Hiller Aviation Museum

There are several states which can claim a significant role in aviation history.  Pennsylvania, where in Philadelphia,  the first hot air balloon flight in the United States took place on January 9, 1793; to North Carolina, where the first heavier than air flight took place at Kitty Hawk, on December 17, 1903, built by Orville and Wilbur Wright, two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio.  There is New York’s continuing history with aviation, from early pioneers like Glenn Curtiss, to legendary companies like Curtiss, Brewster, Republic, Sikorsky, Chance-Vought, and Grumman. There is Washington, where Seattle is home to Boeing, Texas, home of NASA, and Florida, from where man went into space.

While all of these places have a stake in the history of United States aviation, California has a large place in the history of “those magnificent men and their flying machines”.  From the first successful aircraft landing on a ship, the USS Pennsylvania, anchored in San Francisco Bay in 1911, the US Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, constructed at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, to the airship hangars at Moffett Field, Amelia Earhart’s final flight, the Doolittle Raid, Howard Hughes’ pioneering work, Jack Northup, and NASA  Ames, the Lockheed “Skunk Works” and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and, of course, the place where man first broke the sound barrier.  Companies such as North American Aviation, McDonnell-Douglas, and Hughes Aircraft made their mark upon aviation and became household names.  There is a company that was not as well know to the general public, but was an innovative aviation company that left a legacy that is still important today.  That company is Hiller Aircraft Corporation, founded as Hiller Industries in Berkeley in 1942 by a then 17 year old Stanley Hiller Jr.

Stanley Hiller Jr. was interested in mechanics and engineering at a young age.  By the age of eight, built a racing car using a salvaged washing machine motor.  By fifteen he had constructed his first working model helicopter and by seventeen his first prototype, the XH-44, which he demonstrated to the US Army Air Corps.  During World War II Hiller Industries produced parts for aircraft.  In 1945, Henry J. Kaiser partnered with the young Hiller to form United Helicopters.  In 1947, the company introduced the Hiller 360, which later developed into the UH-12, one of the most produced light helicopters in the world and the military version the OH-23, widely used as a reconnaissance and medical evacuation helicopter during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  The UH-12 is still used today for agricultural, forestry, construction, fire, law enforcement, and other purposes.  The company also served as an advanced projects facility for Lockheed and aided in the production of the CORONA reconnaissance satellites.

Hiller sold the company to Fairchild Industries in 1964 and left the aviation industry and went on to a very successful career as a corporate turnaround expert; but there was a bit of aviation business left to do.  During his time in the aviation industry, Stephen Hiller Jr. amassed a collection of his company’s and other aircraft.   In the 1970’s this collection was held in a warehouse and only open by appointment.  Hiller wanted to make his collection of experimental and historic aircraft to be accessible to the public.  In 1998, the Hiller Aviation Museum was opened in a purpose built building, displaying many aircraft from Hiller’s collection and housing a restoration facility and a research library.  Included in the collection are: a replica of the Avitor, the first “airplane” to fly over San Francisco Bay in 1869, the Pepsi Travel Air, a Solo XVF, a Hiller Flying Platform, a replica of a Fokker DIII Triplane, a Boeing Condor, and many others.    There are many displays centered on California’s aviation history and interactive displays demonstrating aeronautical principles.  The museum also hosts youth summer camps.  

GETTING THERE: From 414 Mason St.  Get on I-80 W from 5th St and Harrison St9 min (1.4 mi)

Follow US-101 S to Holly St in San Carlos. Take exit 411 from US-101 S

23 min (22.6 mi)

Continue on Holly St to your destination

2 min (0.7 mi)

Hiller Aviation Museum

601 Skyway Rd, San Carlos, CA 94070

For further information about hours, admission and special events please visit: https://www.hiller.org/

Mount Diablo Beacon

 

For millennia, humans have dreamed of flight. From ancient myths like Daedalus and Icarus to the designs of Leonardo Da Vinci, to Superman, humans have always wanted to fly like a bird. Almost every culture has stories of human flight. With the first human flight in a balloon by Etienne Montgolfier on October 15, 1783, the dream of human flight was realized, if not exactly like a bird. As early as 559 CE, attempts had been made at heavier than air flight, using a variety of kites, wings, and gliders, most with varying degrees of failure. The first manned glider flight was in 1853, and Otto Lilienthal made the first controlled glider flight in 1891. Lighter than air flight progressed, with the invention of the blimp in 1852 and the zeppelin in 1900, but heavier than air, powered, controlled flight remained elusive. It wasn’t until the Wright Brothers’ flight on December 17, 1903 that powered, controlled, heavier than air flight was achieved.

