Photos from the vault

1975 Obispo Theater Fire

December 28, 1975

San Luis Obispo used to be home to two grand movie palaces, sadly today only the Fremont remains.

The Obispo used to be near the corner of Osos and Monterey Streets now the home of the Court Street Center.

Early on a Sunday morning fire struck the 65-year-old theater, built in 1911.

Battalion chief Jack Wainscott was in charge of the firefighting effort.

Quoting from the story by Pete Dunan [who later took a job running Goodwill]:

Wainscott said he almost lost three men through the second floor of the building when it began to collapse early in the fire.
He said the men escaped down the only stairway from two upstairs businesses next to the theater.
The entire roof of the theater and adjacent businesses collapsed at about 6:30 a.m. sending sparks and embers “a hundred feet into the sky over most of downtown, “ Battalion chief Elton Hall said.
Hall, one of the firemen called back to duty, said, “It was incredible, one of the most spectacular fires I’ve ever seen. Flames were shooting out everywhere when I arrived. That parking lot saved us from the flames spreading to the Anderson and God knows how many other buildings.”
Wainscott said, “I’ve been nervous just waiting for that building to go for the 22 years I’ve been in the department.”

Two days later fire investigators were still looking into the cause.

Quoting related story in the paper by Bob Anderson:

The interior contained irreplaceable chandeliers and a majestic painting of Morro Rock, which for many years had been completely hidden by dust.

The next day the city gave the building owner 10 days to demolish the unsafe structure.

Sully’s Cocktails and Osos Street Records moved to new locations. The Obispo was demolished to make a parking lot.

The Vault goes to edges of the Earth to bring you the story, here a former employee of the Obispo recalls working at the theater:

I started working at the Obispo Theater in 1957 when I was 14 (with required work permit).

By the time I left to go to Cal Poly in 1960 I was a cashier making a generous $1.25 an hour!
The manager was very fair about hiring, as half of the teens working there were from San Luis High and half were from Mission High (now Mission Prep.)
We had a friendly rivalry with the Fremont just up the street on Monterey. In order to pull in more customers and “out do” the Fremont on Monday nights, the manager, Mr. Taylor, started showing “art movies” that night.The tradition then moved to the Rainbow and continues at the Palm today.
I started as an usher, wearing a uniform and carrying a flashlight. I helped seat people and kept an eye out for “trouble” especially in the balcony!

One request often needed was, ” Please take your cigarette out to the lobby to smoke.”
We changed into and out of our uniforms in a very small dark musty room way up in the far corner of the balcony next to the projection room.
More than once there was some joking about getting caught up in that tiny room if a fire broke out. Little did I know how prophetic the thoughts of fire would be.
Recalled by Noel Middlecamp aka Kathy Hill

Thanks for the help with the blog mom.

Photos were by Wayne Nicholls

Posted in 1970's | 1 Comment »

1890 Cuesta Grade Tunnel

Construction scene from the building of tunnel No. 1 on Cuesta Grade circa 1890. The picture is from a booklet that the Tribune published at the time of the railroad opening.

Geography and technology can shape a community.

Cuesta Pass was a major obstacle to travel. Before it was tamed by the railroad and later the freeway the easiest way to move big items was by ship.

Today communities like Port Harford or San Simeon are footnotes in the area’s transportation evolution.

Are you using a whale oil fired computer? I didn’t think so.

Ah Louis helped provide the labor for the costly multi tunnel construction project. A vibrant Chinatown in San Luis Obispo was one result of the construction.

Towns like Guadalupe thrived with the railroad, others like Santa Maria would have to wait for the freeway to fuel their economic ambitions.

Quoting from historian Dan Krieger’s Tribune column Sunday, October 10, 2004:

San Luis Obispo was on the main line. On May 5, 1894, daily train service was established between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo.

Since the 1850s, communications with “the city” had been chiefly by steamer from Port San Luis. With luck, passengers and goods on board from San Francisco arrived 15 to 20 hours later at what is now Port San Luis. It took between two and 12 hours, depending on the time and the day, for the Pacific Coast Railway to transport goods from the Harford Wharf into our county seat.

An information revolution began. Local bankers, lawyers and wealthy investors had grown accustomed to reading the San Francisco newspapers as much as a week after they were printed.

Now the papers arrived on the day of publication.

Posted in 1800's, Railroad | No Comments »

1984 Walter Mondale

May 25, 1984

So I was wrong about Walter Mondale. He did come to San Luis Obispo. Once.Mondale came to town at the request of the anti-Nuclear group Mothers for Peace, the only candidate of three invited to show up.Quoting the story by staff writer Alan Mittelstaedt:The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is a “menace” that should never be allowed to open, former Vice President Walter Mondale said today in San Luis Obispo.…“It’s time for us to vow that the lives of the people of this area are far more precious than the dollars of Pacific Gas and Electric,” said Mondale.”

