Most of my information about Chico’s historically and architecturally significant buildings comes from an inventory put together by the Chico Heritage Association about 25 years ago. It’s an invaluable document. I constantly refer to it. A copy of it is in the reference section of Chico Library.

But students in Chico State University’s public history program have also taken a look at the city’s past. In a class taught by history professor Mike Magliari, they are required to research a building and nominate it for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Erik Henderson did a paper on the building west of Sapp Hall, where this walk around the block resumes. It illustrates this blog entry.

John Gallardo, one of the Heritage Association’s founders, calls the building, which dates from the 1910s, a “supporting structure.” He said it’s part of a streetscape of Victorian and post-Victorian houses that’s unbroken for almost three blocks along the north side of Third Street. He said the building’s most distinguished architectural feature is its pebbled-surface front porch ceiling.

Henderson’s research showed that Anna Barney, who was Chico State’s first dean of men and women, lived in the house from 1936 to 1965. She came to the college in 1919. She taught English, started the drama and creative writing programs and served as president of the Women’s and Penwomen’s clubs. She wrote travel journals, plays, poetry and academic papers.

The university acquired the building in the early 1980s. It used it as its business and economic center and then as an office for the Northeast California Higher Education Council. It has been vacant for the last 10 years. Chico State’s latest master plan, which was adopted in 2005, makes no mention of plans for the building.

The third building on this block, now called Sierra Hall, is the home of the Staff Council, Office of Institutional Research and University Public Events. It was built in about 1920 in the prairie architectural style developed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the 20th century. It was built for William Dean, manager of the Diamond Match Co.

As I wrote in my last blog entry, you don’t need to walk around the rest of this block to grasp that there is nothing on it besides three buildings and a parking lot. The Chico State master plan indicates that the lot could one day become part of a four-story joint city-university parking structure stretching from Salem to Chestnut. If it were built, the block of Normal Avenue between Second and Third would be closed to traffic.

Join me again soon for another walk around the block.