Solano County Historical Society

How the buildings you occupy might be affecting your brain | Psyche Ideas Cutting-edge research in the field of neuroarchitecture is revealing the public health implications of building design

A great opportunity…

Looking for a way YOU can get involved in ?

The Local Preservation School is FREE, online resource to teach people how to save and sustain historic places — and they want you to be part of it!

The online school helps to share the skills and knowledge needed to get neighbors excited about local history, protect threatened landmarks from demolition, and secure resources for reinvestment in your historic neighborhood.

Learn more and get involved at https://localpreservation.github.io/

The Local Preservation School is supported by the National Park Service and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers.

Do you know a historic Black Church that needs funding to strengthen its capital, staffing, or operations? They may be eligible for a Preserving Black Churches grant of $50,000 - $500,000!

Now in its third year, Preserving Black Churches is a $60 million initiative from the National Trust's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, with generous support from Lilly Endowment Inc.

This program is an investment in Black communities to reimagine, redesign, and redeploy historic preservation to address institutional needs and protect the cultural assets and vital stories these congregations steward.

To apply for a Preserving Black Churches grant, review the eligibility requirements and helpful guidelines at the link below, or join us for a live question- and- answer session on Thursday, August 8th at 7pm EST. The Action Fund is now accepting letters of intent online, due Monday, August 19, 2024.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/9JU750SR7Am

Photo courtesy Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, VA

Our condolences to Joe’s family and friends. Joe Neitzel was an advocate for sharing and protecting local history. His efforts will not be forgotten.

Our condolences to the family and friends of Joe Neitzel, who passed away yesterday surrounded by those who loved him. Joe (right), a dedicated Native Son of the Golden West, unofficial Mayor of AT&T park, avid Giants and 49ers fan, and tireless advocate for preserving and sharing local history, will be remembered for his kindness, humor, and tenacity.

Joe was dedicated and instrumental to the Solano History Exploration Center We will continue our efforts to see its physical return to the community in his honor.
[Photo courtesy of Vacaville Heritage Council]

Photograph of clerks and dispatchers at the Vallejo Branch County Jail, January 1967.

Pictured are (L-R):
Lorna Misita (Chief Clerk of the Coroner's Office)
Mary Bonnifield (sheriff's office radio dispatcher)
Lillian Gallagher (sheriff's office radio dispatcher and secretary)

The Julia Morgan event this Sunday March 17th at St. Peter’s Chapel is sold out (do not buy tix from anyone you don’t know — the scammers are out!), but whether or not you have a ticket, here’s an AMAZING opportunity for you: a special tour of The Wilson House, Vallejo’s Julia Morgan jewel! Heather and Mike, the owners, have graciously offered tours as a fundraiser for Mare Island Historic Park Foundation. (And having been in the house before, believe me, it is wonderful!)

Directly following Victoria Kastner’s lecture at St. Peter’s, join us as Heather Leary-Arango and Mike Loughrey, current care-takers of the Wilson House, offer a brief tour of their unique home.

During the tour, you will walk through the wonderful interior as Mike and Heather share historical connections between a turn-of-the-century wealthy Vallejo banker and
Julia Morgan. They will also highlight many of its design elements including Swiss Chalet and First Bay Tradition Craftsman styles. Don’t miss this chance to see the magnificent Wilson House!

Tours will run continuously from 5 - 7pm, Groups of 50 will go through the house in 20-minute intervals.

Tickets are limited! Register today to assure your spot. Please Note: There is no ADA access to the Wilson House. The last tour admission will be at 6:45pm. There may be a wait in line to enter the tour.

Address: 728 Capital Street, Vallejo, CA.
You must purchase tickets before the event, which can be obtained by visiting:
www.mihpf.org/store/guided-tour-wilson-house

Looking forward to Sunday!

Not our area, but inspiring and shows what is possible.

A Ventura County community gets a huge gift: It's one of the region's oldest buildings Chevron donated the historic Union Oil Building in Santa Paula to the city, along with a $2 million grant to maintain and preserve the 133 year-old structure.

A fantastic resource…

Who wants one? 🙌🙋🤚

Who wants a copy of "Recording Historic Buildings" originally printed in 1970?

The 176-page book is available for download - AT NO COST - at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006312196&seq=1

From the book's Forward:
"This book has been compiled to serve the needs of those concerned with . It is designed both as an aid to persons already involved in the problems of architectural recording and to encourage others to become involved. Only a productive partnership between Federal, State, and local governments and private individual initiative and effort can assure the adequate recording and successful of our great national patrimony of historic ."

