This year there have been a lot of volunteer sunflowers all over the neighborhood. Why this year? Whatever the reason, they are a welcome sight, even amongst the weeds and bromes.
Author Archives: michaelcacker
KRAMER’S INN
Updated Below
The building now know as 18135 Highway 12, in Boyes Hot Springs, is one of the oldest commercial buildings in the community. The original business, Kramer’s Inn, goes back at least to 1918. That building was destroyed in the great fire of September 1923 and the current one dates from that year.
1938, 1950s, 1960s, 2021. Valley Hardware was in a building where the glass company (blue awnings, top photo) is now. It was right next to Gallo Bros. car dealership. This composite shows the building after it was sold to Esposito. Read on.
The sign says “Kramer’s Inn, Stage Depot.” Before or after the fire of 1923? The top of the façade looks like the later building, but we don’t know that he didn’t rebuild to duplicate the one that was destroyed. Anyway, what an interesting bunch of folks. All men but two. I particularly like the two guys in the center, one draping his arms over the other.What occasioned this group photo?
Immediately after the fire there was great determination to rebuild. Kramer set up his temporary store right away.
“The ashes at Boyes Springs were hardly cold before many of the enterprising property owners and business people began to re-establish themselves and put up buildings. Kramer, the grocer is doing business in a tent and will rebuild at once.” Index Tribune September 1923. October 20, 1923: “The Kramer store is nearing completion and many other improvements are contemplated as soon as the new state highway grade is authoritatively established.” Yes, this is incredibly fast construction! Remember, no permits were required.
In 1924, Kramer improved the store with a stucco front. In 1930, he became Greyhound agent for the Springs.
Noble Kramer was born in 1878 in Ohio. He came to California with his wife Luisa and daughter Lucille sometime before 1920. He had some political ambitions. In 1942 he ran for judge but was not elected. He ran for judge and county clerk several times without success, and applied to become the postmaster of Boyes Hot springs in the year the job was awarded to Marion Greene, of the Woodleaf Market.
In 1938 Kramer sold to A. Desposito who renamed it the Boyes Springs Store.
Noble Kramer Died 1948.
In 1942 Mike and Rose Gitti took over and ran the store as Mike and Rose’s Market. They retired in 1959. At that point (in 1959)the IT says “The store is now being remodeled and will be the new location of the Ammann’s Boutique women’s shop, which in the future will also carry a line of men’s clothing. The Gittis came to the Springs area in 1941 from San Rafael and Mike, who has been in the butcher trade since 1933, was employed at the Woodleaf Market until the couple opened their own store.” IT Jan 22, 1959
Zan Stark photo showing Mike and Roses’ Market across the street from the Sonoma Mission Inn and next door to Valley Hardware and Gallo’s. It’s difficult to see but the hardware store has a Sherwin Williams “Cover the Earth” sign.
After 1959 there is a blank in the record.
We pick up the trail again in 1973. In June of that year the building housed The Bookworm used bookstore.
In August of 1975 we find Pam’s Professional Grooming in residence.
July 1977 finds Crafty’s, a store selling dolls, dollhouses, and little bitty furniture.
February, 1978 Better Homes Realty takes over the space. They remain until December of 1979, when Bill Coombs, real estate agent, puts his franchise up for sale for $6,000.
Apparently that did’t work out because Coombs transitioned into the used record business using his former realty office. In March of 1981 he transferred that business to Jared Simpson who operated it as “Love Me Two Times” (obviously he was a Doors fan.)
The next mention in the IT is in 1991, when it was listed as a residence in a crime report.
It was again vacant of businesses, as far as we know, during the years-1990-2005.
In the 21st Century
Mas por Menos, an all-purpose business catering to Spanish speaking people took the space in 2009. They cashed checks, provided email, fax and Internet services, sold phone cards, provided “envois de dinero” and even sold airline tickets. Unfortunately they lasted only a year, but they did do some much needed maintenance to the facade.
In 2010 Lonesome Cowboy Ranch, purveyors of vintage Western wear and memorabilia set up shop and did well until 2020, when they closed.
Today we are lucky to have Heritage Furniture. They make the classic Adirondack chair using high-tech laser cutting and CAD design. We wish them success and a long tenure at 18135 Sonoma Highway.
Update 2024: Unfortunately Heritage Furniture did not survive. In its place we now have Lucrative Clothing.
Photographs and Index Tribune courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society and author’s collection.
The Once and Future Boyes Boulevard Bridge
It was a different experience in 1955
On February 17, 1955, the Index Tribune reported
“A $12,987 contract for rebuilding the Boyes boulevard bridge across Sonoma Creek, near the Bath House in Boyes Hot Springs, was awarded by the county supervisors last week…The contractor will use existing abutments and piers for the bridge and will use but relocate existing steel stringer and add a reinforced concrete deck and sidewalks.”