With the Wright Brothers’ success came an aviation explosion. Militaries around the world were interested in the new-dangled hydroplanes. Balloons had been used in military roles as early 1794 and by the American Civil War, had come into regular use as observation platforms. Balloons had two distinct disadvantages however, they were large and to be effective observation posts, they were tethered in place, making them rather conspicuous targets for the enemy. Airplanes suffered from neither of these drawbacks, they were small, fast, and maneuverable; making them perfect for reconnaissance missions. The US Army purchased a one of a kind Wright Model A for the Signal Corps in 1909, marking the beginning of military aviation. In 1909, the French Air Force was established. In 1910, the Imperial German Army established the Imperial German Flying Service. In 1911, the US Navy purchased it’s first plane, the Italian Air Force was founded, as was the Imperial Russian Air Service. In 1912 the Royal Flying Corps was founded.

This was the era of “Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines”. Competitions were held beginning in 1909 and many early speed and endurance records were made. There was growing fascination with these flying machines and those who flew them. The first Aeronautical Competition in the United States was held in Los Angeles in 1910. A year later, the Italians sent the airplane to war in the Italio-Turkish War of 1911, where they use airplanes for reconnaissance and bombing missions. It wouldn’t be long before airplanes became a staple of warfare.

In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, plunged the Europe into World War 1. This was when aerial combat came into its own and armed fighter aircraft, bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft were developed. The term “ace” was introduced for the first time, by the French to describe a pilot who had five or more victories, Certain planes became legendary, the Fokker DIII, the Albatross, the Sopwith Camel, the Fokker DR 1, and the Nieuport 17. This is when pilots became famous, Manfred von Richthofen, Max Immelmann, Ernst Udet, Eddie Rickenbacker, Rene Fonck, Werner Voss, and a young pilot named Hermann Goering.

When the war ended, many of the pilots who survived went on to help develop faster and safer planes. Air shows and competitions became popular and the airplane once more captured the public’s attention; particularly in the United States. In 1919 the US Navy Seaplane NC-4 completed the first trans-Atlantic flight from Long Island to Lisbon. As early as 1911, the US Postal Department experimented with using airplanes to transport mail and on May 15, 1918, the US Airmail Service was established. The creation of the airmail service accomplished two goals, the faster and more efficient transport of the mail and the expansion of civil aviation which, in turn, led to the training of new pilots.

There was a problem, due to the lack of aeronautical aids to navigation, especially those suited for night flying, airmail was placed on trains at night, adding valuable time to it’s delivery. A solution was at hand, in 1923, Congress authorized the Transcontinental Airway System, a series of concrete landmarks, beacons and emergency airfields that would stretch from coast to coast. By 1925, the airway extended from New York to San Francisco and by 1933 the airway was complete covering 18,000 miles and consisting of 1,500 beacons. This “highway in the sky” reduced the delivery time of transcontinental mail to be reduced by two business days.

In 1928, Standard Oil built five aviation beacons on the west coast as part of the system. They were located in Seattle, Portland, Mount Diablo, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The Mt. Diablo beacon is the only one still remaining and functional. The signal to light the beacons was given by Charles Lindbergh on April 15, 1928. Originally atop of a 75 foot steel tower, the light was moved to the top of the summit building by the Civilian Conservation Corps in April of 1941. The Mt. Diablo beacon could be seen for 150 miles and was one of the terminal beacons for the Transcontinental Airway. The beacon remained in service until December 8, 1941, when it was extinguished as precaution against a possible Japanese attack. It remained extinguished until December 7, 1964 when Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz attended a memorial relighting ceremony to honor those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor. He suggested the beacon be lit every December 7^th as a memorial. Since then it has been lit, every December 7^th as a memorial to those who lost their lives on that terrible day. Beginning in 2022, it is also lit on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. By 1973, the Transcontinental Airway System was obsolete and it was dismantled. While many of the concrete arrow landmarks still survive, the beacon on Mt. Diablo is one of the few surviving operational relics of the beginning of commercial aviation routes.

La Purisima State Historic Park

   

Situated near the city of Lompoc sits the most completely restored of California’s twenty one missions, Mission La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisma. The eleventh of the missions, founded on December 8, 1787 by Father Fermin de Lasuen, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The mission was one of three, along with San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara which were built to link the missions in the south to those farther north, to solidify the Spanish presence along the Santa Barbara Channel, and to keep the indigenous tribes in the area under Spanish control.

The original mission was situated south of the town of Lompoc, near what is now 508 South F Street. The site was well chosen, and soon after its founding the Mission was prospering. By 1804, the mission reached its highest number of neophytes, 1520. This was not to last. By 1812, a series of drought years and epidemics of measles, smallpox, and other diseases decimated the indigenous population. It was reported by the friars at the mission that the neophyte population had fallen to 999 and that the mission had several years of inadequate harvests. Then the earthquake of 1812 struck. The mission was severely damaged, torrential rains and flooding made the mission site uninhabitable. After trying to continue in rudimentary structures made of “poles and grass”, the mission padres decided to rebuild the mission at its present location about four miles northwest of the original site.

