It happened without any warning: "Santa Rosa's Public Library will close at 6PM today and suspend services until another building can be found," the Press Democrat article announced on November 17, 1960.
What town closes down its library? And can they even do that? Oh, sure, the old building had its faults, everybody knew. The building could be overcrowded after school or on weekends and the shelves were so full that books were also piled on the floor, which had something of a slant.
Behind those ivy-covered walls the place was thick with sentiment. Three generations of Santa Rosans had warm memories starting with children's story hours, of later reference desk help with homework, of taking home lightweight books to pass the time or stronger reading to sharpen one's wits. Out-of-town newspapers had classified ads to help find a new job or place to live that wasn't here; magazines presented stories and pictures of places to dream they could someday see.
And not to overlook that the building was a landmark - the library had been a centerpiece in two major motion pictures, with the Chamber of Commerce touting it as a tourist attraction.
Whatever was wrong with the old place, couldn't the damage be fixed?
No, authorities said. Or maybe yes - with the caveat that everyone would hate how it looked afterwards. But it wasn't really that simple a question because the real, unspoken answer was this: "Don't ask the question because we've already made a decision." And what the city and Library Board of Trustees had decided to do was tear the building completely down and replace it with something they had already committed to build. Landmark, public will, and everything else be damned.
The given reason for padlocking the doors was that the building wasn't up to fire codes and was structurally unsound. A letter to the Trustees from City Manager Sam Hood told them to immediately "move out of the building or close it" (i.e. shut down all town library services).
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.
- Jeff Elliott
Another landmark of old Santa Rosa is slated for demolition, so anyone wanting to say farewell shouldn't dawdle. Newcomers to town during, say, the last forty years, probably don't know about it; native Santa Rosans who are Baby Boomers (or older) were probably born in it. That place is the old General Hospital at the corner of A and 7th streets, and it still looks almost exactly as it did about a century ago, when it was built in 1922.
It was just the sort of hospital you'd expect to find here during the town's Shadow of a Doubt years, before and after WWII. The general practitioner doctors patched up farmers gored by bulls and reckless drivers who wrecked their autos on the Redwood Highway. They removed oodles of appendixes and tons of tonsils. So many casts were made for broken arms and legs they probably used enough plaster of paris to plaster every ceiling in Paris.
The tale of Santa Rosa General Hospital neatly breaks down into three acts but before raising that curtain, a few words about why it's being demolished: That entire block - Morgan to A street, 6th to 7th street - is to be torn down in stages in order to build the Caritas Village Project. The hospital is scheduled to be razed in early 2022 and replaced by one of two large affordable housing apartment buildings and a third large building on the block will be a family and homeless support center. The three buildings have a unified design and are quite attractive; they will surely be an asset to Santa Rosa for decades to come. But there are two really important reasons why the city should not allow them to be built at that location.
Thirty years ago in 1990, Santa Rosa (finally) recognized that much of its unique character had been heedlessly demolished. To save what little was left of its heritage, a few of the old neighborhoods were designated as Preservation Districts, with "St. Rose" being one of the first. New construction has to conform to stylistic guidelines in order to fit in with the overall look. To now exempt an entire block from both letter and spirit of the law is a dangerous precedent which could be used by developers to build anything, anywhere. And since the Caritas Village plans were developed long after this Preservation District was formed, the project backers began with the assumption that they could get away with violating city law.
The other worrisome aspect is the three-story, 42k square-foot building intended to provide one-stop services to the county's homeless. It's a noble idea except the location is three blocks from Courthouse Square, which only ensures that our grown grandchildren will still be avoiding downtown because of its vagrant problems. Look, Santa Rosa has a history of making foolish and short-sighted planning decisions - I'm in the middle of writing a ten-part series just about the 1960s screwups leading up to the mega-mistake of approving the shopping mall - but surely city planners recognize it's not wise to build a magnet for the homeless so close to the city core. Final approval decisions on Caritas Village will be made in coming months (planning reviews start February 13, 2020) so let the City Council know what you think about the project.
In the spotlight for General Hospital's Act I was Henry S. Gutermute (1865-1958), a man who had his fingers in many pies. We first met him in 1905 when he had the Maze Department Store in Petaluma, on the corner where the Bank of America now stands. Fast forward to 1915 and he's now president of the Burke Corporation, the new owner of the Burke Sanitarium, which five years earlier had been the scene of Sonoma County's crime of the century. To scrape away the scandal and relaunch the sanitarium they threw a luxe dinner and dance for 400 movers and shakers. What the store and the sanitarium have in common is that Gutermute liked to heavily advertise - a practice he would continue with General Hospital, although it was unusual to find newspaper ads for actual hospitals.
Meanwhile, a large family home at 804 Fourth street, then two doors east of the county library, was being converted into a new hospital. (Compare that lost majestic home to the squat little bank bunker there now and reflect upon why it was necessary to establish the Preservation Districts.) Called the Lindsay-Thompson Hospital/Sanitarium it was similar to the Mary Jesse/Eliza Tanner Hospital, another residence turned small hospital that was a block away. Both included an operating room.
That incarnation lasted just a year before it was taken over by the Burke Corporation, meaning Gutermute and his partners. They incorporated the General Hospital Association and renamed the place "General Hospital." Presumably their business plan was to offer a package deal with surgery in Santa Rosa and recuperation at their health resort, as many newspaper items reported patients shuffling back and forth.
For the next four years little General Hospital hummed along, with nearly daily ads in the newspapers offering "MEDICAL SURGICAL OBSTETRICAL" services. (Fun fact: In 1916, the McDonald's and other local nabobs marched their kids over there to have their tonsils removed en masse as a preventative measure before the start of the school year.) Then came the eviction notice - the Devoto family wanted their home back in thirty days. Santa Rosa had a 1919 housing crunch because of all the soldiers returning from WWI.
Instead of renting another large house, Gutermute scrambled to construct a temporary hospital from scratch. A special session of the City Council was called to grant him permissions to build something on the corner of Seventh and A streets - and just six weeks later (!!) the new General Hospital was open for business in January, 1920.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.
- Jeff Elliott
"This is why we can't have nice things" was a popular quip a few years ago; it's something to say after discovering something cherished has been trashed. Every time I step into the courtyard of Santa Rosa's city hall complex that's the phrase I mumble (okay, scream) because underneath this reinforced concrete monstrosity is the filled-in bed of Santa Rosa Creek.