H. J. McK.

SCGS Library will reopen on Tuesday, January 2nd. Located at 610 East Main Street, Vacaville, California.
Our Vacaville Genealogy Library is normally open on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm. And by appointment only on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Visit the library to get help with your research. Friendly members of our Society will be there to help you.
If you would like to speak to a research volunteer, please call (707) 446-6869. Note that the telephone is only answered when volunteers are in the library. If there is no answer, please leave a voice message and your call will be returned.

December California State Archives Public Tour Free Behind the Scenes Tour for the Public at the State Archives!

A bit of history to live in…

Andrew Carnegie was born, a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist who donated £50,000 towards the building of Edinburgh Central Library in 1890.

Photographed is the library's first ever readers ticket/library card presented to Andrew Carnegie.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. His first job in the United States was as a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of a telegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged with Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U.S. Steel, which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million.

With his fortune he devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research.

Find more images like this on Capital Collections, the image library for the collections of Edinburgh Libraries. https://www.capitalcollections.org.uk/home?WINID=1700911455498

So very true!

For those hosting 🦃 🍽️ today, we share these small words of comfort. 😊

"Historic Preservationists don't care if your house is a mess, they only care if you still have your original windows."

SEARCH THE COLLECTION
Conduct your personal search through the HABS/HAER/HALS Collection, the nation's largest archive of historical architectural, engineering, and landscape documentation in The Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/

Happy Thanksgiving!

We love seeing memories of past celebrations. Thank you Vallejo Time Traveler.

Solano Chronicles
By Brendan Riley

Solano County supervisors have voted 4-1 to dissolve the county’s Historical Records Commission, in what critics term a “catastrophic” disservice to the public that should be reversed in order to preserve and protect a wealth of old documents.
Supervisor Wanda Williams cast the lone vote against the dissolution motion that Records Commission Chair Elissa DeCaro described as a maneuver “crafted in misinformation” and buried at the end of Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors public agenda.
Supervisor Mitch Mashburn moved for approval of the motion and was joined by Supervisors Erin Hannigan, Monica Brown and John Vasquez. For Hannigan, Brown and Mashburn, it was a flip-flop from their votes last May favoring the records panel.
Vasquez has opposed the records commission all along, DeCaro said, noting that he was the only supervisor in 2016 to oppose a contract with InfoCompass Business Solutions, an independent consultant, to assess the county’s historical records.
InfoCompass produced a lengthy $60,000 study on ways to preserve and ensure access to historic documents, but the document had been shelved by county staff for years. Supervisors were told Tuesday by staff that efforts are underway to implement many of the study’s proposals, but there’s no need for the Historic Records Commission.
“The dissolution of the Solano County Historical Records Commission is catastrophic, unwarranted, and an extreme disservice to the public interest,” DeCaro said, adding that a signature-gathering campaign is being launched in efforts to have the panel reinstated immediately.
The commission was established by supervisors in 1987 at the request of the “Solano County History Round Table,” a group comprised of members of 21 interested organizations, to ensure the perpetual retention and protection of the county’s historical records.
There were significant reasons for creating the commission, including the earlier disappearance from county files of various photos, documents and other materials. That included information on some of the more than 1,000 Solano County Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in internment camps during World War II.
Advocates for retaining the records panel included professional archivist Leslie Batson, who spent more than a decade as a volunteer managing Solano County archives. Batson told supervisors Tuesday that the commission provides a vital role of oversight, and is made up of people willing to donate their time to help preserve records and assist in research.
Training suggested by InfoCompass would help all employees tasked with handling historic record requests from the public. However, that suggestion and many other ideas in the InfoCompass study didn’t get beyond the desk of a since-retired county administrator.
Jim Kern, former Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum executive director who served for more than ten years on the records commission, has said the study was brought up repeatedly at meetings of the records panel but county employees had one excuse after another for not delivering it.
The most costly recommendation in the InfoCompass document is to renovate existing space or build a new records center that would range in size from about 3,000 to 4,300 square feet.
Also suggested is the hiring of a professional records manager to run the archives, handle research requests from agencies and the public, and help with training employees at the center and at other county offices where important records are maintained.
In addition, the study says public access to records would be streamlined as researchers could deal with “a single point of contact who is knowledgeable about the archive holdings and how records from different departments are connected and have evolved over time as opposed to having to submit the same request to separate departments.”
Until a central facility is built, the study says various county agencies with historical records should keep those documents separate from other records, and monitor researchers – including staff from other departments as well as the public – when they are looking at the old records. Proper controls on temperature and humidity in the storage areas also are recommended.
Also recommended are regular reports on archive activities and progress to county supervisors, written policies and procedures that can be used for training staff and volunteers, a department-by-department inventory of old records, a disaster preparedness strategy, and planning for archiving of electronic historical records.
Other suggestions include connecting with the Online Archive of California, which provides free public access to finding aids from collections of more than 200 contributing institutions, with an eye toward informing a broader audience of existing Solano County historical records.
The InfoCompass document acknowledges that the county faces a big job – managing more than 2,000 cubic feet of permanent and historical records. Most of the records are located at department offices in Fairfield. As of 2018, the departments wanted to manage most of their records at their own locations rather than ship them to a central archive.
Other records now in storage in Contra Costa County, in a Richmond warehouse, had been maintained by volunteers in Fairfield but were moved in 2015 when a Fairfield building lease was canceled.
The InfoCompass document also notes the various suggestions, if implemented, will preserve and protect historical records for future generations, and enhance all-important public trust.