The padres petitioned the government to build and on March 30, 1813, permission was given to build a replacement mission on its current site. By 1821, the mission was largely completed with the exception of a mill that was added in 1827. By the death of Padre Mariano Payeras in 1823, who had led the mission since 1804, the mission had over ten thousand head of cattle, ten thousand sheep, over fourteen hundred horses, over three hundred mules, one hundred ten hogs, and thirty three goats. While the mission had a remarkable recovery from drought and natural disaster, the path had not been easy.

Beginning with the relocation of the mission in 1812, funding had not been forthcoming from the government in Mexico City. The Hidalgo Revolt had thrown the government into chaos and the missions and civil government in Alta California were left to their own devices. The civil and military officers began to require contributions from the missions in both goods and labor to meet the expenses of governing the province. The next setback was the Earthquake of 1812 which necessitated the relocation and rebuilding of the mission. Third was the death of Father Payeras, whose administrative skills helped the mission thrive, in the face of hardship and last, there was the Revolt of 1824, in which the indigenous people at Santa Ines revolted after a Chumash was severely beaten by a soldier. The Chumash set fire to the mission, partially destroying it. The Chumash at La Purisima forced the mission’s soldiers to surrender and took over the mission for a period of thirty days until they were forced to surrender after a three hour battle in which sixteen Chumash and one soldier were killed.

The Revolt of 1824 severely weakened Mission La Purisima’s ability to sustain itself. By 1832 only 322 Chumash remained at the mission and there were fewer that 14,000 head of livestock. Th annual report of 1832 would be the last one made for Mission La Purisima. In 1835, the mission was secularized and the last two resident padres were ordered to Mission Santa Ines. The mission became the property of the Government of Mexico and in six months the value of the buildings and land declined by over fifty percent. Despite a decree in 1843, which restored ownership of the mission to the Franciscans, Governor Pio Pico sold the remains of the mission, valued at nearly $62,000 in 1835, to John Temple of Los Angeles at auction for a mere $1,110.

In 1851, after California became a state, the Bishop Alemany of Monterey sued to have the property returned to the church. The suit was successful and the land was awarded to the Church. President Grant signed the patent on January 24, 1874. Mission La Purisima would remain church property for another nine years. In 1883, the Diocese of Monterey sold all of the mission property, with the exception of the church and cemetery and the former mission property was bought and sold several times as the mission buildings crumbled. In 1903, Union Oil of California acquired the mission and in 1915, deeded the property to the Landmarks Club of Southern California on condition that they raise $1500 to begin restoration. The Landmarks Club failed to do so and title reverted back to Union Oil.

In 1933, the land and remains of the mission were deeded to Santa Barbara County and then the deed was transferred to the state. In 1934, a Civilian Conservation Corps cam was established on site and with the National Park Service and restoration of the mission began in earnest. Using existing records and artifacts, the mission was restored as accurately as possible. The restored mission was dedicated on December 7, 1941 and became part of the Mission La Purisima State Historic Park. It remains the only fully restored mission in California. In 2009, a new visitor’s center was built with displays highlighting the Chumash, mission life and the restoration.

GETTING THERE: From 414 Mason Street: Get on I-80 West and continue onto US 101 South. Stay on US 101 South. Take exit 166 and turn right onto East Union Valley Parkway. After 1.5 miles, turn left onto CA 135 South/Orcutt Expressway. Continue onto CA 1 South. After 3.2 miles, take the ramp onto CA-1 South toward Lompoc/Vandenberg AFB. When you arrive at Vandenberg, turn left to stay n CA-1 toward Lompoc. Bear left onto La Purisima Road. The park entrance will be on your left. The trip is 298 miles and takes approximately five hours. The park’s address is 2295 Purisima Road, Lompoc, CA 93436.

The park is open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm daily except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Days. The Visitor’s Center is open 10:00 to 4:00 Tuesday through Sunday and 11:00 to 4:00 on Mondays. The park’s phone number is: (805) 733-3713. Day use fees are $6.00 for parking and there is a discounted fee of $5.00 for those 62 and over. There are many places to stay and eat in Lompoc and the surrounding towns and cities.

Lake Corcoran

 Somewhere between 655,000 and 758,000 years ago, California’s Central Valley was covered by a shallow body of water known as Lake Corcoran. Lake Corcoran covered the valley from what are now the Tehachapi Mountains to the Sierra Buttes and at its greatest extent was as large as Lake Michigan is today. It drained into the Pacific through what is now the Salinas River and Monterey Bay. It is hypothesized that Lake Corcoran provided much of the water for precipitation in the Sierra Nevada through evaporation and that water partially formed several pluvial lakes in Nevada. Wildlife flourished and fossil remains of the short-faced bear, mammoth, dire wolf, giant sloth, early horses, camels, and antelopes have been found in the Central Valley.