(This article is the back half of the story which began in "HOW WE LOST SANTA ROSA CREEK…" and should be read first, as it explains why the creek was covered and traces the origins of the Urban Renewal Agency.)
Even in the URA's early days - while they were still pondering how much of Santa Rosa's historic downtown deserved to be wiped out - there was agreement there should be a "civic center" built somewhere within that area. The contrary voice in 1960 was developer Hugh Codding, who volunteered to donate "as much as you need" on Steele Lane, near where he was building his new shopping center.
Codding's quest to sell, lease, or give away land for a civic center is one of those epic tales about our town's wild and irrepressible developer. He first offered the city space in 1950 at Montgomery Village – although it was then outside of city limits. In the mid-1950s he offered another spot near his shopping center, this time at the corner of Fourth St. and Farmers Lane. Once Coddingtown was up and running he offered either of two Steele Lane sites in 1963 and when the City Council still didn’t bite, he tried to broker a deal for city hall to become part of the new county administration center (which would have put Santa Rosa's city offices on unincorporated county land). After this the Press Democrat editor wrote, "a city hall is not some toy on wheels, to be moved around from one outer boundary of a city to another where property developments happen to be going on." Undeterred, Codding once more pushed the Steele Lane location in 1964. The next year Hugh was back again, this time with site plans. But he was now a member of the Council, and the city attorney pronounced Santa Rosa could never consider any of his properties because it would be a conflict of interest. True to form, Hugh offered to resign on the spot - as long as they would accept his deal.
Although Codding remained the key player in the overall tragedy of Santa Rosa's urban renewal scheme, that's the extent of his involvement in this chapter on the city hall and what was to be built over the entombed creek. This time center stage belongs to one of his main adversaries: The Santa Rosa Burbank Center Redevelopment Company, which was formed in 1963 to "compete" for properties under the URA's control. ("Compete" is in ironic quotes because their bids won even though they paid nothing until the price was negotiated at a later date - a sweetheart deal that never failed to raise Codding's ire.) The locally-owned investment company was headed by five general partners, including Henry Trione as CEO/President. In the newspapers it was commonly called "the Burbank Center" or "the Burbank group," but since those names have other uses today they are referred to as simply SRBCRC here.
The SRBCRC hired a team of top-notch architects and redevelopment experts, launching with an ambitious $12 million proposal to redevelop the entire downtown area including Courthouse Square. It was already presumed that the courthouse would be demolished (there will be an upcoming article about that) and the square would be split in half by the new Santa Rosa Ave/Mendocino Ave connector.
Foremost among their celebrity consultants was architect John Savage Bolles who designed Candlestick Park, the spiky Birkenstock building in Novato beside Hwy 101 and most NorCal Macy's. Straddling the divided Courthouse Square he envisioned a 6-8 story "Civic Tower," later expanded to fifteen floors. The attorney for SRBCRC boasted it would be a "landmark...people will be able to see the tower from as far away as seven miles." The description in the PD said there would be parks on either side, including two lakes (!) and a constant-flow artificial creek.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.
- Jeff Elliott
Planning a time trip to witness the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake? Be careful where you'll pop up; anywhere downtown will be dangerous as all of the brick buildings collapse. Surprisingly, the safest place while the earth is shaking will be inside a massive stone building - St. Rose catholic church, on B street, built in 1900-1901.
It was (to state the obvious) an extraordinarily strong building.
"With the exception of a few stones from a cornice, St. Rose came through the dreadful ordeal unscathed," wrote historian Tom Gregory in his Sonoma County history five years later. A photo of the church apparently taken right after the earthquake shows a sawhorse next to the portico, where a a chunk of the corner appears missing. There was also some repair work needed on the steeple, but the whole job was already finished before downtown rebuilding began in earnest. The whole cost was reportedly $200; to raise funds the "ladies of St. Rose's Church" threw a dance at Grace Brothers' Park, illuminated by "many electric globes."
The expert masonry was done by a crew led by Peter Maroni, one of the skilled Italian-American stone cutters in Sonoma county. Gaye Lebaron has written often about these gentlemen from Tuscany and I have nothing further about them to offer. The basalt came from the Titania Quarry between Highway 12 and Montgomery Drive, where Santa Rosa Creek and Brush Creek join (the remains of the quarry are still there and can be visited).
All of that is fairly well-trod history but there's a whopper of a believe-it-or-not! twist to the St. Rose story: It's a forgotten design by a famous architect.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott
In the summer of 1883 most West Coast newspapers were complaining about the unusually hot weather; but here in Sonoma county, we were too busy complaining about each other. For months the air was heavy with angst and acrimony and there was no telling how long it would be before the winds changed.
The Board of Supervisors were determined to build a county courthouse in the middle of Santa Rosa's plaza. Petaluma wanted the new courthouse in their town - which would make them the county seat. Factions from Petaluma were circulating a petition demanding a vote on the issue while also threatening to split off and form a new county. Meanwhile, the rest of the county was upset at both Santa Rosa and Petaluma for dragging them into their fuss. All of that melodrama was covered in part one, "HOW COURTHOUSE SQUARE TORE SONOMA COUNTY APART."
Our story resumes in the third week of July 1883, when there was something of a lull in the fighting. There had been no mention of the Petaluma petition since early June, when it was said they were about ready to present it to the Board. Having already contracted with architects, the Supervisors now requested construction bids; it would be another ten weeks before they chose a contractor, and hopefully by then the petition matter would be settled.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. The Blogger platform has become increasingly unstable and as of this writing I am unable to upload images; there is no help available to interpret the cryptic error messages, which may (or may not) go away. I will continue to create stubs here for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott
Brainerd Jones designed high-fashioned mansions and simple homes; he was adept with both the old styles and the avant-guarde. If there was any other architect as versatile as this, I do not know who it is.
Yet he had no formal training. He did not study architecture at any college, nor did he apprentice at a major architectural firm. His only credentials were having worked as a carpenter and a draftsman. Yet there he was at the turn of the century, hanging out his shingle as an architect.
This is the first part of a presentation made at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum on October 20, 2018, and explains the developments in late 19th century architecture which had the most impact on Jones. Part two covers his background and some of his residential architecture up to 1906.
