But this is Chico, too

Wood was available in abundance as a building material in Northern California in the 19th century. The problem was that wooden buildings readily caught fire and quickly spread to similar structures. San Francisco went through conflagrations that destroyed three or four successive downtowns before it switched to more fire-resistant materials.

Oroville's Chinese temple burned down twice before brick replaced wood as the main building material. The third time was the charm. The current temple has stood since 1863, although floods played havoc with it until a levee was built along the Feather River.

In Chico, the brick building at the southwest corner of of Eighth Street and Broadway (first photo) has stood since 1874, although the west end was added later. The building was part of a section of downtown Chico known as The Junction. Over the years it has been used as a brewery, hotel, saloon, restaurant, antique store, bicycle shop and deli.

Despite their relative durability, bricks were rarely used to build Chico houses. The few brick residences include the Bidwell Mansion, the Lusk house (now Madison Bear Garden) and the Walker house (second photo), at the northwest corner of Ivy and Third streets. It was built in 1875 by Jefferson Walker, who owned a brick yard. Walker's company also built the Phoenix building and the old Chico High School.

After the 19th century, brick became more a decorative than a structural element in Chico buildings. The fireplace chimneys of many of the city’s craftsman bungalows are accented with clinker bricks, which get their name from their tendency to become discolored when they are placed too close to the fire in a kiln. They are usually discarded, but in the early 20th century they became popular with architects associated with the arts and crafts movement.

Brick is a common design element of Chico State University's buildings. Even the ugliest buildings on campus, such as the Meriam Library (third photo), make use of it.

A newer building that puts brick work to good use is the Tri-Counties Bank at the southeast corner of Salem and Fifth streets (fourth photo). The building is the former Sequoia Hotel.

Most brick walls are built in a running bond pattern, which consists entirely of stretchers (bricks placed lengthwise). In a running bond, the placement of the bricks alternates from row to row. Other patterns combine stretchers and headers (bricks placed so that the short side faces out).

Posted by at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here’s a “then” and “now” look at a small corner of Chico. The building, on the west side of Nord Avenue north of Big Chico Creek, has been around for 100 years.

Chico is lucky to have so many structures that are at least a century old. But some of them get overlooked. I had no idea this building was that old.

The “then” photo was brought in several months ago by Ted De Bernardi. I wasn’t in, so he placed it on my desk, along with some notes. I decided to wait to run it until the building reached the century mark. The man in the photo is De Bernardi’s grandfather, Warren B. Todd, who is shown working on the building in 1908. De Bernardi writes that his grandfather operated a grocery store at this site until he died in 1933.

The next business was the Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant, which later moved to The Esplanade. It then became a pizza parlor and it’s now a Thai restaurant.

The only reason I recognized the building from De Bernardi’s photo is that when I came to Chico 10 years ago, it was painted a gaudy color. It was hard to miss. Today, it’s a bluish gray and harder to spot.

It won’t be long before Chico has entire neighborhoods that are 100 years old. The avenues, Mansion Park, the Barber neighorhood and the west side all got their start in the first decade of the 20th century. They were pretty much built out by the 1930s.

The area between Bidwell Park, the freeway, Eighth Street and downtown has survived almost intact. Most of the houses there are at least 70 years old. Downtown and the South Campus neighborhood still have a smattering of 19th century buildings.

California’s perennial newness gets old fast. Most of the state’s cities look like perpetual construction sites. Chico’s core provides an antidote to that. I shudder to think what would happen to the quality of life in Chico if its center ceased to hold.

Posted by at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is my favorite almond blossom viewing site — the part of the Midway that crosses over the railroad tracks north of Durham.

From this vantage point, the orchards seem to go on forever in every direction. On clear days, you can see snow-capped mountains east and west of the valley. This is the picture postcard version of California.

I don’t advise stopping on the overpass to look at the orchards. The road is too narrow to safely pull over. Park your car on the side of a nearby road and walk along the overpass. Take lots of photos.

It’s become almost an annual tradition for me to write about why I’m so attached to blooming orchards. I grew up in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1958, when I was 6, prune orchards stretched all the way from the edge of our back yard to Campbell, the nearest town.

When I was 12, we moved out of the valley. By that time, there was nothing but houses stretching from the edge of our back yard to Campbell. The change from rural to suburban sprawl happened quickly. I mourn the loss of such a familiar landscape, which was so memorable in the spring.

The 1960s gave rise to at least two pop songs about people who cherished the small towns where they were raised. They had to move to big cities when they grew up, but they always longed to get back to their hometowns. But when they do return, they find everything has been paved over. “I looked for the meadows, there wasn’t a trace, six lanes of highway had taken their place,” Verdelle Smith sings in “Tar and Cement.”

“There’s a drag strip down by the riverside where my grandma’s cow used to graze. Now the grass don’t grow and the river don’t flow like it did in my childhood days,” Joe South sings in “Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home.”

People who grew up in Chico and then head off to the big city often feel nostalgic for the place they knew when it was a small town. It’s hard to say what they make of their hometown now that it has grown to the size of a small city. But at least the orchards are still here. I’d like to believe there’s some consolation in that.

Posted by at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Downtown Chico businesses seem to be geared to a couple of specific populations. Cheap places to eat and bars are for college students (of legal drinking age, of course) and expensive places to eat and specialty stores are for high-end shoppers.

There isn’t much that appeals to families, which seems strange when you consider that the charm of downtown is supposed to be based on a wholesome, small-town atmosphere. So I was pleased when Old Town Rootbeer opened a couple of years ago and Powell’s Sweet Shoppe made its debut last year. They inject an element of kid-friendliness that had been missing. They are kin to Shubert’s Ice Cream and Candy, a downtown staple.

It’s a shame there are no longer any move theaters downtown. They have disappeared over the last 10 years. They offered family-oriented activites. I’m not forgetting The Pageant, but it offers mainly grownup fare.

I’m not trumpeting the virtues of families over other demographic groups per se. Families are well-represented in suburban parts of Chico, but they are in short supply downtown, which ought to be a place that feels comfortable to everyone.

The success of City Plaza depends on the willingness to Chicoans think of it as their front yard, just as they have laid claim to Bidwell Park as their back yard. The more downtown businesses that appeal to every age group, the better the mix of people using the plaza.

Posted by at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)