This vast freshwater inland sea was not to last. Some 650,000 years ago, the Earth began to warm and the glaciers which held the Sierra Nevada in an icy grip began to melt. The water began to rush into the lake raising the water level. At the same time, tectonic uplifting of the Coast Range near Monterey left Lake Corcoran with no outlet to the sea. Something had to give and it did. Approximately 600,000 years ago, Lake Corcran carved a new outlet to the sea through what is now Carquinez Strait. The water poured through a low spot in the Coast Range carving a channel 100 feet deep between what are now Contra Costa and Solano counties and permanently draining Lake Corcoran and changing the landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley forever.

Lake Corcoran didn’t completely disappear. Kern, Buena Vista, and Tulare lakes were all remnants of the former freshwater inland sea. In fact, up until the late 19^th century, the Central Valley was prone to flooding which turned the land into a vast swamp. During the Spanish and Mexican periods, maps labelled the valley as “Cienega de Tulares” or “Marsh of the Tules”. While the Spanish and others saw the Central Valley as a marshy place with little to no value, the indigenous people who lived there thought very differently. The entire valley teemed with wildlife and the wetlands provided fish and fowl. Elk, deer, and beaver were plentiful. The plentiful tules provided the raw material for houses, baskets, clothing, and boats. The largest of the three lakes, Tulare Lake or Pa’ashi as it was known to the local Tachi people was the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi and the ninth largest in what would be the United States.

In the mid to late 1800’s many people drained and diverted the water from the marshy areas of the Central Valley to create farm and ranch land. By 1899 Tulare Lake went dry due to diversion of its source water for flood control and agricultural purposes. Buena Vista Lake lasted as an agricultural reservoir and recreational lake until 1953 when the Lake Isabella dam was built across the Kern River creating Lake Isabella. That isn’t to say that the former lakes remained dry. In the years in which there are large amounts of precipitation, most recently in 2022-23, the Tulare Lake basin has been partially refilled allowing the lake to be “reborn” and give today’s Californians a glimpse of what the Central Valley and the Tulare Lake Basin looked like in the past.

More Information: The prehistoric and historic past of the Central Valley is one of change and of human interaction and intervention which has had a direct and profound impact on the geography, history, and economy of California as a whole. Luckily, there are a few institutions who have attempted to preserve the unique history of the Central Valley.

Sarah A. Mooney Museum

542 W “D” Street

Lemoore, CA 93245

MooneyMuseum@gmail.com

(559) 904-9669

Hours: 12 to 3 p.m. on Sundays (closed on major holidays.)

The Sarah A. Mooney Museum is a preserved Victorian house with exhibits highlighting how a well off family lived in the area during the Victorian Era.

Buena Vista Museum of Natural History and Science

2018 Chester Avenue

Bakersfield, CA 93301

info@buenavistamuseum.org

(661) 324-6350

Hours: Thursday-Saturday: 10am-4pm, Sunday: 12p-4pm, Monday-Wednesday: Closed

Admission: Members: Free, Children 2 and under: Free, Adults: $10, Seniors (60+): $8

Students 12 years and older: $8, Children (3-11): $6. The Museum also has special admission days. Please visit its website @ https://www.buenavistamuseum.org/hours-and-admission

The Buena Vista Museum of Natural History and Science has exhibits about the Central Valley during the Miocene Epoch and Indigenous American life as well as exhibits on Paleontology and other areas of Science.

Kern County Museum

3801 Chester Ave, Bakersfield,

California 93301

bebe@kerncountymuseum.org

(661) 437-3330

Hours: Monday & Tuesday: Closed, Wednesday – Sunday 9:00 am – 4:00 pmClosed ALL Federal Holidays. 

 Admission: Adults: $10.00, Seniors/Military: $9.00 Children: – ages 3 to 12: $5.00 – ages 2 and under FREE when accompanied by an adult. Members: FREEFree admission to Active Duty Military and their immediate families from Memorial to Labor Day. Please visit the Kern County Museum’s Website @ https://kerncountymuseum.org/ for more information.

The Kern County has many exhibits covering the general history of Kern County including indigenous peoples, the ranching, farming, oil, and music industries. One of the museum’s highlights is the childhood home of Merle Haggard.

 

Haggin Museum

 

Within Victory Park in downtown Stockton stands the red brick Haggin Museum.  The museum houses an extensive collection of American and European art as well as displays covering the history of California, the growth of manufacturing and agriculture in the Central Valley and in Stockton in particular.  There are displays dedicated to Charles Weber, the founder of the City of Stockton, an entire gallery dedicated to Benjamin Holt and the development of the Caterpillar Tractor, to Tillie Lewis, who introduced tomato production and canning to San Joaquin County, to Sperry Flour Mills, one of the oldest milling companies in California.  The museum also has an exhibit dedicated to Stephens Brothers boats and houses the company’s archives.  There are is also a reconstructed 1900’s “Main Street” and various exhibits of local interest.

