The three lives of Bidwell Mansion
In my E-R column “But this is Chico,” I’m running a series of recollections about the Bidwell Mansion back in the days when Chico State University owned it.
What do you do with a 12,000-square-foot house after the owners have died and decided not to let their heirs have it? Annie Bidwell wanted her house used as a school operated by the Presbyterian church, but when that didn’t work out, the house was in need of another occupant.
When Bidwell died in 1918, the house was only 50 years old, so it’s not surprising nobody back then thought of turning it into a museum. Think of how we feel about buildings that were put up in 1957. We’re more likely to want them tear down than keep them around.
The idea seems weird nowadays, but for most of the 20th century a lot of people thought Victorian houses were monstrosities. But Chicoans had too much respect for the Bidwells to let their feelings about architecture decide the mansion’s fate.
So it was put to practical use. John Bidwell was instrumental in persuading the state to establish its second teacher training school in Chico. He donated his cherry orchard so that it could be built. So there’s a strong historical link between the college and the Bidwells.
By 1964, as the mansion approached the century mark, the community apparently felt it had attained sufficient age to revere it as a relict of the past. As soon as the state park system acquired it, the clock began to turn back. Each year the mansion began to look more like its former self.
Gone were the faculty members, staff and students, who had used it not only for a dormitory, classrooms and offices, but for formal dinners, coffee klatches, fashion shows, club meetings, card games and parties.
But that doesn’t mean it became a less hospitable place. Today, in its incarnation as a museum, about 30,000 people a year visit the mansion. This includes busloads of fourth-graders from schools throughout Northern California. It’s still used for social events. Three years ago, I was in a fashion show fundraiser for the mansion. I paraded through the parlor and dining room dressed as the King of Denmark.
In the Bidwells’ time, the house was often full of people. Half of the rooms in the house are bedrooms. There were times when the Bidwells had so many guests that all the rooms were full. First the college and then the state park system made sure the sound of footsteps and voices never stopped echoing through the mansion’s 26 rooms.