When Brainerd Jones was born in 1869, America was mainly a nation of plain Greek Revival farmhouses, federal style and assorted colonial styles that were rarely seen outside of the region where they emerged. Builders had limited skills and worked without plans, having previously built nearly identical houses many times before. Builder's guides and manuals often only contained directions on how to best follow classical principles and apply decorations.
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| Modern American architecture started after the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia as a wave of nostalgia swept the country for the first time. Probably driven in part by escapism from hardships of the ongoing Long Depression, popular books and magazines glorified America's colonial past with sentimental tales of Revolutionary days of yore, illustrated with drawings of cozy cottages and Elysian farms, where everyone supposedly lived and worked in harmony and fought the heroic cause (the bloody and divisive Civil War had also ended just a few years before, remember). All things colonial became fashionable again, particularly furniture and building styles. |
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| Fairgoers also packed a replica New England Kitchen of 1776, where they could interact with players in colonial costumes. |
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Pavilions representing the states, such as this one for Illinois, exposed the limited range of American architecture, where the Gothic style loaded with ornamentation was considered the ideal design.
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At the fair visitors encountered architecture completely unlike anything back home. Most talked about were the Queen Anne style buildings at the British compound. In England this revival style had been already popular for several years.
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| The “Japanese Dwelling” presented an architectural esthetic with simple, clean lines and the highest craftsmanship; an observer said it was "as nicely put together as a piece of cabinet work." Inside was an open floor plan without doors or even permanent interior walls. The Atlantic Monthly commented it made everything else look “commonplace and vulgar.” |
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| About ten million people attended the fair, the equivalent of 1 in 5 Americans. Victorian Gothic, with its busy gingerbread ornamentation quickly lost popularity as American Queen Anne evolved as the popular favorite nationwide. This house still has lots of scrollwork but also many of the curvy elements of Queen Anne, including a gazebo wrap. |
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| Another transitional Queen Anne, with more curved surfaces and a prominent, irregular roof. |
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| In a remarkably short time, Queen Anne evolved into the style we all recognize today, in all its boundless variations. But American Queen Anne lost all relationship to its historic roots; it was popular because it was a new, highly picturesque style. |
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| Where the Pacific states were usually slow to adopt new trends from the East Coast, Queen Anne emerged simultaneously throughout the country; this is the 1881 Atherton House in San Francisco. |
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| One reason Queen Annes caught on so quickly was because there was now a trade magazine that taught builders how to make those turrets and other unfamiliar elements. American Architect and Building News – which also appeared in the Centennial year of 1876 – did much to standardize building nationwide. |
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| Through the late 1880s and 1890s, Queen Annes sprouted like mushrooms all over San Francisco. |
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| Let's rewind back to the Centennial Exposition to meet the birth of Queen Anne's twin. Now called “Shingle Style,” it was really Artistic Queen Anne, created by a cadre of East Coast architects, it mixed the Tudor elements with aspects of the Japanese building. Usually wider more than tall and with a prominent roof, the designs incorporated as many windows as possible and open interiors, which transformed hallways and vestibules from mere circulation corridors into living spaces. |
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Unlike the popular Queen Anne style with its flashy look, these architects were consciously trying to create artistic houses that looked as if they could be centuries old. Plain shingles were sometimes aged in buttermilk or painted the color of moss. These homes had minimal ornamentation; notice here the fine latticework that suggested Asian wicker or rattan.
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| In the letters section of magazines like American Architect and Building News and Harper's, philosophy and aesthetics were hotly debated. For some it was a crusade to forge a unique style of American architecture, while others argued a higher objective was “unity,” which meant in part that a building must be in harmony with its setting. |
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| And some designs look ultra-modern even today. |
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| These mammoth “cottages” were commissioned by the wealthy families of the Gilded Age living in Newport and elsewhere in New England. This is Elberon, New Jersey, which was the Newport for the nouveau riche. |
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| While popular Queen Anne was immediately embraced by San Francisco, it took ten years for Shingle Style to arrive. The city had a reputation as a provincial backwater indifferent to the arts, including architecture. Big commissions for commercial buildings went to firms in Chicago and New York. A. Page Brown opened an office in 1889 on a trial basis and soon found himself swamped with work. Brown, who had worked with the top firm working this style, McKim, Mead and White, hired Willis Polk, Alexander Oakey and other A-team architects from the East. Maybeck worked with the firm on and off for several years. |
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| This 1890 drinking party at Willis Polk's apartment included Ernest Coxhead, whose designs straddled Shingle Style and the British Queen Anne Style. All of them were with a few years of Brainerd Jones' age, as was Julia Morgan, who would be studying under Maybeck at UC/Berkeley in the following years. The man on the far right is Soule Edgar Fisher. (Photo: On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century, Richard Longstreth) |
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| Fisher's 1892 Anna Head school in Berkeley is one of the few designs firmly in the East Coast Shingle Style, avoiding any ties to popular Queen Anne. |
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| A. Page Brown's Crocker Old People's House in San Francisco, 1889. |
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| Coxhead's Carrigan House, San Anselmo, c. 1895 |
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| Coxhead's Beta Theta Pi Chapter House in Berkeley, 1893 |
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| Coxhead Churchill House 1892 Napa, now Cedar Gables Inn |
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| Maybeck house for Charles Keeler 1895 |
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| Hearst's Wyntoon, which involved Willis Polk, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan |
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| Coxhead's 1890 St. John's Episcopal Church in San Francisco |
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| American Queen Anne and Shingle style architecture are two of the three significant influences on Jones as he began his career. The last element was the news stand. Trade periodicals had taught builders how to make a Queen Anne but in the mid-1880s, general public interest in home design was strong enough to support periodicals. Shoppell's was the most popular, selling about 10,000 copies of every issue by the turn of the century. |
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| George Barber's pattern books were the other main source for “mail order houses.” More than anyone else, Barber established the American Queen Anne style. His firm sold plans for over 20,000 houses, but it's likely a far greater number of houses were built without buying blueprints, instead improvised from the floor plans and basic drawing shown in his pattern books. |
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| Barber launched his monthly “American Homes” in 1895 to appeal to a wider audience of people who may not be building in the near future. The magazine included poetry and general interest articles with many photographic illustrations. |
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| Keith's Magazine was somewhat like the nerdy Popular Mechanics/Popular Electronics magazines of the mid 20th century. Plenty of DIY projects and technical articles aimed at builders and architects. When Barber's American Homes ended publication the firm's designs were featured here. |
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| Magazines with enormous circulations such as House Beautiful began presenting readers with more articles about modern trends in residential design. Even Country Gentleman, the oldest magazine aimed at rural America, began running articles about modern architectural design. (This issue is from much later, but this cover is my personal favorite.) |
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| Gustav Stickley's The Craftsman was a true general interest magazine, with short fiction, poetry, children's stories as well as in-depth articles about all kinds of art, particularly fine furniture and home decoration. The magazine popularized the word, “bungalow” and nearly every issue included a “Modern Craftsman” house design following the clean look of the Arts & Crafts movement, free of decoration and with exposed construction elements, Stickley's houses meshed with the philosophy of John Ruskin, who promoted skilled craftsmanship and the pleasures of a simpler way of life. |
A group of magazines such as shown above is probably what Brainerd Jones saw on the coffee table (dining room table, actually) when he first met with a new client. With so much exposure to modern architecture through popular media, they already likely had strong opinions of the kind of home they wanted Jones to design, making it more of a collaborative effort with the architect. This helps explain why Jones' work represents so many different styles.
