Issue date: February 03, 1999
By MARION SOFTKY
Be sure and visit the old San Mateo County Courthouse when the sun is shining on the dome. The stained glass, lovingly cleaned and restored, bathes the elegant rotunda in cathedral colors.
With luck, the sun will be lighting the dome Saturday, February 6, when the county's historic headquarters starts a new life as a museum for county history.
"This is the largest stained glass dome on a public building on the West Coast," says Mitch Postel, president of the San Mateo County Historical Association on a tour of the historic building, where county history has been shaped since 1910. To have that building now as a museum presenting the county's colorful history to the public, "That's fitting," he says.
Following damage by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the county, with federal and state aid, structurally repaired the building for $2.8 million. Then they leased it to the San Mateo County Historical Association for use as a museum of county history. The association has spent $500,000 cleaning and repairing the stained glass to its present sparkling state.
The museum's first temporary exhibits give a tantalizing glimpse at the richness of that history. Standing in the rotunda is an elegant black and gold carriage donated by Mrs. William Matson Roth. "It's a light park drag," says Mr. Postel. Drawn by four horses, it carried the family of William Bourn, who built San Francisco's water system and the Filoli estate in Woodside. They could sit on top of the carriage and watch polo games or races.
Initial exhibits include "Horse and Buggy Days," with more carriages, and a buggy kids can climb on; "Early California Cultures," with displays of native Ohlones, and Spanish and Mexican settlers; and "Historic Rails," with working models of county rail systems manned by volunteer railroad buffs.
Another gallery features the 1878 prints of Moore and DePue, showing wonderful views of homes, estates and buildings all over the county, complete with boats and animals and people, lovingly drawn in by artists Grafton Taylor Brown and Joseph Britton. The lithographs have been delicately colored by Portola Valley naturalist and retired art dealer Herb Dengler.
"I know the flora pretty well, so I could get the color right," he says.
The historical association is still getting used to the 36,000 square feet of space in the courthouse, compared to the cramped quarters at the College of San Mateo where it was located since 1963. At last it has room for storing some 100,000 items in its collections. These include 5,000 objects and 30,000 photographs, plus maps, telephone books, documents, books and newspaper clippings, Mr. Postel says. The library is now open for people wanting to do research.
Historic courthouse
The present building has also had its problems with earthquakes, both in 1906 and 1989. Started in 1904, the building was almost totally wrecked in 1906 -- except the stained glass dome and some foundation, which somehow remained standing among the rubble.
The present 2 1/2-story domed building was constructed for $160,000 and dedicated July 4, 1910. A report by Architectural Resources Group calls it "an excellent and rare example of civic architecture in the Renaissance Revival style in California." It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
Architectural purists bemoan the loss of its four-column portico on Broadway to an annex attached to the north side in 1939, in a style condescendingly called "Depression Modern." A second annex on the south side also detracts from the building's original lines.
Mr. Postel hopes that sometime in the future, when county workers have left, the two annexes can go. "We'd like to restore it to its appearance about 1913," he says.
Besides the rotunda and dome, the other architectural and historical highlight of the old courthouse is the old Courtroom A on the second floor. The spacious courtroom with the domed, stained glass skylight was used for trials until 1998.
Retired Sheriff's deputy John Edmonds, who served as bailiff in the court for five years, enjoys sharing the tale of another "trial of the century," held in Courtroom A in 1931.
A young woman named Constance Gavin was suing the estate of James Flood -- son of the silver king who built the opulent mansion, Linden Towers, in Atherton -- for paternity. Judge George Buck, who had been on the bench since 1890, presided, Mr. Edmonds relates. The weather was very hot, and the sun shone through the skylight on the packed courtroom, while newspapermen from around the country spilled down the stairs and into the rotunda.
The judge never even let the defense present its case, Mr. Edmonds relates. As sympathy ran high for the plaintiff, Judge Buck sent the jury out, directing them to find for the Floods. After the resulting uproar, Judge Buck lost the next election to Mrs. Gavin's attorney. "Later the defense settled for $2 million," Mr. Edmonds says. "In 1933 that was big bucks."
Of bears and buggies
"I'm in my second childhood," the big man says gleefully. He'd look more at home doing what he also loves -- driving his pair of black Percheron draft horses. One of many volunteers helping build the temporary exhibits, Mr. Lacey has been helping make the iron work used in displays.
Every display seems to reach back into our communities. Also in the carriage room, a wall plaque hails the "First Commuters of the West."
The monied families who had summer estates on the Peninsula -- Floods, Stanfords, Selbys, Sharons -- would take their carriages to the train stations to ride the train to work in San Francisco.
Mrs. Lurline Roth Coonan of Woodside remembers her mother's carriage collections. She used them to show her hackney horses, Mrs. Coonan says. They were the very best carriages, made by the Brewster company. "They were beautiful. They were all made out of patent leather," she says.
Actually Mrs. Roth had two carriage collections. Her own, she kept at Why Worry Farm in Woodside and eventually gave to Louisville. When the Roths bought Filoli, Mrs. Coonan recalls also getting the Bourns' carriages.
"They were in complete disrepair. They were a mess," she says.
Mrs. Roth hired a mechanic who had trained with Brewster to repair them and refit them for road use. When Filoli went to the National Trust, she gave these carriages to the historical association -- which now has some on display in the new museum.
Mrs. Coonan particularly remembers a large black and gold carriage. "We used to take it out to Menlo Park to watch polo matches at the Circus Club," she says.
In the next room, which celebrates the people who used to live in San Mateo County, the star attraction is definitely a very large grizzly bear. He stands tall among the manzanita, and snarls convincingly, reminding visitors that California's state symbol used to prowl the local hills, terrorizing farmers and loggers.
The best-known bear story locally was that of Grizzly Ryder, a youth who came out with the noted Dr. R.O. Tripp, who ran the Woodside Store for half a century.
The story goes that about 1850 young Ryder was out in the Woodside foothills looking for stray oxen one evening, when he mistook a mother grizzly with two cubs for a lost ox. A lop-sided encounter knocked him down a bank where he was found, mauled, the next morning. Somehow he survived. That's where Bear Creek in Woodside and Bear Gulch got their names.
Future plans
He hopes that Phase I will be installed by the end of this year. This will include permanent exhibits being prepared by a professional designer, and a museum store on the first floor.
One permanent exhibit will focus on "Journey to Work" and how transportation has shaped the Peninsula and development of its suburbs.
The other permanent exhibit, "Nature's Bounty," will show how the resources of the Peninsula -- forests, water, agriculture and ports -- were key to the growth of San Francisco in the last century.
Mr. Postel explained that Phase II, which should take about four years, will include more exhibit galleries and a theater. "The Courthouse Attic" will be a hands-on gallery where visitors can handle tools and papers that might be used in a court case to reconstruct the evidence.
Over 10 years, Phase III will include more galleries plus a children's gallery, he says. The association raised $2.8 million toward the $4 million needed to complete Phase I of the new museum. "We've got good momentum, and expect to be in the public phase by the middle of the year," Mr. Postel says.
Meanwhile, there are lots of things the museum needs: primarily money, volunteers, and photographs or artifacts.
As planners look toward designing future exhibits, they particularly want people to look in their closets and garages for objects or papers that pertain to the railroad history of the county, or its water history, Mr. Postel says, things like stock certificates for the Spring Valley Water Company, or old pictures of the dams.
Mr. Edmonds is compiling a history of the county courts. He wants people to share tales of the courthouse days under the county. He is also training docents for the museum. "We have 16. We're looking for about 30 more," he says. "It's a fine job."
Mr. Postel concludes, "I hope people want to become part of what we're doing."
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