Mondale spoke to a crowd of 3,000 in the plaza including several hundred construction workers in hardhats who had been invited to sign off at Diablo and were bussed from the plant to attend the rally.Though he was interrupted at times, he delivered a 13-minute speech.Mondale and Reagan’s political careers had opposite arcs. Walter Mondale was elected vice-president on the ticket with Jimmy Carter in 1976, the same year Ronald Reagan lost a challenge to incumbent Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. Reagan’s tepid support of Ford may have cost Ford a close election.Eight years later Mondale was on the steps of Mission San Luis Obispo, close to being nominated by the Democrats to run against incumbent Ronald Reagan.Just as Gerald Ford had the shadows of Nixon, Mondale had the legacy of Carter to try to overcome.Carter had the 1979 Oil Crisis, Iran hostages and on the job training as a Washington outsider.Randall Balmer argues in his book God in the White House that in 1980 Carter lost the evangelical vote he energized during the Bicentennial election. When Carter did not block the IRS from stripping tax-exempt status from places that discriminated by race, like Bob Jones University, they saw him as weak and ineffective.Oh yea, and did I mention Mondale was running against a guy who’s nickname was The Great Communicator. Mondale’s was Fritz.

Please tell me no one this year is running as a Washington outsider.What’s that you say?They both are?Would you hire a brain surgeon who was an operating room outsider?But I digress.

Back in the 1980’s the paper published in the afternoon Monday through Friday. On Saturday they slapped an ugly Trib logo on and published in the morning. This is one reason why the coverage overlapped two days.

The first day was event driven and the second day was reactions to the visit.

 A really cool website called Living Room Candidate documents the evolution of television political ads beginning with the Eisenhower/Stevenson campaign of 1952.

 In case you missed it, Mondale lost and the plant opened.

 Photos by Wayne Nicholls and Doug Parker.

Posted in 1980's, Popular Culture | 2 Comments »

1966 Oceano Dunes

People have had big ideas for the Oceano Dunes for a long time.The Chumash Indians were the last sustained civilization on the dunes, living on the abundant clams and fish.In the early 1900’s real estate speculator’s maps carved the beach up into lots. On July 4, 1907 a celebration was held at a pavilion called La Grande Beach.An advertisement in the Telegram trumpeted the event on July 1, 1907.Within 8 years the development was abandoned.Apparently folks found the access through sand and across the flood prone Arroyo Grande Creek difficult.Even today drivers sink trucks during the rainy season in the creek, imagine what it was like before Lopez Dam tamed the worst of the flooding.The dunites lived in wind scoured huts built out of scavenged lumber in the early to mid 1900’s. Norm Hammond wrote a book on the subject.By the 1960’s the dunes were owned by a patchwork of corporations and the state.PG&E was giving serious consideration to building a nuclear power plant in the dunes.The story by Pat Keeble says:”Conservationists and would-be industrializers are engaged in a tug-o’-war over use of the dunes.”A previous post documents the united efforts of off road advocates and the Sierra Club to keep access to the dunes open to recreational users.Check out the state of art graphic, a picture plastered with white tape and typewritten labels.This Sunday, The Tribune begins a three-part series on the Oceano Dunes that has been more than 6 months in the making.The stories will present the various sides of the debate over whether the state should continue to allow vehicle traffic on the Dunes, in light of the county’s recent consideration of selling Dunes land to the state.***Hey, if you have read this far chances are you are a fan of Photos from the Vault.You may have heard that newspapers are looking for new ways to provide advertising as the internet grows. It’s true.Think of the warm happy feeling you’ll get when you say to your friends, “Yes The Vault is a cool blog and I’m even cooler because I sponsor it.”Word on the street is that sponsorship will bring  you _____(number) % more ____________(adjective) ____________(noun), the admiration of the free world and envy of the rest.The Vault reaches a regional as well as national audience so if you are interested send me an e-mail and I’ll forward the information to our advertising reps.dmiddlecamp[at]thetribunenews.com

Posted in 1960's, Advertising, Environment, Popular Culture | 5 Comments »

1900’s Pacific Telephone & Telegraph operators

The old San Luis Obispo telephone exchange when it was located on Chorro Street. Pictured here are Cecelia Dodge (standing) Ruth Johnson, nee Haley, Elena Bellani, nee Heyd, Mael Seely, nee Sutliff and Maymie McMillan.

The exterior photo shows the 1894-95 San Luis Obispo telephone office located in the Knapp building on Higuera Street next to the old city hall.

Tribune librarian, Sharon Morem found two earlier Pacific Telephone and Telegraph exchange photos than the ones we published earlier this month.

These look much older than the mid-1960’s photos we had before. My guess is these are from the early 1900’s or late 1800’s. Other than the wood burning stove, the technology looks much the same; only the dresses seem to have changed.

The big revolution would come later with transistor technology and touch-tone phones.

Press 1 to repeat this blog entry.

Posted in 1900's | 1 Comment »