Don't panic, but we've been surrounded. Travel around Santa Rosa (and to a lesser extent, Sebastopol) for ten minutes and it's likely you'll encounter one or more buildings designed by "Cal" Caulkins, Santa Rosa's top architect roughly between 1935-1960. Outside of the neighborhoods built by Hugh Codding, no other person did more to define the look of Santa Rosa than Caulkins.
He was also prolific. By going through the Press Democrat archives he can be found named as the architect on over 100 different buildings, and that's not counting projects that were dropped or reassigned, projects that were simply remodels and, of course, projects that weren't mentioned in the paper. I found references to 17 Santa Rosa houses and believe the true number is 2-3x more - either that, or there was an army of contractors here during the late 1930s doing Caulkins knockoffs.
The residential buildings he created are not artsy or pretentious - but neither are they boring and repetitious like the Codding houses. But most of his work was not in designing houses; he did about twice as many civic or commercial buildings (including a roller skating rink), a couple of dozen schools and a handful of churches. His masterpiece is probably the Art Deco-style goliath on Fourth street which is now home to Barnes & Noble (more about that later) but everything he designed has merits. A chronological list of all his known work can be found at the end of this article.
The "Caulkins style" is pretty easy to spot once you know what to look for, and I've created a mile-long walking tour that will showcase most of the elements seen in his work. But before putting on those hiking shoes, a little background is helpful. There were five main "styles" that he used throughout his career - and as we'll see on the tour, he often moshed them together:
SPANISH COLONIAL Stucco walls sometimes with carved bas-relief details; tile roof; terracotta attic vents; arched entryways; decorative ironwork. Caulkins apparently called this "Early California."
ENGLISH-NORMAN Hybrid style popular in the 1920s-1930s and also called Tudor-French Norman style. Stucco walls with half-timbering often more curvy and elaborate than simple Tudor; casement windows; cross-gabled with a steep hipped roof and the entryway beneath its own gable or part of a tower.
COLLEGIATE GOTHIC General 20th century style for brick or stone campus buildings to appear old, per Oxford and Cambridge. See this article on its history. (h/t to John Murphey for the name)
STREAMLINE MODERNE/PWA MODERNE Simplified version of Art Deco often intended to mimic 1930s automobile styling; curved edges, glass bricks, casement window pairs on corners, aluminum or even chrome trim. PWA (Public Works Administration) Moderne was another offshoot of Art Deco popular for public buildings in the 1930s-1940s.
MID-CENTURY MODERN Single story with maximum window space making walls as transparent as possible; flat roof, sharp angles, multiple exterior entrances preferred to hallways; often intended to look prefab or modular.
Also before we begin, full disclosure: I have a personal dislike for much of his architecture, but my bias is not against his work specifically - I just don't have a taste for any form of modernist architecture, which had its heyday during the same decades as Caulkins' career. To me the "moderne" styles are Art Deco without the art, often making me think of bus stations (Caulkins did remodel the Greyhound station here) or Los Angeles' oppressive downtown buildings (my long-running joke has been the style should be renamed, "Sepulveda"). The many elementary schools he designed in the mid-century modern style probably looked outdated by the time the first kindergarten students graduated high school.
At the same time, Caulkins did his best with what the clients of his era demanded. Those schools that appear mired in the ugly 1950s had an innovative baffle roof (invented by Caulkins) to bring in natural light to the side of the classroom farthest away from the big windows. Each of his residences in historic revival styles had its own unique touch in some significant way - unlike the cookie-cutter Codding houses. And while his cottage-type homes were designed for families with middle class budgets, they don't look cheaply made. Another difference from much of what Codding built. So.
Our walking tour begins at the corner of Tenth and B streets, which might as well be called the intersection of Streamline and Moderne. Here are two of Caulkins' best examples kitty-corner from each other. Use the Google street view below for orientation (or if you're not walking, follow the arrows as directed):
Standing from the Google viewpoint, the building closest to the camera is the 1940 Thurlow Professional Building. On the distance on the other side of Tenth street is seen the 1938 Hamlin Medical Building. Note the large overall area of wall space devoted to windows on both, as well as corner windows wherever possible.
The SEIU building at 600 B street shows more of a debt to Art Deco, mainly because of the door and torch lights on either side (although I don't know if these were original). Ribbons in the concrete steps lead to the entryway with its aluminum canopy, which is repeated on the side. The entrance is in the middle of the building, yet the window layout is asymmetrical.
Walk across the blocked intersection island (uh, why is it there?) to 576 B street. The imposing pilasters give it that heavy PWA Moderne look, although the corrugated metal cladding adds much needed color. Note the caduceus medallion at the top from its old days as a medical building - which is a bit awkward as the offices have been used by lawyers and accountants for as long as I can remember.
Proceed up Tenth street to see the side of the building, again packed with metal frame windows, including every corner. The arrangement of the windows is asymmetrical although edges line up vertically.
Continue up Tenth and turn left at the stop sign, walking to the intersection of College and Mendocino avenues. Cross College ave. at the stoplight and proceed left (west) on College. Turn right (north) at the first street on Glenn, and then two short blocks to Benton street.