In 1928, the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society was founded with the following objectives: “to develop educational facilities for the study of history, to collect documents and articles of historical interest, and to establish and maintain a museum where such items could be stored and displayed”.  In April 1929.  Mr. Robert T. McKee made an offer to the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society on behalf of his wife, Eila: if an art wing was added to the purposed history museum and named in honor of her late father, Louis Terah Haggin, she would donate thirty thousand dollars towards construction of the building as well as an unspecified number of paintings from her father's collection.

With this gift, the museum opened on June 14, 1931.  The museum has been expanded and renovated several times since then; the latest renovation being completed in 2017.  The several galleries gold pieces from the Haggin collection of European and American art, a significant collection of the works of J.C. Leyendecker, who was, before Norman Rockwell, one of America’s best known commercial artists, and the archives, not only of the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society, but of the Stephens Brothers Boat Works, material from the Holt Manufacturing Company, the Sperry Flour Company, and the Tillie Lewis Food Company.

In it’s American Gallery, the Haggin displays some of the finest works from the Hudson River School including paintings by George Inness, William Bradford, Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt.  In the Haggin and McKee Galleries, there are many European Realist and Impressionist works to view including works by William Merritt Chase, Rosa Bonheur, Jean Beraud, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many others, all dating from the mid-19th to the early 20th century.  There is also some small statuary and ornamental pieces on display.  There is also the Jeanie Hunter Rooms, which give a glimpse into how a prosperous farmhouse was furnished at the turn of the 20th century.

The museum also has an extensive collection of Indigenous American artifacts, including a recreated Miwok dwelling, and various historic vehicles on display including a WWII jeep that was one of 275 funded by the donations from the students and faculty of Stockton High School. One of the oddest artifacts is the “Death Trunk” of Emma LeDoux, the first woman sentenced to death for murder in California.  Emma poisoned her third husband, stuffed him in the trunk while he was alive and had the trunk sent to the train depot in Stockton.  Her husband died in the trunk.  The murder was discovered after the baggage master noticed a foul smell emanating from the trunk and called the authorities.  Emma was sentenced to death, but upon retrial she was sentenced to life in prison.  The trunk is a grisly artifact of an at the time scandalous crime.

For me, the jewel of the Haggin Museum, besides the collection of Bierstadt paintings is the collection of illustrations by J.C. Leyendecker.  From the early 1900’s though the 1930’s Leyendecker was one of the best known commercial illustrators in the country.  His clients included Arrow shirts, Hart-Shaffner & Marx, Amoco, the Boy Scouts of America, Ivory Soap, Karo Syrup, Palmolive, Cream of Wheat, Kellog’s, the Saturday Evening Post, the Timken Company, Willys-Overland, Collier’s Weekly, the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.  His illustrations helped define the style and look of the 1910’s-1930’s.  Some of his illustrations remain recognizable today.  He was Norman Rockwell before Norman Rockwell became famous.  His sister donated many of his works to the Haggin Museum upon her death.  The Haggin  museum now holds the largest museum collection of his works.  

GETTING THERE: The Haggin Museum is located at 1201 N. Pershing Avenue, Stockton, CA 95203.  From 414 Mason Street take I-80 East across the Bay Bridge to I-580 East.  From I-580 East, take I-205 East towards Tracy/Stockton.  Merge onto I-5 North.  Take Exit 473 for the University of the Pacific/North Pershing Ave.  Turn Left on to Picardy Drive and then right into Victory Park.  The museum will be on the right.  

San Juan Bautista State Historic Park

 

South of Gilroy, east of US-101, located near the mouth of San Juan Canyon on CA-156, lies the city of San Juan Bautista. Founded on June 24, 1797 with the establishment of Mission San Juan Bautista by Fermin Lasuen; the site for what would become California’s fifteenth mission was chosen due its proximity to a large population of the indigenous Mutsun people. Soon after the mission’s founding over 1,000 Mutsun were living, working, and worshiping at the mission. As with most of the missions, a Spanish settlement developed and the town of San Juan Bautista was born.

By 1803, the congregation had outgrown the original adobe church and construction began on the present mission which was completed in 1812. This construction and expansion made it the largest of the twenty one missions. Mission San Juan Bautista remained an active church after secularization in 1835. In 1859, the mission buildings and fifty five acres of land were returned to the Catholic Church. Today, the mission remains an active parish church in the Diocese of Monterey. Besides being an active house of worship for 226 years, the mission also was a location in Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Vertigo”, starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It sits on the western edge of the last remaining intact Spanish plaza in California and on the northern edge of the plaza is a remaining section of the original El Camino Real which linked all of the missions in California.

