Just about normal
There’s one thing about Normal Avenue that’s not normal. It’s the only “avenue” in a neighborhood of “streets.” Normal started its life as Sycamore Street, but after Chico Normal School was built, it was renamed.
Other than that, Normal is about as normal as you can get. It’s one of the streets where Chico’s most upstanding citizens lived back in the 19th century. Today, its main occupants are Chico State University students.
Start this walk around the block at the southwest corner of Normal and Fourth Street. The stucco corner house with the crenelated parapet was built in 1918 for Albert Abraham. He was a partner of Morris Oser, who owned Oser and Co., which for decades was Chico’s leading department store.
The house next door, built in 1861, has been around almost as long as the city itself, which was laid out in 1860. It is the oldest house still standing in Chico. Named for three successive owners, it’s called the Allen-Sommer-Gage house. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll call it the Gage house.
When we think of the 19th century, we picture opulent Victorian houses, but they didn’t come into vogue until the 1870s. (The Bidwell Mansion, completed in 1868, is an exception). The Gage house, with its simple lines, is pre-Victorian. It’s been described as a combination of modified colonial and Greek revival.
It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Its most famous resident was Helen Sommer-Gage. She was born in the house in 1888 and was living there at the time she died in 1980. As a child she knew John Bidwell. She took part in the communitywide effort to preserve and restore the Bidwell Mansion.
Today, the house is owned by Wayne Cook, who rents it out to students.
Next door is an apartment building that is as hideous as the Gage house is handsome. I will never tire of complaining about the desecration of old Chico neighborhoods. The apartment building is not the worst offender, but it’s on the Top 10 list. The building takes up half the street frontage along Fifth Street between Normal Avenue and Chestnut Street.
Join me next time and we’ll finish this walk around the block.