There are at least five Caulkins homes in this general neighborhood - and likely more we don't know about - making it Ground Zero for his residential work. One reason there may be so many is because he lived at 100 Ridgway avenue (now cut off on the other side of the freeway) during the 1930s and early 1940s.
The 1937 Douglas house at the corner of Glenn and Benton streets is a fine example of how adept Caulkins was at tinkering with the popular styles of his day. While all that half timbering and the steep roof screams jolly olde England, one doesn't notice the other stuff that's completely discordant. The many dormer windows are extremely large for the house - but since he used shed roofs instead of the usual Tudor gables, they don't draw much attention. (I'd also argue that without the distracting half timber the house would look top heavy.) And look: Metal frame casement windows on three corners, à la Streamline Moderne.
Continue walking north on Glenn street one block, to the intersection with Denton Court/Denton Way. The cul de sac site was the subject of much controversy in 1949, as Santa Rosa wanted to put the War Memorial Auditorium there - yes, the same hulking building now across from the fairgrounds (and designed by Caulkins). It's a long story, explored here in "THE VETS WAR MEMORIAL WARS."
Turn east on Denton Way, walking on the right side of the street. You will pass two more Caulkins houses at #432 and #446, built respectively in 1935 and 1936. Aside from mentions in the Press Democrat, we can ID these as Caulkins houses because of...wait for it...corner window pairs. (The windows at #446 are updated.) The newer house also has a unusual feature also found on the Chamber of Commerce model home he designed about the same time: A tall, swept standing seam roof over a bay window.
At the end of Denton Way is the 1937 house for Acme Beer baron Floyd Trombetta. It is the largest of the Caulkins homes in the area and the one most conforming to a style, here Spanish Colonial Revival - no Streamline Moderne windows this time. He did somewhat break stride by putting the entryway in a tower, per the English-Norman hybrid.
Proceed north on Mendocino avenue. You'll immediately be in front of St Luke's, which Caulkins designed in 1945. It is supposed to be "Tudor English Gothic," but aside from some of the fenestration I wouldn't have guessed.
Walk north to the stoplight at Ridgway ave. where you should cross Mendocino ave. to the east side. Continue two short blocks to the Crawford Court intersection.
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| Cal Caulkins 1936 drawing of the Trombley house, 1122 Mendocino ave |
On the corner is the home Caulkins designed in 1936 for his friends, the Trombleys. "Professor" George Trombley was Santa Rosa's premier music teacher and founder of the Santa Rosa Symphony in 1929. Although it's now altered and broken up into apartments, this was a showplace when it was built; the Press Democrat printed his drawing at least twice, along with a lengthy description of how "ultra modern" it was. And yes, there were corner windows.
Cross the street back to the west side using the pedestrian stoplight and continue north until you reach the Santa Rosa Junior College gate. This was designed by Caulkins and dedicated June 15, 1935 in a ceremony including the widow of Luther Burbank. Here would be built a grand college, the arch promised.
In the years that followed, Cal Caulkins designed ALL of the original buildings on the campus. If he had created no other architecture in his life, he should be remembered for that.
His full name was Clarence Adelbert Caulkins Jr., although everyone called him "Cal" - which has caused some to mistakenly assume he was a Calvin. He was born 1899 in Montana and studied architecture at UC/Berkeley, where he worked for years with John Galen Howard, who designed the Empire Building and would have given Santa Rosa several other memorable buildings had our civic leaders not gone on the cheap.
Caulkins moved to Santa Rosa around 1932 and partnered with William Herbert, an architect who had been here for about fifteen years. Curiously, the prolific Caulkins is now all but forgotten while Herbert's prestige as "Santa Rosa's first architect" has risen - even though he accomplished little.
Today Bill Herbert is falsely credited with projects such as the original Luther Burbank school (sorry, it was built about ten years before Herbert showed up) and the designs which appeared during the firm's sudden burst of activity that began once Caulkins joined the firm. Herbert is often named as the architect for Sebastopol's 1935 Park Side School, for example, although the design is clearly in synch with Caulkin's version of PWA Moderne. What Herbert did accomplish was mainly in the 1920s, particularly as being the supervising architect during the construction of Santa Rosa High School. He was also Santa Rosa's building inspector for a number of years. Only two surviving examples of his solo architecture still can be found in Santa Rosa - a modest house at 418 Denton Way and the "Von Tillow Block" at 616 Mendocino ave., home to the Round Robin dive bar. Although William Herbert was said to be an MIT graduate, I'll wager it was in a field of study other than architecture.
Scan the list below of the work produced by the Herbert & Caulkins office in 1935 and be humbled - two major schools, the first Junior College building (the gym), a major office building and four houses in Santa Rosa, one of them a place in Proctor Heights that the Press Democrat called "palatial." There were probably more; next door to the house at 1121 St. Helena ave. is another from the same year, both exactly using Caulkins' English-Norman vocabulary. And a couple of doors away is #1107, which was used as a model home for a time, eventually becoming the Caulkins family home. And on top of all that, he did a design for the county hospital (seen here).
(RIGHT: May 8, 1936 Rosenberg store fire. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library)When Caulkins opened his own office in 1936, things got really busy for him. There were at least seven more houses including the Streamline Moderne showpiece for his friends, the Trombleys. And then the disaster of May 8th happened.
The fire at Rosenberg's Department Store was most devastating event in Santa Rosa since the Great 1906 Earthquake. The fire was so fierce there was concern that the city reservoir might not have enough water to fight it. It took several tense hours and firemen from all over the area to bring it under control.
The Rosenbergs vowed immediately to rebuild - and as the lost building's upper floors were a major hotel, there were two businesses to restore. They gave Cal Caulkins the commissions for both.
The site at Fourth and B (currently the CitiBank building) was to become the New Hotel Santa Rosa as soon as fire debris was cleared and the blueprints were ready. The department store would be built on the half-block at Fourth and D, which was then a gas station and a garage. The Rosenbergs already owned the portion of Third and D which is still used as a parking lot behind the store.
The New Hotel Santa Rosa opened in December 1936, just seven months after the fire which is nothing short of amazing - three shifts of construction workers were kept busy 24 hours a day.
