Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Preserving History is Important and Fun

The Merced County Historical Society will hold its annual membership meeting on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Merced County Board of Supervisors’ Chamber. In addition to the annual report and award ceremony, the meeting presents a wonderful opportunity for our members as well as the general public to meet, network, and learn.

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Taking Timeless Classics for a Ride

The Merced County Historical Society membership drive is in full swing with the release of the 2019 calendar. The calendar titled “Taking Timeless Classics for A Ride” features historic photos of cars from the 1900s to the 1960s in the local and regional landscape.

Looking east on Main Street near M Street, Merced, circa 1910s. During this time, it was a common and sometimes chaotic scene of horses and cars traveling and sharing the same road.

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

R. Barcroft and Sons Co. — Merced’s first car dealership

The invention of the automobile was quite a revolution, and it did not take long for a rural community like Merced to have its first car dealership and garage. Rafael Barcroft was a pioneer car seller who opened the first automobile dealership in Merced County.

California women helped to put Woodrow Wilson over the top as he defeated Republican Charles E. Hughes in the Golden State by close to 3,800 votes in the 1916 presidential election. Merced County Free Library staff (L-R) like Mildred Stoddard, Margarita Winton, Lenna Landram, and Winifred Bigley all registered to vote in that election. By this time, the first County Librarian Antoinette Humphreys (pictured right) had resigned as County Librarian and might have moved away. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Singing Love, Home, and Politics

The Courthouse Museum’s “Singing California” exhibit is now on display at the UC Merced Library and its digital content will soon be added to Calisphere. Our UC Merced students will have a chance to view the beautiful vintage sheet music covers and enjoy the “sound” of the past. Growing up with female artists like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, the students will be surprised to find out that women songwriters are largely absent from this exhibit and they may ask this question, “Where are the women songwriters?”

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

A decade of Art Hopping

Since their first solo event held in 2008, Kevin Hammon and Kimberly Zamora have worked tirelessly to promote the arts in the Merced area. They had a shared vision of what they wanted to see happen for Downtown Merced. As a businessperson and an artist, respectively, the two organizers set off to boost economic growth for businesses in the Downtown Core and help foster a creative and supportive environment for local artists.

Main Street (or 17th Street) looking east, circa 1928 when the Hotel Tioga was just built. When the hotel sign was lit up at night, its red light can be seen many miles away. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Hotel Tioga: The Finest in the West

Merced County Historical Society will hold its 28th Annual Bill Kirby Western Barbecue and Auction on Sept. 11 to raise money for the Courthouse Museum and its programs.

Diagonal parking on 17th Street (Main Street), pictured here, became a thing of the past when Merced City Council instituted parallel street parking in downtown Merced on May 25, 1958. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Merced: City on the Rise

Nowadays, the popular city slogan is “Merced is a city on the rise,” which is a catchy and clever way to coin the changes taking place in our historic town. Old-timers will remember that they witnessed another “renaissance” (borrowing the term used by Mayor Mike Murphy) back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Grazie America! From Italy to Merced County

Columnist’s Note: After more than a year of preparation, the Merced County Courthouse Museum opened the “Grazie America! From Italy to Merced County” exhibit on March 16, 2017. The exhibit collected personal stories from more than 130 contributors. As this successful exhibit came to an end on August 6, the process of documenting and preserving their stories continued. This resulted in the publication of a 2-volume book with the same title which will be released this Saturday, July 14, at the Courthouse Museum at 1:00 p.m. The following is Ezio Sansoni’s story, one of the many sweet memories and enduring struggles of the Italian Americans in Merced County.

“California, Here I Come,” written by Modesto native Joseph Meyer in 1921, was a signature tune of singer Al Jolson. This song is among the 55 framed vintage sheet music covers on display at the Courthouse Museum, starting June 28. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Singing California exhibit opens at the Courthouse Museum

What do George Lucas and Joseph Meyer have in common? They are both Modesto-born artists who made the San Joaquin Valley famous. While Lucas brought Modesto into the national spotlight with American Graffiti (1973), Meyer gave California an unofficial state song titled “California, Here I Come” (1921), which became singer Al Jolson’s signature tune.

