LOCKWOOD — San Antonio Valley Historical Association (SAVHA) recently donated a framed laser print of the Dutton Hotel by Cleveland Rockwell to the San Antonio Union School District in Lockwood.
Superintendent/Principal Josh Van Norman and Board Vice President Dennis Walters were on hand to accept the historic painting from SAVHA Secretary Maria Weinerth at the Aug. 16 school board meeting.
“The school reached out to the Lockwood community requesting photos of our beautiful community that they could have printed on canvas to decorate their new building,” Weinerth explained. “The photos would be hung in the office, the multi-purpose room, staff lounge, library and learning center.”
In May 1890, Rockwell — a topographical survey engineer and artist who was working for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey — came through the town of Jolon and most likely stayed at the Dutton Hotel during his surveying and mapping of the Big Sur Coast and Monterey County.
He conducted numerous coastal surveys and mapped harbors and river systems on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States during his career, filling his sketchbooks with the scenes from his travels.
One of those sketches was of the Dutton Hotel, which became a watercolor painting that Rockwell called, “California Wayside Hotel.”
The watercolor was purchased by San Antonio Valley Historical Association in 1984 in memory of Rachel Maxine Dayton Gillett, who co-founded SAVHA and worked many years to help preserve the historic adobes and photos of southern Monterey County.