The exterior of the hotel appears plain and rote, but that's only because all photos are in black and white; when it opened the PD spent a paragraph praising Caulkins' innovative use of color - yet without describing what the colors were. Inside the design straddled Moderne and Art Deco. Aluminum bands were used there as well to create strong horizontal lines with indirect lighting cast upward from the pillars. These features continued in the dining room, which could seat 350 (!) and had walls painted in brown, yellow and apricot, which might well have been the muted exterior colors as well.
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| New Hotel Santa Rosa. Photos courtesy Sonoma County Library |
But also in December the paper revealed the San Francisco firm of Hertzka & Knowles were the architects for the department store. Nothing was said of why they were replacing Caulkins - or if he was being replaced completely.
Since the days immediately after the fire, Caulkins had been talking up his design to reporters and a drawing of his appeared in the PD less than three weeks afterward. Those early articles show plans were very much in flux; the paper said it would be a one story building with a mezzanine, then soon after that it could be up to six stories high with "a battery of elevators and escalators." His drawing shows a building half again as large as what was built. Consistent throughout was that Fred Rosenberg wanted the place to look hip; according to the PD, Caulkins was "instructed to design the store as ultra-modern as possible...it will be of moderne architecture, with Caulkins intending to call for considerable use of a new-type structural glass and chrome-plated ironwork in his plans."
The second drawing below appeared just before construction began and was most likely done by H&K. The most striking difference between Caulkins' early drawing is the tower, which reached the building's six-story potential - as the tallest structure in town, it was said to be like a beacon when illuminated at night. Aside from that, his preliminary sketch of a much larger building is recognizable in this later drawing, particularly the strong vertical decorative elements on the face contrasting with a stack of belt courses wrapping all the way around. And there's plenty of that glass brick which Caulkins was intending to use.
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Cal Caulkins preliminary drawing for Rosenberg's Department Store. PD, May 26, 1936
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Final (?) drawing unsigned for Rosenberg's Department Store. PD, Jan 21, 1937
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Whether H&K completely took over or collaborated with Caulkins is unknown, as is whether the final design belongs to him, them, or both. I'm inclined to believe all of the store's interior and most of its exterior should be attributed to Caulkins; as seems to be the case with the hotel, there's an originality in the design which defies simple definitions of what Art Deco or Streamline Moderne is "supposed" to look like. Nor can I find any examples of Hertzka & Knowles designing anything else that looks like this store. In 1941 they created the Leader Department Store in Petaluma (later Carithers) and that's best described as being more in the International style, so devoid it is of any artistic features.
What does sees clear is that the poor guy was overstretched when construction plans were being finalized at the end of 1936. Besides the two enormous Rosenberg projects and the houses, a major problem arose at the Junior College while constructing his second building, causing all work to stop (the lumber was poor quality). With pressure to open the hotel doors ASAP, Caulkins would have had to be superhuman to give the department store project his full attention, what with the required budget breakouts, contractor bids, and million other last minute details large and small. Construction on the store began in January 1937 and its grand opening was shortly before Hallowe'en the same year.
Caulkins stayed incredibly busy over the next few years - check out the timeline below. In 1938 alone he designed Burbank auditorium and three other major buildings at the Junior College. He also became president of the Rotary, which seems to have been a full-time job, judging be all the doings reported in the news. And when WWII happened he went away for three years as a civilian employee designing dorms and housing for the Navy, becoming the architect for the entire Naval District in the Bay Area.
And now the obl. Believe-it-or-Not! surprise twist: Everything you've read here so far about Caulkins is just prelude to the really interesting story.
When Cal came back from the war, he had a vision to redesign almost all of Santa Rosa's downtown core from the ground up. Instead of the grid of streets which had been platted out way back in 1853 when there was only a couple of houses, a tavern and stray pigs, Caulkins envisioned a magnificent modern civic center to serve the town and county, something which likely would have turned us into a model city of postwar reconstruction for the entire United States.
The Chamber of Commerce loved the idea, as did the labor unions, service clubs, veteran's groups, women's groups and politicians of all stripes. The Press Democrat ran a banner on the front page reading, "Santa Rosa's Future is at Stake." It looked like a done deal. And then came December 4, 1945 - a day that will live in a kind of infamy.
CAL CAULKINS ARCHITECTURE
Corning Union High School gym - Tehama county (w/ Herbert)
Webb & Bowman building - fuel oil and boilers 3rd and Main (w/ Herbert)
Usseglio house 432 Denton Way
Chamber of Commerce model home 1621 Proctor Terrace - English cottage (w/ Herbert)
Proctor house 2445 Sunrise Place/Proctor Heights - Mediterranean (w/ Herbert)
SRJC gate dedication June 15 Mrs. Burbank
SRJC gym (w/ Herbert)
Sebastopol Union Elementary School - now Park Side (w/ Herbert)
Farmer's Mutual Insurance 631-635 Fifth st (w/ Herbert)
Malm house 1121 St. Helena ave (w/ Herbert)
Cloverdale Union High School (w/ Herbert)
Eicher house 438 Denton Way
Call house 928 McDonald ave
Talbot house 201 Talbot ave
Rapp house 236 Talbot ave
E. Stewart house one story early California style
George Bech house 210 Palm ave Sebastopol enlarge and alter
Trombley house 1122 Mendocino ave
SRJC "home science and commercial" building
Rosenberg's Department Store
Hotel Santa Rosa 4th and B, 508 Fourth st - see PD 12/4/36
Trombetta house 821 Mendocino ave
D. W. Douglas house 354 Benton st
H. T. Graves house 1421 17th st
WPA community center at Howarth Park (proposed - built?)