Thursday, March 3, 1955. Work was “in high gear” on the new Boyes Blvd. bridge.The caption notes that motorist will be forced to use “Verano Drive or Santa Rosa Avenue” to cross the creek. Verano Drive is now Verano Blvd. and Santa Rosa Avenue is West Agua Caliente Road.
Work went fast: On April 17th we learn,
“New Boyes Bridge May Open to Traffic This Weekend.”
“Possibility that the brand new bridge across Sonoma Creek at Boyes Boulevard, near the Bath House, will be open to traffic on Saturday was seen this week.
Painting of the new steel barriers and upper portion was completed on Tuesday with only the sand blasting and painting of the steel sections beneath the bridge remaining.
Normally, twenty-one days is allowed for the concrete to set after the deck has been poured. If this procedure were followed, the bridge would not open until next Monday. However, due to the excellent weather and the fact that the Boyes Hot Springs Bath House and facilities will be open for the season on Saturday, this weekend may possibly see the new bridge in use.
The Fred Fedenburg firm of Temple City has been the contractor for the $12,987 project, which was stared the last week of February.”
The work was fast because they did not replace the abutments, unlike the current project for which massive new concrete supports were poured. Still, the end of February to the end of April is rapid!
Fast forward to the year 2000. It was proposed to widen the bridge to three lanes, but neighbors worried about increased traffic.
That project never came to pass.
In December 2020 the County sent this notice informing us of a big step in the construction of the NEW new bridge.
We first learned of the current bridge project in July of 2019, when the Sonoma County Department of Transportation told the Index Tribune that the Boyes Blvd. bridge was “functionally obsolete.”
“The new replacement bridge will comply with current roadway, drainage and bridge standards…; it will not increase vehicular capacity but will provide shoulders for bicycles and a five-foot wide sidewalk for pedestrians” the IT reported.
Engineering work started in 2013. The funds were allocated in July of 2019.
“The entire project is expected to cost $5.13 million, almost 13 percent higher than originally estimated. Additional costs are said to stem from the temporary pedestrian bridge which will also provide a structure for water, gas and electric relocations, and the water systems improvements by the Valley of the Moon Water District (VOMWD).”
“Commencement of construction of the project has been delayed due to, among other things, a lengthy negotiation with a neighboring homeowners’ association in 2018,” said the summary report.
The “other things” causing delay now include a world-wide pandemic and a bad fire season in 2020. Currently the bridge is scheduled to open in July of this year (2021).
The photos below span November 2019 through April, 2021.
Bonus slideshow of arty construction images! You’re welcome.
A Family Photograph
Note: An earlier version of this was password protected because I wanted to address my family directly. This version should make more sense to the general reader.
Years ago my father, Marty, gave me a copy of a photograph of the Acker/Samuel(Weissbuch) family, assembled in Manchester, UK around 1900. I don’t know if he knew more about the photo, but he never gave me any details. The family had migrated from Rumania not long before. The group is photographed in front of and hemmed in by, brick walls, in tiers, with a gaggle of kids sitting in the front row. I have been going through folders of family photos lately, (partly so the younger members of my family won’t have to do it some day). I came across a copy of the photograph.
Now, in this family was a boy who would become a well-known writer, a Zionist thinker, and something of a radio personality in the U.S. His name was Maurice Samuel (my father’s first cousin. He was a hero to Marty in his youth, and I remember hearing him talk with poet Mark Van Doren on national radio. This conversation, the subject of which was the Old Testament, went on weekly in the summer for twenty years! They were also on TV.)
In 1963 Maurice published a memoir entitled Little Did I Know, the first sentence of which reads
“Among the people who rise out of my past to claim first mention in this book, my uncle Berel is the most persistent.”
Berel Acker was my great-grandfather.
I have had Maurice’s book (my father’s copy) by my reading chair for months and I dip into it now and then. I started reading, on page 72, a few days ago, this: “My mother’s family came to Manchester in full force, part of it moving on, as I have told, to America. I have a group photograph taken in 1902, in the squalid backyard of 5 Norfolk Street, on the occasion of my aunt Chaya’s wedding, which was celebrated in our upstairs front room. Uncle Berel is in it, billycock set jauntily on his head, a cigarette dangling from his lips. I am there with my twin sister Dora, in the front row, seated on the ground, and into my face only a Wordsworth could have read trailing clouds of glory…”
An amazing coincidence that I found the photo I read about in Maurice’s book just a few days later, giving me a lot more detail and a certain flavor.
Marty wrote on the back of the small copy I found that the little boy at the extreme left is his father, my grandfather Isaac.
In 1995 Marty and I visited the English relatives. In cousin Harry Rothman’s living room was a large version of the photo.