The mission has a gift shop and a museum which has displays of Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and American era artifacts including handwritten choir books by Padre Esteban Tapis using the system of colored notation he developed and the Breen family bible. The Breens temporarily lived in a storeroom of the mission, which is now the gift shop, after surviving the ordeal of the Donner Party and before moving into, and eventually purchasing an adobe from General Jose Antonio Castro. The Breen family lived in the adobe until 1933 when it was donated to the state. It is now known as the Castro-Breen Adobe. It houses exhibits on the Breen family and life during the early American Era.

The Castro-Breen Adobe is but one of several buildings preserved or restored in the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park. Also included are the Plaza Hotel, the ground floor of which was originally constructed in 1792 as a barracks for indigenous converts and laborers. It became the barracks for Spanish soldiers in 1813. It was also a private residence and a commercial building before being remodeled into the current hotel in 1853 by Angelo Zanetta. It currently serves as the park entrance and museum. Several rooms are furnished as they would have been in the 1860’s.

On the plaza is the Plaza Hall/Zanetta House, originally built in 1815 as a home for the unmarried indigenous girls of the mission, purchased, torn down and rebuilt as a home and community hall in 1868 by Angelo Zanetta. It has exhibits of period furnishings and early children’s toys. Next to it is the Plaza Stable with exhibits of stages, wagons, and fire wagons. Behind the stable is the blacksmith’s shop. Across the street are the original town jail and a restored settler’s cabin.

The downtown area of San Juan Bautista has been designated a National Historic District and the San Juan Historical Society, along with other organizations, has designated 49 buildings and sites on a historic walking tour. Many of the buildings date from the late 1700’s through the 1920’s and are still in use. Examples are the Anza Adobe, the Texas Masonic Lodge, the San Juan Bautista Cemetery and the Carl Luck Museum. Most of the historic buildings are clustered along Third Street, a block south from the mission.

During the Gold Rush, San Juan Bautista benefited from a boom as it was along the route from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then to the gold fields. Notables like William T. Sherman visited the town. When the Southern Pacific railroad bypassed San Juan Bautista in favor of Hollister the town’s fortunes declined. The building of the San Juan Pacific Railway and the San Juan Cement Company plant, beginning in 1906, revived the local economy. When the cement plant closed in 1973 due to increasingly tighter environmental regulations, the city turned to agriculture and tourism. San Juan Bautista calls itself, “The City of History”, and not without some justification.

GETTING THERE: From 414 Mason Street: Take US 101 South to Exit 345 to CA-156 East. Follow CA-156 East to The Alameda. Turn left onto The Alameda. Turn right onto Franklin St. Turn left onto 2^nd St. The park entrance is in the Plaza Hotel on you left. The Mission is on your right. The entrance fee for the park is $3.00 per person. The Mission charges a $10.00 entrance fee. ($7.00 for Seniors over 60) It is a 1 hour and 40 minute, 94 mile, drive from 414 Mason Street.

San Juan Bautista SHP is open every day from 10am to 4:30pm. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.

The Mission Gift Shop, Museum and Garden are open from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Wednesday through Sunday.

Admission: Self-Guided Tour

$10.00 adults

$7.00 seniors – 60 years and over

$5.00 – vets

Under 5 years of age – FREE

Mission San Juan Bautista admission is separate from the State Park admission.

For the walking tour, please visit: https://historicwalkingtrail.com/

Henry Clay and California

 

    On September 9, 1850, California was admitted into the United States. For years, Americans had been settling in the Mexican territory, many to trade, some to begin new lives. Men like Jedidiah Smith, Dr. John Marsh, Robert Semple, John Bidwell, John Bartleson. and others made the long and arduous trek to the Mexican territory. Even before Mexican Independence, there were men, like Andrew Jackson, who believed that the United States should rightfully possess all of “Spanish North America”. By the time of the discovery of gold, fewer than 1000 Americans lived in California. The entire population of Alta California was around 160,000, the vast majority of whom were native peoples. The United States expressed interest in California, primarily as a point of access to the Pacific Ocean as early as 1844, yet until the end of the Mexican War nothing much came of the dreams of the proponents of “Manifest Destiny”.

    Of course, the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill and the subsequent events changed all of that. An estimated three hundred thousand of gold seekers, the “49ers”, the “Argonauts” flooded the newly acquired region in search of wealth and adventure. The flood of gold stabilized the US economy and drove the desire that California should enter the Union. There were issues however, the United States was unraveling. Missouri entering as a slave state in 1820, the tariff and nullification crisis of 1828 and the annexation of Texas had all caused threats of disunion and civil war. Each of these resulted in a compromise which delicately held the Union together. In 1849, President Zachary Taylor urged leading Californians to write a constitution and apply for statehood as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, California, New Mexico, and the Latter Day Saints in the Great Salt Lake area all applied for statehood nearly simultaneously. There was almost no chance that three free states would be admitted to the Union at once and there were issues surrounding New Mexico’s boundary with Texas and with the practice of polygamy in the proposed state of Deseret. There was one man who could possibly get California admitted to the Union, the man who, as Speaker of the House, had crafted the Missouri Compromise, who had ended the Nullification Crisis, who had crafted the American System of internal improvements and that was Henry Clay of Kentucky.