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Vallejo and other Solano County communities are treasure troves of early-day California history. My “Solano Chronicles” column highlights various aspects of that history. If you have local stories or photos to share, contact me on Facebook or at [email protected].

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Link to InfoCompass report: https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/bos/meetings/videos.asp

Click on 2023 Board of Supervisors meetings, then on first item, agenda for Nov. 7 meeting. Agenda has links to the report. Video of meeting also available. Discussion of Historical Records Commission is at end of video.

Link to column in Vallejo Times-Herald: https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2023/11/09/brendan-rileys-solano-chronicles-historic-records-panel-shelved/

Please sign and share this important petition to reinstate the Solano County Historical Records Commission.

This campaign needs you now Reinstate the Solano County Historical Records Commission and Save the Historical Records!

👀 Looking for internships in historic preservation, cultural resource management, museum studies, or related fields? Check out The National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE), which has collaborated with the National Park Service since 1992 to connect post-secondary students and recent graduates to opportunities in these fields, along with other agencies. The deadline to apply is TOMORROW, November 7th at 5pm ET!

👀 Apply for opportunities through the NCPE-NPS partnership.

Internships include:
🔵 History Collection, Conservation at Harpers Ferry Center
🟠 Russian Artifact Conservation at Sitka National Historical Park
🟢 African American Historical Archeology or Archives Outreach and Engagement at Everglades National Park
🔵 Historic Preservation at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
🟠 Historical Research and Museum Collection at Harriet Tubman National Historical Park
🟢 Archeology at Joshua Tree National Park
🔵 Cultural Resources with the Alaska Regional Office (remote)
🟠 Museum Collection and Archiving at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area
🟢 Industrial and Social History Museum Collection at Keweenaw National Historical Park
🔵 Digitization at Yellowstone National Park and Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
🟠 Indigenous America 250 with the Northeast Regional Office
🟢 Visitor Services at Harry S Truman National Historic Site

Applicants must be currently enrolled in a degree-seeking academic program or recently graduated (within the past 12 months) and be a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident.

Get your applications in ➡️ https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/

📸 NPS - Former NCPE Interns Lauren and Avra standing between shelving units, holding books from the Cane River Creole National Historical Park museum collection in gloved hands. They visited the park’s new Curation Facility to familiarize themselves with the material culture of Oakland and Magnolia Plantations. The interns examined leather bound volumes of the Complete Works of Voltaire originally published in the 1820s.

National Park Service

A devastating decision for Solano County’s historical records. Shame on the county for dissolving the Solano County Historical Records Commission, the only public oversight protecting an irreplaceable collection. This decision should be reversed immediately.

After months of silence from Solano County staff and without any notice or input, an Agenda item crafted in misinformation was buried at the end of the November 7, 2023 Board of Supervisors meeting to dissolve the Solano County Historical Records Commission. It was adopted 4-1, with Supervisor Wanda Williams being the lone vote of reason.

The action also created an Ad Hoc committee of Supervisor Mitch Mashburn and Supervisor Monica Brown, neither of whom are knowledgeable of the complexity of the collection or experienced to determine its fate.

The unyielding effort to silence public oversight with the dissolution of the Solano County Historical Records Commission was orchestrated by Supervisor John Vasquez, in coordination with County Counsel Bernadette Curry, former CAO Birgitta Corsello, and unidentified staff.

Back in 2015, Supervisor Vasquez was the lone Supervisor voting against the procurement of an independent consultant to assess the County's historical records. Since that time he and his cohorts have made every effort to conceal the well examined, insightful findings of InfoCompass, the independent consultant, and to silence the Solano County Historical Records Commission.

As an example, within several months after the approval of hiring the consultant, the County suddenly “lost” its lease for the building holding the historical records collection. That lease was held by B and L Properties, supporters of Supervisor Vasquez. The building subsequently remained vacant for several years. The collection has remained in publicly inaccessible, private storage in Richmond, California, since 2015. Supervisor Vazquez is on record with his wish to dismantle the collection.

The dissolution of the Solano County Historical Records Collection is catastrophic, unwarranted, and an extreme disservice to the public interest. The original Solano County Historical Records Commission needs to be reinstated immediately.

Happy Halloween!

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Just in time for acorn season.

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