Maurice’s depiction of Berel agrees with everything I was told by my father. Berel was the man of the world, the “cool grandfather.” Marty’s other grandfather, who was named Katz, was so religious that he established his own synagogue and became its rabbi. Kids of Marty’s generation would say “when the Katz away, the mice will play.”
It’s gratifying to have little bits of family history come together like this.
New to the Valley of the Moon Historic Photo Database March 2021
Marion Greene
Update: please also see https://springsmuseum.org/2018/11/07/the-woodleaf-store-big-three/ for the post about the Woodleaf Store.
Film magnates, fatal accidents and paved (!) highways share space with the beginning of Marion Greene’s career as postmaster. (Stay tuned for the story about the film magnates.) And, yes, they called it the “Springs” in 1923.
Marion Greene was a businesswomen of Boyes Hot Springs in the mid-twentieth century. Many women were prominent in business around this time. Mary Fazio of Mary’s Pizza Shack, Pine Wagner, the pharmacist, and Jerry Casson were her contemporaries. Emma Fetters was a few years earlier, Juanita Musson a bit later. In 1947 she became a founding member of the Sonoma Valley business and Professional Women’s club. 75 women attend the first meeting.
In November of 1923, Marion Lovett Greene, proprietor of the Woodleaf Store, was appointed acting post master of the Boyes Hot Springs post office and was waiting to take the exam to qualify as the permanent post master. There as quite a bit of competition for the job among local grocers, the Index Tribune noted. ”Postage stamp sales lead to pork-and-bean sales and love letter inquiries increase pickles sales, so naturally the store keepers want to serve Uncle Sam’s patrons, even if the salary of post master itself is not very remunerative.” She did become the regular post master and stayed in the job until at least 1939.
Her Woodleaf store was in the Kellar building in 1932, we are told. The same year she move “across the street” to the Putnam building, which presumably was the building at the corner of Boyes Blvd and Sonoma highway, where the Woodleaf Store stayed as it later became the Big Three. In 1938 Ms. Greene was appointed the Greyhound Bus agent for the Springs as well.
The interior of the Woodleaf Store in 1956. This would be in the Big Three building on the corner of Hwy 12 and Boyes Blvd. Mrs. Greene was no longer owner, but she would have approved of the modern appointments.
Mrs. Greene served as president of the Sonoma County Grocers Association and the state association, and was active in the California Post Masters Association.
She was named Outstanding citizen of the year 1948 by the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce. In 1949, as chair of the Travel and Recreation Committee, she spearheaded the effort to establish the Valley of the Moon Scenic Route along Highway 12. As part of her duties with the Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Greene appeared on Paul Marcucci’s radio show, broadcast from his resort.
Marion Greene built two houses in Boyes Hot Springs in the 1940s. In 2019 Marion’s grand- daughter came to Boyes Hot Springs to sell the houses that her grandmother built and gave us a tour. The interiors were all Ms. Greene’s design, and quite charming, featuring custom cabinets and many built-ins.
An artifact found in the out-buildings attested to Ms. Greene’s involvement with local development and business.
In 1949 local boosters celebrated the “centennial” of Boyes Hot Springs. This is puzzling since Captain Boyes did not arrive until 1885, however, they were dating from the arrival of T.M. Leavenworth, who bought hundreds of acres in the Rancho Agua Caliente from Vallejo in 1849. See Leavenworth’s House.
The commemorative tie features the image of a mule because that was the mascot of Boyes Springs at the time. Mules live long lives, but it’s doubtful Peskie was still there in 1949.
Index Tribune courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society. Photographs by author and from author’s collection.
The Ideal Resort
According to the 2005 Historical Resources Compliance Report for the Highway 12 Phase Two Corridor Project of County Redevelopment (whew!) The Ideal Resort was built some time around 1910 by Anton and Helen Schaffer who, in 1919, sold to Joseph and Margaret Weiss.
The Schafer’s and the Weiss’ were Austrian immigrants, like the Weghoffer family and Leixner, who also had businesses in Fetters Hot Springs. {See Liexner }.
A Northwest Pacific Railroad brochure from the 1910s described the resort this way: “At Fetter’s Springs, three minutes’ walk from the Northwestern Pacific Depot, and ten minutes walk to Boyes, Fetters, and Caliente Hot Springs, where there are large swimming tanks….No expense has been spared to make this place a pleasure ground. Large, sanitary and well ventilated rooms, sleeping porches or tents,…Mrs. Weiss has established a reputation for her excellent Hungarian cooking.”
The Weiss’ ran the resort until 1934. Between 1935 and 1941, the property changed hands several times. Joseph Weiss died in 1935. The IT gave him a front page obit, calling him a “pioneer resort man.” The obit noted that he was born in Austria-Hungary in 1868.