    Henry Clay was born in 1777 in Virginia, the son of a Baptist minister. His father died in 1781 and his mother remarried. Clay learned how to read and write and his hand writing caught the attention of Virginia jurist George Withe, who was Thomas Jefferson’s mentor. Clay read law under Withe’s tutelage and was admitted to the Bar in Kentucky and Virginia in 1791. Clay began his political career in 1803 in the Kentucky legislature and eventually become a US Representative, Senator, Secretary of State and presidential candidate. He would be known as “The Great Compromiser” and play an important part in the three major compromises of the 1800’s that delayed the Civil War.

    To solve the issues surrounding the admission of California into the Union, Clay originally proposed eight resolutions. Eventually, the Compromise of 1850 consisted of five separate statutes, one admitting California into the union, one settling Texas’s debts and settling the boundaries of Texas, one establishing a new fugitive slave law, one ending the slave trade in Washington DC, and finally one creating two new territories, New Mexico and Utah and allowing the territories to decide whether or not to allow slavery. The bills were signed into law by President Millard Fillmore on September 9, 1850. There was jubilation, not only in California, but in the whole United States as many thought that the disputes that had led to threatened civil war had finally been put to rest; but in reality the crisis had only been forestalled.

    In 1806, Henry Clay purchased a 672 acre estate he named Ashland for the many ash trees on the property. Located near Lexington, conveniently close to his law office it has been preserved as a memorial to Henry Clay and his family who lived on the estate until 1950. Clay himself died in Washington DC in 1852 believing that his final compromise has saved the country from civil war. While Clay was alive, he took an active role in the running of the estate, introducing new breeds of cattle, horses, and donkeys. Many race horses can trace their ancestry to Henry Clay’s stock today. Hw as also a gambler who once famously waived $40,000 he has once won after asking for $500 of it from the loser. His greatest gamble however, was the compromise that brought California into the Union and delayed the Civil War for ten years. Henry Clay, the statesman responsible for California’s statehood never once visited California, yet he, with some help from Stephen A. Douglas, can be considered the person who brought California into the United States.

    Ashland is located in Lexington, Kentucky at 120 Sycamore Road. For more information about tours, exhibits and hours please visit their website at: www.henryclay.org

Oakland Museum of California

 

  

  Over two years ago, when the lock-downs for the COVID-19 pandemic began, I wrote a column naming several museums and historic landmarks around the state which had online exhibitions, virtual tours and other online resources for people to visit from the safety of their homes. Admittedly, most online museum tours, exhibitions, or galleries simply not the same as physically visiting the place and viewing the items. One of the museums which I listed was the Oakland Museum of California, which has a large part of many of its collections available for online perusal. The Oakland Museum is unique in that it showcases the natural history, history, and art of our beloved state, often with a focus on the interaction of people in California and groups who have been underrepresented in the “standard” historical narrative.

    The Oakland Museum was created by amalgamating three separate museums, the Oakland Public Museum, the Oakland Art Gallery, and the Snow Museum of Natural History. Each of these museums had a focus upon one of three areas, California History, California Art, and California’s Natural History so it seemed natural to combine the three museums into one. The eventual merger of the three museums began in 1954 when the boards of the three organizations formed a non-profit to merge the institutions into one. In 1961, the voters authorized a bond issue to build a new home for the combined museum and, in 1969, the museum opened its doors. Created during the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and the anti-Viet Nam War protests, the new museum’s goal was to be more inclusive, more “a people’s museum”, more interactive, and more “open”. This approach was not without controversy and still guides the museum’s overall mission to this day.

    After you enter the museum, I suggest that you go to the California History Gallery first. There you will find a number of displays telling the story of our state from the indigenous people, to first contact, to the Spanish Era, the Mexican Era, the Gold Rush, the coming of the railroads, the growth of the movie industry, petroleum, and agriculture, to the growth of the electronics and technology industry and beyond. Of special interest are the exhibits on the contact between the indigenous peoples and the early Spanish, the Gold Rush and the effects of the railroads. In each of these exhibits, the curators do an excellent job of not only presenting the history but of telling of the interaction between groups and cultures, and how that created the society in which we live.

    Next is the Natural History Gallery. Here the curator has decided to begin with the physical geography of California and then the rest of the collection is divided by geographic area. There are exhibits on coastal regions, the Sierra Nevada, the Central Valley, the deserts, the Bay Area and even the Sierra Buttes. One of the highlights, for me at least, was an exhibit on what happened to the oaks which gave Oakland its name and how their fate was unplanned, unforeseen, and serves as a cautionary tale for environmental preservation.

