September - October 2021

Ralph Gibson

Museums Administrator

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love it when the leaves turn, the pumpkins ripen, and the warm days are tempered by a cooler wind. Okay, okay, and Halloween – you all know it’s my favorite holiday. I’ve been wearing Halloween shirts since June this year. Last year we didn’t get much of a fall because of the pandemic. There was no Cemetery Tour, no Ghost Tours and I didn’t decorate the outside of my house like I usually do. This fall, though, looks to be a little different. The Cemetery Tour is planned for October 3rd from 1:30 to 4:00 pm at the Old Auburn Cemetery. We’ll have actors portraying significant people from our history near their plots with plenty of “Ghost Hosts” in the cemetery to help guide you. As always, the Cemetery Tour is free! The Old Auburn Ghost Tours are slated to happen October 23rd, October 30th, and November 6th at 6:00 pm. Tickets go on sale soon.

We will also decorate the Treasury of the Placer County Museum for Halloween and once again will have a creepy challenge for visitors. This year, we’ll have Creepy Dolls on display and all you need to do to win some candy is tell the docent how many creepy dolls you found. If you found them all, you get some Halloween candy.

Of course, all of this is heavily dependent upon how we navigate the new variants of COVID-19. We all sincerely hope that as more people are vaccinated and mitigation tools likes masks and distancing are adhered to, that the virus will finally wain and life will return to normal by early 2022.

All of us at the Placer County Museums wish you and yours a very safe, healthy and Happy Halloween!

Kelsey Monahan

Curator of Archives

At the Archive and Research Center we recently received a donation of scanned images of a photograph album kept by Maud Remler, c. 1913. Maud was the daughter of Leonard Remler, who was a pioneer resident of Foresthill, opening his store there in 1864.

In addition to some great photographs of the Remler family and their Foresthill home, there are several pages of photo strips and small stamp-sized photos glued in.

Page from the Maud Remler album, c. 1913

 
At first glance my assumption was that the strips of photos were photobooth images, due to their small size and format. However, upon further research, I found that the first automatic photobooth was not invented until 1925, after the c. 1913 date of the album.

Sacramento Star, March 19, 1910

It turns out these types of photographs are often called “ping pong photos,” and were invented in the 1890s. The term ping pong comes from the rapid movement the camera would make to capture multiple poses. This style of photography became popular because it was affordable, and often available in penny arcades and photo studios.

 

Mabel Lardner from Maud Remler album, c. 1913

The accessibility of ping pong photos and other advancements in camera technology made getting a photograph taken more casual than it had previously been. It was around this time that smiling in photographs became more commonplace, and many of the photo strips in this album contain both serious portrait poses and candid smiling snapshots.

 from Maud Remler album, c. 1913

It is not hard to see why these types of photos were so popular, and why the later invention of the photobooth was such a success. There is something about seeing multiple snapshots of the same person that almost seems to bring them to life.

Christina Richter

Administrative Clerk, Archives & Collections

A part of Golden Gate Bridge history resides in Roseville, but few people could you tell you where it’s located. Hidden in plain sight, the telltale orange beams are part of the beautiful Miners Ravine Trail opened by the City of Roseville in 1992.

Prior to 1992 the Miners Ravine Parkway was inaccessible, as there was no way to cross the creek. The trail was originally built in 1988 as an access road to a sewer line but was otherwise unused. That all changed when developer Nick Alexander came upon a creative solution to help open the trail to the public.

Through his network he was notified of the availability of retired I-beams from the Golden Gate Bridge that could be purchased at a relatively inexpensive cost. The beams were acquired and work crews began to create the concrete abutments for six bridges to cross Miners Ravine Creek along a two-mile pathway.

The Press Tribune, June 29, 1992

At 51-feet long and 25-tons each, three Golden Gate 1940s-era steel I-beams were cut in half and anchored onto the concrete abutments. According to a June 26, 1992 Press Tribune article (above), “the sections were so heavy they burned out a crane that removed them from the trucks delivering them from the Bay Area…” Once successfully moved, the I-beams were cut in half, then each was placed in the pre-engineered area for the six bridges.