Company H, Sixth Infantry Regiment, National Guard of California (NGC) was organized in Merced in 1893 and disbanded in 1907. The troops with its three commanding officers are seen in front of El Capitan Hotel and Southern Pacific Passenger Depot, probably before their departure to Bakersfield to break the Railroad Strike in 1894. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Company H – Merced’s First National Guard

On this Memorial Day, let’s take a moment to remember our first National Guard unit.

Photographer Alice Hare settled in Winton in 1911 and took some of the earliest pictures of this new town. (Lorraine Richards Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Women Making a Difference

March has been an exciting and reflecting month. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we also mourn the loss of our beloved community members and museum volunteers Maggie Randolph and Barbara Hale. Maggie is best known for her dedication to the founding and growth of Merced College. Barbara was an outstanding reporter and editor for the Merced Sun-Star until her retirement in the early 2010s.

Hugo Barrett’s postcard to his wife Emma Alice was postmarked Feb. 3, 1913. The postcard image depicts the Yosemite Lumber Company mill at Merced Falls. (Grey Roberts Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Merced Falls: Water, Power, and Mills

One February day in 1913, Hugo Barrett, a local farmer, dropped off a postcard at the Merced Falls Post Office in the Yosemite Lumber Company. It had a simple message to his wife, Emma Alice, who was visiting her sister in San Francisco: “Dear Alice, you had better stay down until Sunday anyway. Everything is OK here.” Hugo missed his bride and was excited to share with her a postcard image of something that had made Merced Falls, once again, the industrial center of Merced County.

Merced County Courthouse was designed by Albert Austin Bennett. (Grey Roberts Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

The Legacy of Architect Albert A. Bennett

Albert Austin Bennett’s son once said his father “wanted to be buried so the shadow of the capitol would fall across his grave.”

Stevinson’s Main Street, 1920s. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Main Street, Merced County

Main Street is where commercial and cultural life combine to define a community and provides a snapshot of American society.

Golden Valley High School Cardinal Regime at 86th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade, Los Angeles, November 26, 2017. The Cardinal Regime Marching Band and Color Guard is under the director of Michael Vasquez. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

A Christmas Tradition

The Hollywood Christmas Parade is an annual tradition in Los Angeles that dates back to the 1920s. Featuring celebrities, beautiful floats, and wonderful music, the parade takes place the Sunday after Thanksgiving and will be broadcast different dates before Christmas. This year, one of the celebrated participants was the Golden Valley High School Cardinal Regime —The Pride of Merced.

This house on the southwest corner of 22nd and Canal Streets was built by Dr. E. S. O’Brien around 1898. The two palms that he planted shortly after are still standing today. Judge Claud McCray lived in this 2-story house from the 1930s to his death in 1954. (Neil Morse Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Trees Mark the Portal to the Past

History is about the interconnection of people and places.

Looking east on 17th (Main) Street by N Street, 1922. Gateway Garage and Parisian Cleaners (seen in the center) would be unified with a common façade in 1928 when these two buildings were remodeled into the Montgomery Ward store. Notice in this photo, there are several garages and service stations on this 600 block of 17th Street. (Grey Roberts Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

From Gateway Garage to a Gateway to the Arts

Recently, I attended a concert by guitarists Francesco Buzzurro, Richard Smith and local favorite John Albano at the Multicultural Arts Center in downtown Merced. As I listened to these three wonderful performing artists and my mind wandered off to the Island of Sicily, I couldn’t help thinking, “where am I?”

This circa 1914 photo was taken from the rooftop of the courthouse and looking south on N Street. The foreground is 20th Street. The area with numbers between 19th and 18th streets is the construction site of UC Merced Downtown Campus Center. The image of dusty streets and board sidewalks (seen here) was what Mary Belle Nuckolls Neumann remembered when she came to Merced on August 1, 1907. (Courthouse Museum Collection)

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

Once a Neumann Home

A couple of columns ago, I wrote about a photo entitled “Calm Before the Storm” which depicts an aerial view of west Merced looking from the rooftop of Hotel El Capitan in the early 1910s. My original reason for examining this photo was to research the site where the UC Merced Downtown Campus Center is currently under construction.

Sarah Lim: Museum Notes

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