    Finally, there is the California Art Gallery. This can be considered, alongside the History Gallery, the “gem” of the museum. First, the museum is the repository of the Dorothea Lange archive and has a display of many of her photographs. It is also home to Albert Bierstadt’s 1868 painting of the Yosemite Valley, William Keith’s 1878 painting of the King’s River Valley, and Henry Raschen’s “California Miner with a Pack Horse”. There is also an exhibition on Edith Heath and Heath Ceramics, a retrospective on Hung Liu, and works from many contemporary artists and craftspeople. What is displayed in the gallery is but a fraction of the museum’s holdings and the staff rotates exhibits on a regular basis.

    So, now for the important items. The cost to enter the museum is $16.00 per adult 18 years of age or older. For Seniors, 65 and older the cost is $11.00. Youths between the ages of 13-17 pay just $7.00 and Children 12 years of age and younger are free. There is an additional $5.00 charge for any “special exhibitions”. The Museum is currently open Wednesdays through Sundays 11:00-5:00 with extended hours on Fridays until 9:00 pm. It is closed on various holidays and public observances. Please check the museum’s website at: https://museumca.org/ for further information and to purchase tickets. Be advised that the museum still requires masks, proof of vaccination, and social distancing at this time.

Getting There: The Oakland Museum of California is easily reached by BART. The station nearest the museum is Lake Merritt which is on the Orange Line. If you take BART. You exit the station and walk one block east on Oak Street from 9^th to 10^th Street. The Museum’s address is 1000 Oak Street.

If you are driving from 414 Mason Street: Cross the Bay Bridge and take 580 East to 980 West/Downtown Oakland. Take the Jackson Street exit; you will be on 5th Street. Continue straight on 5th Street to the third stoplight (Oak Street). Turn left and continue on Oak to 10th Street.

The OMCA garage is located at 1000 Oak St. with entrances on Oak and 12th Streets. Parking fees are $5 per hour with an early-bird discounted flat rate of $20 (in before 10 am, out before 5 pm). Those parking before 8 am and leaving before 10 am will pay the regular incremental rate.

The Museum has a café and a gift shop.

Fortuna

 

 On the northeast bank of the Eel River, four and one half hours north of San Francisco lies the city of Fortuna. It is the third largest city in Humboldt County, the home to the annual Fortuna Rodeo and several other events. Before European settlement, the area where Fortuna is today was the home of members of the Wiyot Tribe, who named the area Vutsuwitk Da’l, after a legend where a young woman cooked eels for a young man with whom she was in love and threw the ashes of her cooking fire into the river where Fortuna now sits.

Fortuna was founded in 1874, and originally named “Slide” for a large earth slide nearby. In 1875, the town was called “Springville” after the construction of the Springville Lumber Mill and the numerous natural springs in the area. Because there was already another “Springville” in California, the post office, which opened in 1876 was named “Slide”, the original name of the town. In 1884, the citizens of the town petitioned the state legislature to change the name of the town to “Fortuna” after the Spanish word for “fortune” and in 1888, the petition was granted.

For years, the primary industries in Fortuna were lumber, ranching, fishing and farming. While, farming and ranching are still large industries in the area, fishing and lumber have been on the decline. Today, Fortuna is still dependent on ranching and farming but tourism is becoming more and more important too. The city hosts several events throughout the year from the Daffodil Festival in March, the Fortuna Rodeo and Redwood AutoXpo in July, the Apple Harvest Festival in October to the Lighted Parade in December, there is always something going on in or near Fortuna.

Nearby are the Humboldt Redwoods, Richardson Grove, and Grizzly Creek State parks, all of which preserve old growth redwood trees. Humboldt Redwoods State Park is home to the famed “Avenue of the Giants”. It and Grizzly Creek State Park were the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. In Fortuna itself is Rohner Park, home to the Fortuna Rodeo Grounds and the Depot Museum. The museum, housed in the former Northwestern Pacific Depot, built in 1889 and relocated to its present location in 1974, the museum has several displays tracing Fortuna’s history from the Native Wiyot people to the present era. It also houses the archive of the Humboldt Beacon newspaper, providing a valuable research collection for those who are interested. The museum is open from 12:00 pm – 4:30 pm Thursday through Sunday, September through May and daily in June through August. It is best to call the museum to make sure that it is open and staffed. (707) 725-7645. The museum is located at 3 Park Street, Fortuna, CA.

GETTING THERE: From 414 Mason Street, Get on US 101 N and drive north for approximately 4 hours, take exit 668 to 12^th Street in Fortuna. Turn right onto Main Street and then Left onto Park Street. The Museum will be on your right.

Since you may wish to spend the night in Fortuna, I can recommend the Redwood Riverwalk Hotel, 1859 Alamar Way in Fortuna. (707) 725-5500 and I can also suggest the Double D Steakhouse for dinner. 320 Main Street, (707) 725-3700.