Mike Read/Pages From The Past
100 Years Ago
September 1923
– QUIT PAYING RENT – Buy this 3-room home place for $500 cash and $10 a month. Large lot, windmill, tank, garden, berries, etc., near Boulevard. Whole price only $1,450. Lot 50×300; house wired. See A. H. ANDERSON, Flatiron Building.
– G. Trabucchi has purchased the Conrad building near the depot from Mrs. Osborne, who intended to open a hotel. Mr. Trabucchi will use the building for his machine shop.
– A Narrow Escape. – A. Firenze, Novato’s baker, had a narrow escape Monday from serious injury if not death. When delivering bread in the Black Point district the right front tire of his machine blew off and the wheel collapsed. The car skidded and started down an incline off the highway. Losing control, Mr. Firenze took his young daughter in his arms and jumped, both escaping with a few bruises. The truck turned turtle and was wrecked. Fortunately, he was driving at a slow rate of speed when the accident happened, or a different story might be told.
– A consignment of all sizes of barrels have arrived and are for sale at the Novato French cheese factory. Fish barrels, good watertight, 40 to 50 gallons, 75c. Olive barrels with watertight heads on, 100 to 130 gallons, $5. Olive barrels, 250 to 300 gallons, very strong, Italian oak, $9.50.
75 Years Ago
September 1948
– The U. S. Air Force observes its 41st year as the air arm of the United States and on the same date, September 18th, it observes its first year as an autonomous Air Force. The Air Force will report to the people at the end of its first year as a separate-rind co-equal service with the Army and Navy. Colonel George L. Usher, Commanding Officer of Hamilton Air Force Base stated that Hamilton AFB will be “Open House” to all. The Air Force is part of America’s big insurance policy against war, and on Air Force Day the public will be» given a close-up view of what it is getting for its tax dollar.
– If you see a red-faced squaw prowling about, do not be afraid. Closer inspection will reveal that it is only Barbara Stoner, a freshman of the San Rafael High school. As though the high school course with its mountains of homework were not enough grief, the poor freshies must undergo a course administered by their elders, the sophs, juniors and seniors, to teach them how to respect their upper classman. The lipstick coating is just a part of it. Beware, you freshies!
– Frank M. Jaques, president of the Novato Sanitary District No. 6 and H. E. Enyeart were re-elected last Monday to the board. The election came near misfiring when write-in electors came close to electing Harry Hale and. Bob Busher to the board in place of the incumbents. The actual vote was Jaques 32, Enyeart 33, Hale 30 Busher 29.
– Clyde C. Kennedy, consulting hydraulic engineer, of San Francisco, told members of the Northern Marin Water District this week that the ultimate solution to Novato’s water shortage situation is the building of dams. Kennedy was told by the board to begin immediately on the survey of a dam site and the approximate cost of construction. Kennedy’s survey will take approximately three months.
– Funeral services were held for the late. Anna J. Vogel, who died at her home here last week. Deceased is survived by her husband, Ernest R. Vogel, a daughter, Anna J. Pike, a granddaughter and grandson, Joy Ann Burke and David Rapken, a great-granddaughter Sharon Ann Burke, two sisters, Mrs. Carrie Listman and Mrs. Bertha Listman and a brother, Henry Braun. Mrs. Vogel was a native of Petaluma, and resided in Novato as a young girl with her parents, the late Mr., and Mrs. Johannes Braun, pioneer residents of Novato,
50 Years Ago
September 1973
– The city last year purchased the property of the old “Carlyle home” at the corner of Reichert and DeLong Avenues and offered the modest Victorian mansion to the Chamber of Commerce for its offices. The offer was turned down and now the city is seeking other sponsors to restore and maintain the now boarded up vintage building. The estimated cost of restoring it is around $20,000.
– Goodman’s Home center, a building materials company with stores in San Rafael, Mill Valley and San Francisco, will be opening a new branch in the vacant Lee Brothers market on Seventh Street in Novato.
– Ex-Mayor Babe Silva will lead a historical walk through “Old Town”. Silva moved to Novato in 1906′ when his father bought property in the block surrounded by Machin, Sweetser, Grant, and Reichert Avenues. His father operated a general store on Grant Avenue. Silva still owns property in the heart of Oldtown and lives in the house he built in 1950 at 837 Sweetser Avenue.
25 Years Ago
September 1998
– Novato’s skateboarders cleared a major obstacle in their quest to have a home of their own Tuesday night and have only one more hurdle to leap over before construction begins on a permanent skate park at Marion Park. The Novato City Council unanimously denied an appeal directed at the skate park’s design Tuesday night, giving the $400,000 facility its last needed legislative approval. But skate park opponents, primarily residents of the Marion Park Apartments near where the skate facility will be constructed, have filed a lawsuit challenging previous council approval of a declaration of negative environmental impacts and zoning changes.
– Broderbund lays off 227 – When Novato resident Jerry Fountain reported for work last Thursday, his walking papers were already waiting for him in a manila envelope. “Our controller just told us. He had a stack of envelopes with the information and an outplacement package inside.” Fountain said. The revenue accounting supervisor is only one of approximately 500 Broderbund employees who were laid off last week. The decision to eliminate the jobs was made by The Learning Co., a Cambridge, Mass.-based software company that purchased Broderbund Aug. 31. Of the layoffs, 227 were in Novato and Petaluma. The other 223 employees work in The Learning Co. facilities in Knoxville, Term, and Minneapolis, Minn.
– Katherine Marie Hunter, who lived in Novato for more than 50 years, has died. She was 89. Mrs. Hunter, who was born in Fresno, came to Novato with her husband, the late Lloyd Hunter, in 1954. He was a prominent building contractor and was responsible for the renovation of Novato’s historic old Presbyterian church, which is now City Hall.
Leave a Reply