 

The Press Tribune, January 3, 1997

One of the benefits of these heavy bridges is that they will withstand a 100-year flood, and that fact was proven in 1997 when Roseville experienced one of its worst floods in a century. The bridges performed beautifully and proved to be a solid addition to the trail.

 

Portion of the Miners Ravine Trail with bridge

This portion of the Miners Ravine Trail can be accessed from the back of the United Artist Movie Theater parking lot off Eureka Blvd., and from the trail parking lot off Orvietto Drive.

Katy Bartosh

Curator of Education

Rules for Teachers. One, you will not marry during the term of your contract. Two, you are not to keep company with men. And thus starts the list of twelve rules for teachers in 1915, attributed (on this particular poster) to the Carnegie Museum. In the same style is a 1848 “Punishments” poster that lists twenty-four offenses and the accompanying number of lashes that students would receive for breaking them

I found these two lists in the cabinet at our new Fruitvale School Museum. They seemed to be an excellent addition to the new living history and exhibit content I’m creating. It’s not hard to imagine an old rural schoolteacher in Placer County following these rules. “You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.” They’re amusing, and believable, in that “oh, those silly old-time sensibilities!” way.

However, a quick Google search to find more information led to more questions than answers. The “1915 Rules for Teachers” appear verbatim on material from The Little Red School House in Humboldt, “One-room Schools of Knox County,” the University of Hawai’i, and the Portage County Historical Society – to name just a few. And, to further complicate matters, each of these websites quote a different source. Are they from Placer County? Maybe Cabell County West Virginia? Or the Pennington Institute for Young Ladies? Are they even real?

A 2013 article from Open Culture explored this conundrum. According to the author, these rules are generally attributed to Sacramento, but their exact source is still unknown. But I think a quote from the New Hampshire Historical Society captures the bigger issue at hand. “The sources for these ‘rules’ are unknown; thus we cannot attest to their authenticity – only to their verisimilitude and charming quaintness.”

How many times have I had a local insist that there are definitely tunnels under [insert historic Auburn building or site here]. Our past is full of facts and figures, but urban legends and embellished histories abound. It’s easy to imagine a secret tunnel running under the courthouse. Not only could you quickly rationalize why such a tunnel might exist, but it also makes a great story. But is there actually a prohibition era tunnel from the Historic Courthouse to the White House? No.

Rules for teachers; these could be completely accurate (and I’m determined to track down their origin), but it’s not their veracity that’s spread them far and wide. We tend to like the past to be charming; interesting, but in a harmless, anecdotal way.

These rules serve as an interesting reminder of how we study the past, versus create The Past. I’ll keep you all posted.

Getting Back to the Bernhard Museum

The Bernhard Museum has been closed since March 2020. We’re looking forward to welcoming visitors, and students, back to the property in mid-September. The Museum now has a beautiful asphalt driveway and parking lot. Throughout August, contractors were busily grading, framing, pouring, and paving. There is also a new cement sidewalk that winds around the lot, up to the porch, and over to the carriage barn.

This paving project will make the museum more easily accessible for all visitors, and hopefully help cut down on dirt and dust within the museum.

 

April McDonald-Loomis

President, Placer County Historical Society

As most of you know, we had to cancel our much anticipated August Dinner Meeting due to the fire in Colfax. The county planned on using the Veteran’s Hall and requested that we cancel our meeting. As it turned out they didn’t have to use the facility after all. We will tentatively plan for the October 7th Dinner Meeting and will let you know via email and newspaper press releases. Everything just seems so unsettled right now.

Some good news, our plaques are up on Firehouse # 1 thanks to Matt at the City’s Public Works Department. The plans for the Bernhard Anniversary celebration are moving forward. That will be on December 10th in conjunction with the Museums Christmas event at the Bernhard. The book on the Bernhards by John Knox and Carol Cramer will be available at that time. This is a terrific book that includes primary source examples along with the narrative, it has only had limited publication up to now. The Society and the Placer County Historical Museum Foundation are funding a large run. So this is a great opportunity to add to your local history book collection. It will be available through our website soon.