Stone co. new bldg + alter 625 Fifth st
Ralph Brown house 1612 Bryden Lane
Hamlin medical bldg 576 B st - 2 story
Knowlden Court apt building 502 Santa Rosa Ave (now Economy Inn)
Challenge Cream and Butter Santa Rosa ave
auditorium for Fremont school
county hospital nurse's quarters
doctor office remodel 1116 Mendocino ave (next to Trombley)
Burbank auditorium, 3 other major JC buildings - PD 9/8/38 - open Jan 1940
roller rink at south entrance Santa Rosa Redwood Hwy near Triangle
Clark Avery house 219 Doyle Park Drive
Thurlow Professional Building 600 B st
Ives Park pool and rec buildings, Sebastopol
L. Grant Kellogg house hillside east of Santa Rosa (59b Adobe Canyon Rd?)
Ukiah fire station and jail
houses for doctors in Ukiah, Willits, Mendocino, Eureka
Hogan house in Yokayo subdivision Ukiah wins award
Building Trades Temple 636 Third st
Seidel house Petaluma - early colonial
Mendocino county hospital
St. Luke's 905 Mendocino Ave built 48 "tudor english gothic"
Lessard Paper co. Sebastopol ave and Olive corner
Sears - 7th st block between A and B 75000 sq ft opens 1949
Dodge-Plymouth dealership 955 Redwood Hwy S
Buick dealership Redwood Hwy S "automobile row"
Ling furniture store 1000 block of fourth st
Doyle Park school built 1950 (now Santa Rosa French-American Charter)
Ben Hall bldg SW corner 10th and Mendocino av
SRJC assembly hall and music bldg
Fremont grade school (demolished now Charter School for the Arts)
Middletown Unified School
Mark West Union School
American Trust Co. bank corner of Fourth and Exchange
Belleuve Union Elementary School (Kawana)
Carniglia house 1940 Grace Drive
1949 remodel of courthouse basement for county surveyor and road commissioner
Mendocino county courthouse
Mendocino union high school
First Presbyterian 1550 Pacific Ave (early sketches gothic)
IOOF Hall Santa Rosa 545 Pacific Ave
Charles Niles Jr. house 2111 Linwood Ave
Greyhound expand and remodel 5th and B
Forestville Union Elementary school new wing
Flowery Elementary School Fetters Hot Springs
Sharrocks house 931 Litchfield ave Sebastopol
Roseland elementary admin + addition 985 Sebastopol ave
Harmony Union School District, Occidental built 1957
East Petaluma fire station
Ukiah High School gym
Doctor's bldg 1158 Montgomery Dr
Christian Scientist 330 Hope st
Welti Funeral Home 1225 Sonoma Avenue (now Daniels Chapel of the Roses)
car wash between Santa Rosa ave and Petaluma Hill Rd
Cinnabar Elementary School
Cotati Elementary School
Veterans Memorial Sebastopol
Twin Hills Union Elementary School
Alexander Valley Union School addition
Roseland elementary 950 Sebastopol ave (new school or 5 room add to Sheppard school?)
Office of Civil Defense - recondition buildings at Naval Air Station Sebastopol Rd.
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church 500 Robinson Rd Sebastopol
Salvation Army 115 Pierce st
store 112 N Main st. Sebastopol (south of People's Music)
Newberry's store Fourth st additions and renovation
Knox Presbyterian 1650 W 3rd St
A. Z. Blackman house 549 Talbot ave
Carl Livingston house "Circle 3L Ranch" Santa Rosa (7639 Sonoma Hwy?) early american
Yaeger & Kirk offices 701 Wilson st (now Copperfields warehouse)
Congregationalist church Oakland
Lewis school additions
Lakeview, Eucalyptus school districts projects
Point Arena school
Upper Lake school
Round Valley school
CAL CAULKINS CAREER EVENTS
plans for American Legion bldg south of Julliard park between Santa Rosa av and A
preliminary plans on county hospital
1937 settles $1100 claim for prelim plans on county hospital $800 (John Easterly final)
mainly four SRJC projects, Rotary president
Nov. issue Architect and Engineer feature
May - active duty on dorms, housing for Richmond/Vallejo farm/defense workers
civilian employee of Navy in SF
architect for 12th Naval District
Andre Morilhat, C. J. Harkness joins firm
North Bay rep for AIA
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital preliminary plans (not used)
"Caulkins Plan" seismic survey of all downtown bldg. mandated retrofits
President Santa Rosa Downtown Development Assoc
Give Santa Rosa credit: When it decided to destroy the downtown area, it did so thoroughly. In the late 1960s the town demolished all of its legacy public buildings including the Carnegie library (which was replaced only after considerable arm-twisting) and the county courthouse. Supposedly they were completely unsafe and ready to tumble down at the first quiver of a quake although there were little or no concerns before. County archivist Katherine Rinehart just came across blueprints from 1945 showing the county was even considering a third story addition to the courthouse.
Less mentioned is that the city hall building next to Courthouse Square was also torn down after Santa Rosa built the sprawling city complex on Santa Rosa Avenue in 1969. The new complex obliterated the site of Kabetciuwa, the most significant Pomo community in this area, so thus the town managed to score a two-fer in legacy destruction.
The old city hall represented the conclusion of post-1906 earthquake reconstruction. The original idea was for something much grander; in 1908 the city commissioned architect John Galen Howard to design a combined firehouse and city hall. His plans were in the Beaux Arts style much like the Empire Building, which he also created. For reasons never explained the project was abandoned; the firehouse remained at its previous location on Fifth street and the new city hall would be built at 210 Hinton (today part of the large bank building at 50 Old Courthouse Square).
Built in 1913, the place housed the city council chamber, police station, courtroom, jail, offices for the mayor, city clerk, tax collector, recorder, city attorney and street commissioner plus staff for all - it makes one wonder if they were sometimes sitting on each other's laps. The issue of crowding came up even before construction started, as some of the most prominent men in town met with City Council in a special session. There were more suitable vacant lots around downtown, they insisted, some almost twice as wide as the 40-foot city-owned lot where the building was planned. Sorry, said the mayor; we've already explored those options.
At least the lot was deep, and the Santa Rosa Republican provided a detailed description of the interior, transcribed below; a highlight is mention that the jail included "a 'hobo' room, furnished principally with cool walls and floor and opportunity for reflection."
The architect was Luther M. Turton, winning the contract over county courthouse designer J. W. Dolliver. I've long planned a thorough writeup of Turton as "Santa Rosa's other Luther;" he was a prolific architect all over the North Bay and particularly in Napa, where he was based (short bio here). Besides city hall, he also designed several Santa Rosa homes, schools and office buildings. For a number of years he had an office here in (what would become known as) the Empire Building.
Like his contemporary Brainerd Jones, his work was eclectic and personalized for each client - for our city hall, he even provided the office furniture. Fortunately, the Napa County Historical Society has hundreds of Turton architectural drawings including his blueprints for Santa Rosa city hall.
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Santa Rosa City Hall in 1967, Photo by Don Meacham and courtesy Sonoma County Library.
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One of the best designed, constructed and fitted building in Sonoma county is Santa Rosa's city hall, now nearing completion. It only remains to complete a small amount of finishing, install the lighting fixtures and put in place the furnishings.