In 1946, Ray and Florence Loper took over, renaming the place the Floray Auto Court. The Lopers sold in 1958 but the name persisted in to the 70s.
The 2005 Report noted that the Ideal Resort was “one of many small, family owned resorts in the Springs district. Small resorts such as this allowed families and people of lesser means to participate in the resort life previously enjoyed by the affluent. They plays an integral part in the historical development of this area. This property is a good representative of the Springs resort era. There are few small, road-side resorts from the early part of the century left in the Springs area, and non retain the degrees of integrity that this resort does. Therefore, National Register Criterion A and California Register Criterion 1 are met.” In 2005. As with so many historic structures in the Springs, alteration or demolition proceeded before consideration of historic value could be contemplated.
The buildings were rehabbed in the 2010s. They remain, but very highly altered.
In 1924, this ad appeared in the Index Tribune. The assortment of goods for sale gives pause.
Index Tribune courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society. Photos by or from the collection of the author.
Dutil/French Cottages/Verdier’s, Part Two
Paul Verdier died in 1945. His daughter and her husband, John Piro, take over and managed the resort until 1962. During this period, the resort was extensively photographed by Zan Stark. Several elaborate brochures were also produced .
In 1962 Paul Verdier, the younger, died. He and his sisters had sold the resort to Hugh B. Nyce (really!) that year. Then, in 1964 a big change.
1964 October-Juanita Musson takes ownership of Verdier’s.
Juanita was a well known, even notorious, restaurateur in Sausalito from 1953 to 1963. The IT informed us “Mrs. Musson, whose language at times is as colorful as her muumuus, was popular restaurateur in Sausalito between 1953 and 1963. Early in 1964, with the backing of Scott Mc Donald of San Francisco, she took over Verdier’s. She ran the business as Juanita’s Galley until 1969, when a fire consumed the dining room, kitchen, owner’s quarters, and several outbuildings. Juanita did not close the business, however. “She still plans to cater a dinner this coming weekend for a Sears Point Raceway group at the Veterans Memorial building which she has rented for the occasion. While the bar will continue “business as usual,” Mrs. Musson told the Index-Tribune yesterday she also hopes to make arrangements for the preparation and serving of food in the and dance hall area.”
A small article next to the bottom photograph notes that lawsuits against PGE for starting the 1964 fire in Boyes Hot Springs, were settled. In 1969. Everything old is new again, the wheels of justice, etc.
Juanita was not able to resurrect the El Verano resort and moved on to Fetters Hot Springs.
Ms. Musson, who loomed large in the Springs for many years, will get her own entry in this journal soon.
By 2012, the property have been divided and sold to several people. A new house was built that incorporated some of the resort into the back yard.
Back yard of new house on Verdier’s property, 2012, showing the bar, fireplace and sheet metal sign.
This sign was donated to the Sonoma Valley Historical Society by Eric Morrison.
Index Tribune and photo of Juanita courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society. Other photos by author or from author’s collection.
Dutil/French Cottages/Verdier’s
The “French Colony” of Sonoma Valley included the Dutil, Lounibos, and Verdier families. The Lounibos’ arrived from France in 1873, the Dutils and Verdiers in 1893. (A different Verdier family came from France to San Francisco in 1850. They founded the City of Paris department store.)
By 1900 Jean and Anna Dutil were running a boarding house in El Verano, and improving it. “J. Dutil received a carload of lumber here Monday with which he will build a five room annex to his private boarding house in this place,” wrote the Index Tribune. After construction was complete, “Doc Wilson is painting J. Dutil’s villa. The colors are red white and blue.”
In 1902 “Mons J. Dutil, mine host of the French Cottage [as it was now called] will commence the erection of a large hotel in this place in a few days.”
Mrs. Anna Dutil died in 1943. According to the IT, she was 80 years old and came from Lyon France “fifity years ago,” ie, 1893. “she and her husband founded the French Cottage, one Sonoma Valley’s first summer resorts, now Verdier’s.”
According to historian Joan Lounibos, the Verdiers, Paul and his wife, worked for the Dutils at the boarding house, and, by 1922, they were the proprietors. “Mr. and Mrs. P. Verdier of the popular resort, the French Cottage, are making many improvements about the grounds, laying out beautiful gardens, painting the different buildings and getting ready for the coming season.”
By 1929, the resort was called Verdier’s. In the spring of that year, the Young Ladies Institute “enjoyed a bounteous repast at Verdier’s French cottage. The tables were beautifully decorated with daffodils and smilax, and the menu was elaborate, with chicken, ravioli and French pastry.”
1939-Paul Verdier makes more improvements
Paul Verdier died in 1945. His daughter and her husband, John Piro, take over and manage the resort until 1962. During this period, the resort was extensively photographed by Zan Stark. Several elaborate brochures were produced also.
springs museum 