The History Award Committee has received several really formidable candidates for the yearly award. That award will be handed out at our December Dinner Meeting. Hopefully we will be back to our regular schedule by then!

your summer if going well despite the smoke and the fires. Hopefully we will all get together again in October!yle="text-align: center;">

Calendar of Events 

Please confirm all meeting times and locations which each organization

Foresthill Divide Historical Society Meeting: Monday, September 21st at 6:00pm

Golden Drift Historical Society Meeting: Monday, October 4th at 7:00pm

Historical Advisory Board Meeting: Wednesday, October 20th at 5:30pm

Loomis Basin Historical Society Meeting: Wednesday, September 15th at 6:00pm; Wednesday, October 20th at 6:00pm

Placer County Historical Society Meeting: Thursday, September 2nd at 2:00pm, Dinner Meeting: October 7th, 6:00pm

Placer Sierra Railroad Heritage Society: Thursday, September 23rd at 7:00pm; Thursday, October 28th at 7:00pm

Placer Genealogical Society Meeting: Thursday, September 23rd at 7:00pm; Thursday, October 28th at 7:00pm

Rocklin Historical Society Meeting: Monday, September 13th at 6:00pm; Monday, October 11th at 6:00pm

Roseville Historical Society Meeting: Tuesday, September 14th at 4:00pm; Tuesday, October 12th at 4:00pm

Historical Organizations 

Colfax Area Historical Society 
Jay MacIntyre, President
(530) 346-8599 
colfaxhistory.org

Donner Summit Historical Society
Bill Oudegeest
(209) 606-6859
donnersummithistoricalsociety.org

Foresthill Divide Historical Society
Troy Simester
(530) 367-3535
foresthillhistory.org

Fruitvale School Hall Community Association
Mark Fowler

Gold Country Medical History Museum 

Lynn Carpenter
(530) 885-1252

Golden Drift Historical Society 
Sarah Fugate
(530) 389-2121

Historical Advisory Board
Glenn Vineyard
(916) 747-1961

Joss House Museum and Chinese History Center
Larry Finney
(530) 305-9380 

Lincoln Area Archives Museum
Elizabeth Jansen
(916) 645-3800
laamca.org

Lincoln Highway Association
Trey Pitsenberger

https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/ca/

Loomis Basin Historical Society
Karen Clifford
(916) 663-3871
ppgn.com/loomishistorical.html

Maidu Museum & Historic Site
Kaitlin Kincade
(916) 774-5934
roseville.ca.us/indianmuseum

The Museum of Sierra Ski History and 1960 Winter Olympics

David C. Antonucci 
(775) 722-3502
Sierraskimuseum.com

Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor #59
Dave Allen
(530) 878-2878
dsallen59@sbcglobal.net

Newcastle Portuguese Hall Association
Mario Farinha
(530) 269-2412

North Lake Tahoe Historical Society

Phil Sexton
(530) 583-1762
northtahoemuseums.org

Old Town Auburn Preservation Society
Lynn Carpenter
(530) 885-1252 

Placer County Genealogical Society
Toni Rosasco
(530) 888-8036
pcgenes.com

Placer County Historical Society
April McDonald-Loomis 
(530) 823-2128
placercountyhistoricalsociety.org

Placer County Museums Docent Guild
Fran Hanson
(530) 878-6990 

Placer Sierra Railroad Heritage Society
Chuck Spinks
chuck.spinks@outlook.com

Rocklin Historical Society
Hank Lohse 
(916) 624-3464
rocklinhistory.org

Roseville Fire Museum
Jim Giblin
(916) 538-1809
rosevillefiremuseum@gmail.org

Roseville Historical Society
Denise Fiddyment
(916) 773-3003