The front facade presents a pleasing appearance, but the idea of utility at moderate cost is the object achieved. Abundance of light, superior ventilation, modern plumbing and heating have been provided and the arrangement of the interior is most excellent in all particulars.
The front rooms on the ground floor will be the office of the chief of police, provided with counter and steel lined vault, the public entrance being from the north corridor which runs the length of the building to the police cell room. A handsome private office is provided for the chief.
In the rear of this is the locker and rest room for the police force, containing seven conveniently appointed coat rooms for members of the patrol, and ample comforts for rest when off duty or on office detail.
Connecting with this room, next east is the City Recorder's court room, light, ample in size, provided with finely appointed lavatory, hot and cold water, porcelain washbasin. The court room will be handsomely furnished. Direct entrance to the open court at the south is provided as well as entrance from the closed corridor at the north end of room.
In the rear of the court room is a supply land storage room of large capacity.
The entire east end of ground floor is devoted to the cell room; abundantly lighted thoroughly ventilated and containing shower bath and every convenience permissible in a detention room. There are five cells each containing two steel framed cots affixed to the walls, which may be folded against the wall if desired. Each cell contains sanitary plumbing and every provision possible for making confinement less irksome; thoroughly conforming to the most modern prison standard.
Between this room and the storage room are a woman's cell, furnished as above and a "hobo" room, furnished principally with cool walls and floor and opportunity for reflection.
Throughout the building are convenient clothes closets provided with every convenience and sanitary luxury, all up-to-the-hour is character and style.
The floors throughout are of fibrestone, noiseless to the tread; the baseboards are all "coved" so that no lurking place for dirt or dust is found. The janitor's duties are lightened and the most sanitary result possible in office flooring is obtained.
The finish is mainly in oak and mahogany, some native woods in finish harmonizing with the remainder. The is [sic] rich and solid in appearance, classic in design and devoid of "gingerbread" ornaments; sensible and durable.
The north corridor and staircase are of oak, the wainscoting being of fibrestone. All walls of the main floor offices are tinted in a manner to soften and tone the light with most pleasing effect.
The main front room on the second floor is for the use of the city clerk and provided with steel lined vault, and all conveniences for both public and the official. A mail chute to the chief's office below permits the saving of many extra journeys up and down the stairs. An adjoining room for stenographers' use, etc., and convenient closets are provided.
The rooms at front end of corridor make a private office with ante room for the Mayor.
In rear of clerk's office are rooms for city attorney and street commissioner.
East of these office rooms is the council chamber, finely designed, handsomely fitted in oak and mahogany, light, airy, and with ample accommodation for the public as well as the city officials. The ceiling is ornamental in design and when the electric lights are turned on at sessions will present an artistic appearance.
On a dais in the southwest corner of the room "his honor" will be enthroned at a handsome mahogany desk, overlooking the scene from an eminence, as it were. Directly in front the city clerk's desk will be in direct connection with the mayor's--or within easy reach for the passing of documents. The councilmen will be seated at desks ranging in a quarter circle, the whole space being enclosed by a substantial parapet instead of openwork railing.
Wall seats line both north and east walls, giving ample and comfortable seating for more than fifty people. Flanking the clerk's desk there are desks for the press representatives.
The acoustic properties are good and it will be easy to hear the ordinary tones of conversation any place within the room. When the handsome furniture is in place it will be a "gem" in its way.
The east rooms are for the city engineer and city assessor, commodious, light, with large storage closets and all conveniences.
The whole building will be heated by the hot water system, the radiators being already in place and the plant ready for operation,
The most modern sanitary plumbing fixtures have been used throughout and there is no concealed work, all being exposed, easy of access for repairs, ornate to look upon and the best that can be found anywhere. Hot and cold water are supplied to all basins and there is no place for germs or filth to accumulate in any part of the building.
The upper corridor is abundantly lighted by three large skylights and vault light frames in the floor admit plenty of light to the lower corridor.
The best of materials and workmanship have been employed throughout and Architect Turton is more than pleased with the manner in which the contractors, Gallagher & Wygant, have carried out their agreement.
The city now possesses a commodious and handsomely equipped building and--it will be paid for in full when the contractors turn it over in a few days.
Mayor J. L. Mercier and Counclmen Pressley, Skaggs, Spooncer and Wolfe were present, when the meeting was called to order and Councilman Hail came In later.
President John Rinner and a number of the Directors and members of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce called on the Council. The object of the visit of the delegation was to present a protest against the building of a City Hall on the forty-foot lot on Exchange avenue [sic], if any other plan could be devised.
A number of the visitors spoke on the subject, Including President Rinner. Director Rosenberg and Messrs. J. P. Overton, E. L. Finley and C. H. Bane: and the Mayor and Councilmen Joined in the general discussion which followed.
The visitors voiced the opinion that the Hinton avenue lot was too small and confining for a suitable site for a public building; that the structure there would be lowered by the larger and more costly County Court House; that the same building erected in a lot giving ample room for a grass plot would make a far better showing; that an open lot for the building would give air and light, and at the same time remove danger of fire damage; that it might be possible to sell the present lot and purchase another better located and still have sufficient money from the sale to pay the additional expense on the building necessitated by having to furnish all four walls.
It was suggested that the Farmer property on Fourth street, adjoining the Library, 73 by 135 feet, be secured for the building with the possibility of purchase or condemnation of several adjoining lots through to Third street to give a pretty park which would end for the present the talk of bonding the city for park purposes and yet give a breathing place for the general public right In the heart of town.
Mayor Mercier explained that many months had been spent by the Council in studying the situation. An effort was made, he said, to secure a conference with the Board of Supervisors looking towards a trade of the city property for the county lot on the corner of Third street, but the Supervisors even refused to meet in conference to discuss the subject. Other sites had been discussed, but after all the matter came back to the old lot. An effort to get the Farmer property had even failed owing to the refusal of San Francisco heirs to agree to trade even for the present site.
After an informal agreement to sell the property, signed by E. C. Farmer, had been presented and filed with the Council, the subject was taken under advisement and the visitors departed.
The Council spent some time with Architect Tarton going over the proposed plans and specifications. These will shortly be In shape to submit to bidders, but meanwhile the Council will consider the matter presented by the protestants and decide upon some line of action.