The representative from Marconi's company wowed audiences for four nights talking about messages sent to/from ships at sea and between distant places, all communications in the precise stutter of Morse Code. (The demonstration was actually part of a con game; see here for details.)

What was demonstrated here was really known as "wireless telegraphy;" in that era, the transmission of voice (or music) was called "wireless telephony," and it would still be two years before the first broadcasts could be heard anywhere in the Bay Area from pioneer station KQW in San Jose (although that signal probably didn't reach as far as Sonoma County). Not until after WWI would the the first commercial radio stations in San Francisco begin operating. But even after there was something to hear other than dots and dashes, it was still difficult to listen to; radio was a headphones-only affair until the first electrical speakers appeared in the mid-1920s.

For the first twenty-five years of the Twentieth Century - and particularly the first decade - Santa Rosa was a pretty quiet place. Sounds were more occasional than constant, and rarely interruptive. Here there was no smokestack industry running heavy machines that gave cities of that time a constant low hum. The farm town grew slowly, so there was no ongoing racket of major new construction (except for the months after the 1906 quake).

The private sounds heard from houses were small and likely appealing; someone practicing piano or another musical instrument or singing. Aside from player pianos, recorded music was soft; the graphophone and phonograph of the day had wooden or metal speakers that could barely be heard in the next room.

Outside, there would have been dappled background sounds: The clop of horses and the chug of the occasional automobile, probably the crow of roosters because so many homes kept backyard chickens. Twice a day, everyone heard the garden water schedule whistles, and at night, most everyone would hear the low of cows in Noonan's stockyard at the corner of College and Cleveland Avenues. There were sometimes fire bells heard clanging. In those first ten years of the century, people individually created little noise; many walked or glided silently on bicycles or rode the electric streetcars. There was civic pride in that most of the downtown streets had been recently paved with smooth, noise-muffling macadam (which makes the thumpity-thump around old Courthouse Square from those ersatz cobblestones all that more ridiculous).

In his landmark book on soundscapes, "The Tuning of the World," R. Murray Schafer points out that ambient noise levels generally increase each year all over the world, no matter what the society or whether it's urban or rural. There are no more quiet places; sound is now heavy and continuous, much of it the result of incessant aviation and road traffic. Another major factor was the invention of the radio loudspeaker. Now the little box that was never quiet could be heard everywhere, and soon was.

The crowds at that 1908 exhibition were promised wonderful things would result from the development of the "wireless," and things wonderful surely came to pass, but at a price they could not have foreseen. Some twenty or more years later, there were probably Santa Rosa residents who were in that audience who now found themselves kept awake by dance music playing on a neighbor's radio, as they wondered what happened to the peaceful little town they used to know.

BIG CROWD HEARS "WIRELESS" TALK
Very Interesting Lecture and Exhibition at the Skating Rink Last Night

H. C. Robinson, representative of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph exhibitions lectured in the Pavilion rink on Monday night to a very large and interested audience on the science and possibilities of wireless telegraphy, giving practical demonstrations of sending and receiving messages without wires, including several feats of ringing fire bells, lighting electric lights and operating danger signals through the mysterious agency of Hertzian waves.

It was perhaps the first working of wireless apparatus Santa Rosa people have ever had the opportunity of inspecting and having the various phenomenon explained by a man who evidently knows the science thoroughly.

The lecturer gave a complete history of the discovery of the wireless principle of transmitting signals through the air. He took it up from long before the time Dr. Hertz discovered his now historic "ether wave" until the present day, when it has become a part of the modern complex civilization, and has passed out of the stage of being a novelty and a curiosity. He told of what progress has been made in the past few years by Marconi and how necessary wireless telegraphy has become in war and peace. He said that nearly every warship and all the great navies is now equipped with wireless apparatus. He told of how the great liners on the ocean keep in touch with the entire world while passing from continent continent. Newspapers are printed on hundreds of the "greyhounds of the sea" daily, through the aid of wireless; ships report themselves hundreds of miles out at sea, passengers can communicate with their friends at home as easily as if they were on land and had the telegraph and telephone at their disposal.

It is now a common thing, said the lecturer, for news dispatches to be sent from ships, and he mentioned the fact that Secretary Taft received the news of his mother's death by wireless while on board the steamer President Grant in the English Channel.

Not only is wireless used by ships at sea, but America and England are linked together by wireless, and it is only a matter of a short time when cables will be as much out of date as stagecoaches are now in the big cities. Even on the Pacific Coast the seaports, from San Diego to Alaska, are in constant touch with each other, and during the recent telegraph strike much news was transmitted by wireless.

Mr. Robinson went into the commercial possibilities of wireless and told how it would soon supplant the telegraph and cables. There is no doubt about its success, he said, both from a commercial standpoint and in every other way it has reached the stage, where it was recognized as the greatest discovery and invention combined in the present century.

Tonight, Wednesday and Thursday night similar electrician exhibitions will be given by Mr. Robinson. Admission is free.

- Press Democrat, June 16, 1908