I stopped by a section of land the other day and let my mind’s eye roll back over the years to a time when that corner piece was a half a block down the alley from where my family lived for the last nine years they were in Greenfield. I’m talking about the northwest corner of El Camino Real Business (what we mostly called Main Street way back when) and Palm Avenue in Greenfield. I don’t know how much land it covered, but my guess would be two city lots with two houses situated on it.
A wooden-planked house facing ECR was the original home of Tom Rogers, who was Greenfield’s first mayor when the town was incorporated in 1947. For a while the small white house was occupied by a family with a girl in my class, Betty was her name, and another girl a year older lived in the Rogers house. The cabin had no fenced yards so all that area was open ground, as was much of Greenfield in the late 1950s, early 1960s; a guy could traverse the town on a bicycle via alleys and vacant lots with scant time spent on asphalt or cement and do it in less time than a parent chasing in a car (trust me on that one).
The other, smaller house was stucco and sat next to the alley between Main (let’s just go with that) and Ninth Street facing the Shell gas station across Palm Avenue. Running northward from the Rogers house were four small cabins each with an open garage next to it (which before the freeway was routed four blocks eastward in 1960 required residents to back into Highway 101 traffic; but I digress) and adjacent to that was the Home Appliance Center.
Across the alley the first four lots running from Palm northward were one empty, one with a small house facing Ninth, one housing the city corporation yard and one with a two-story, white frame house built circa 1903; that was where I lived from 1963 to January 1972; that house is now probably triple the square footage of the original structure, but back then it sat on a double lot with two empty lots north of it and that provided plenty of space for outdoor activities for all the neighborhood young’uns.
The three-door corrugated tin building that faced the alley was where Eddie and Brownie, the only two city maintenance personnel, took care of everything with a pick-up, street sweeper, water truck and a host of hand tools; for a short time, the city animal impound kennel was there, a small building, also corrugated tin, with two segregated sections, one for dogs, one for cats.
Flash forward to present day Greenfield where the three lots on Ninth are now Jay Hicks Park and the Greenfield branch of the Monterey County Free Libraries system where directly across the alley is the library parking lot and a variety of businesses now occupy the old appliance store.
Now, back to the original corner we started with. A newly placed building is now situated on the northwest corner surrounded by an elliptical walkway laid some 20-plus years ago, portions of this cement arc are separated by brick sections placed equally apart, each section has bricks inscribed with names of donors to the original cause. I counted out the number of inscribed bricks in each section and multiplied that number by the number of sections and came up with the total number of people who donated to the original museum goal a couple decades ago. (And had I not lost the notes I took that day, I could tell you the brick count; but alas.)
And what was the original cause? A museum. This was back when Mayor Rogers’ direct descendants were still living in Greenfield, and while such is not the case now, there has been in the past few years a renewed interest in once again using the lot as a civic betterment project, and so a committee of like-minded citizens and the city and at least one local district all came together with the new goal of The Tom Rogers Museum and Visitor’s Center.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of what it takes to establish a local museum, but my experience with MCARLM over the years leads me to believe there are a few hoops to jump through to so designate a building, whereas a visitor’s center is expected to have walk-ins without all the hullabaloo associated with just a museum designation, which has more requirements and restrictions; at least that is my guess.
Anyhoo, the Greenfield Recreation District found a manufactured building that was, for whatever reason, not going to be installed at a site and with some negotiations I am unaware of got the building and donated it to the city; Step One done. I don’t know all the people involved with this effort beyond Paul down at city hall and two committee members, Art and Cheryl, and so I am not aware of what Step Two is exactly, but the very presence of a new building is an encouraging step toward an added attraction to the downtown strip.
There is construction underway in King City with the renovation of an old building into combination history center and chamber of commerce and up in Soledad there is a very nice little building dedicated to that city’s history; if you are a long-time resident of Greenfield or South County and wish to keep pace with other Valley towns and have any photographs or writings or memorabilia, then I would encourage you to round them up and offer that which you can to this worthy enterprise in the middle of town. And come the day of dedication, maybe Tom Rogers’ grandson, also Tom, will be there for it; I haven’t seen Tom in ages and would be a treat.
Take care. Peace.
