Photos from the Vault

1973 Undersea fault near Diablo Canyon

November 24, 1973

Time gets measured in different scales. Geologic time runs in cycles with spans of hundreds, thousands or millions of years, hard to put in a human context because the Earth’s pace is not a human pace.
A few signposts of 1973: Richard Nixon was president, and the jaws of the Watergate scandal were closing on him. Telegram-Tribune cost 15 cents and did not have a Sunday edition. Graphics were drawn by hand then photographed, not created on a computer. Thrifty was the name of a drug store. The nuclear power industry answered to the Atomic Energy Commission.
Almost exactly 35 years ago the discovery of what would undersea fault a mile off the coast was reported in the then Telegram-Tribune.
The United States Geological Survey and the AEC had commissioned a study of the seabed off of Diablo Canyon after scientist Gary Greene had discovered an active fault offshore from Davenport in Santa Cruz. PG&E dropped plans to build a nuclear power there in the wake of that report.
Staff writer Jim Hayes quoted Greene:
“Of course, PG&E had other problems there. There was the fault at Ano Nuevo and then they had a landslide.”
Later in the article the scientist spoke about the newly discovered fault,
“Length, becomes a critical factor, generally the longer the fault the more recent and active we think it is.”
A PG&E spokesman Frederick R. Draeger downplayed the discovery saying Diablo Canyon had been designed “to handle the greatest earthquake that could occur.”
In 1973 both units of the plant were expected to open within two years and the price tag stood at $650 million dollars. Both numbers would balloon as the plant was retrofitted in the wake of the discovery.

Today David Sneed has an article on a fault discovered about a mile offshore from the plant.

Posted in 1970's, Construction, Diablo Canyon | 2 Comments »

Monterey Street 1959

November 1959
Though the writing on the print says 1949, this view of Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo is likely 10 years later. Both the Battle of Midway starring Cliff Robertson and the Crimson Kimono shared the bill on the Obispo Theater. They were released in 1959. The cars look like 1950’s era cars.
The Christmas decorations are up and every parking space is filled, parking meters are not visible in this image.
On the other side of the street the same J.P. Andrews building pictured in the Guy Crabb post stands at the corner of Osos and Monterey Streets. The block had filled in during the half-century.
State Farm Insurance and Blake Printery are about where Boo Boos Records are today and the Moose Lodge is just down the street.

Posted in 1950's, Going, Going, Gone | No Comments »

Virgil Ulysses Hodges, photographer

Vivian Krug with the South County Historical Society sent this information. If you like old local photos this looks like a great exhibit.

Carpenter on tower in Oceano.

Photos by Virgil Hodges, Courtesy of the Bennett-Loomis Archives

You may never have heard about Virgil Hodges, but you’ve probably seen his photographs. You may have old postcards with his photos of women wearing bathing suits in 1905 Oceano Beach. His images are in history books, seven warships running aground at Point Honda in 1923, the Santa Rosa breaking apart near the Point Arguello lighthouse in 1911, or Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet visiting Avila in 1908. Magazines and newspapers featured many of his photographs throughout the years – images of people, of floods and fires, and of everyday life on the Central Coast.

Photo archivist Gordon Bennett will present a talk on Hodges at the South County Historical Society IOOF’s Hall in Arroyo Grande Saturday Nov. 22, 2008 at 2 PM. Bennett remembers the stories behind the photographs from his close friendship with the photographer which lasted until Hodge’s death in the early 1990s 1975.

Born near on a farm near Arroyo Grande in 1879, Virgil Ulysses Hodges was the son of a Union Civil War veteran who named his son after Ulysses S. Grant. His sister Rose provided the necessary spark for Virgil’s life-long interest in photography. Rose had large box camera that she passed on to Virgil when she married. Virgil developed his skills quickly not only in taking pictures but in also developing and printing photographs.

Virgil Hodges moved to Lompoc after graduating from Arroyo Grande High School. He married Fae Elnora Winn and worked for the Lompoc Streets Department for thirty years, retiring in 1944. After his wife’s death in 1958, he moved to a cottage on Whiteley Street in Arroyo Grande.

“Get a good camera, learn how to use it and be there when things happen,” Hodges said. He followed that rule and visitors can see more than twenty of his enlarged photographs at the IOOF Hall, 128 Bridge Street in Arroyo Grande through December 14, 2008.
Other photographs on display include two Oceano Dunes Photo exhibits, one by Santa Barbara Photographer Robert Werling and the other by Pismo physician Billy Mounts. Museum hours are Fridays and Saturdays 1 – 5 PM, or by appointment in groups of four or more. For more information, please call 489-8282.

Posted in 1900's, Going, Going, Gone, Popular Culture | 4 Comments »

Tregeagle goes to San Quentin

July 15, 1971

Death penalty trials are grim stories.
Over the last 20 years I have worked at the paper I have covered portions of 3 of the 4 active county death row stories.

In 1971 there was a wave of 3 death penalty convictions within 9 months.
Joseph Deb Tregeagle was convicted of murdering a 17-year-old Van Nuys boy at Montaña de Oro State Park.

Quoting from staff writer Walt Beesley’s story,

While courthouse employees stared intently out of their windows, convicted murder Joseph Deb Tregeagle was led unceremoniously from the county jail Wednesday to a waiting sheriff’s car which whisked him away to San Quentin’s Death Row.
The route to San Quentin was the same taken by two other slayers convicted here within the last nine months.
Tregeagle’s predecessors were Andrew Herschel Gay, 26, of Fresno.
Gay was convicted last March of the slayings of Eve Hindin, 19, of Laurelton, N.Y. and John Volpi, 18, of Van Nuys, both hitchhikers.
Coincidentally, it was Ronald Allen Payton, another Van Nuys hitchhiker, who became Tregeagle’s victim.
Archa was convicted last December of the murders of a Shandon couple and their four-year-old daughter.

The picture here shows when the jail was under the old courthouse on Osos Street.
I am assuming the guy with the hat and cigarette holder was the reporter Walt Beesley.

There was no courtroom picture because cameras were not allowed in California courtrooms until the mid 1980’s. If you wanted a picture you had to wait outside the courthouse or the jail for the convict to be walked to the car.

For those researching the topic the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has a good overview of the history of the Death Penalty in California. Tregeagle was fortunate to be convicted when he was, according to the CDC website:
“In 1972, the California Supreme Court found that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the state constitution. As a result, 107 individuals had their sentences changed to other than death.”

Charles Manson and Tex Watson were among those with commuted sentences;
Manson and Watson have had parole hearings but are still in prison. At one
point Watson was incarcerated at CMC. Fellow Manson family member Bruce Davis is still at CMC and though he has had over a dozen parole hearings but has not been released. Tregeagle likely had his sentence commuted and was at
some point paroled.

Joseph Deb Tregeagle is a unique name and it turns up again in a ruling from February 1992 United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The criminal history appears to match and in this ruling Tregeagle is sentenced to 18 months in prison for possession of a firearm. He claimed took the gun from his nephew, preventing his nephew from doing harm with the gun. Appeals court judges upheld the conviction.

Times have changed and we have fewer death penalty cases today. The Tregeagle trial took about 5 days and he was bound for Death row a little over 7 months after the crime. Capital punishment trials now can take years to prepare and months to try. It isn’t that prosecutors have become softer.
There are now specific circumstances that must be met to qualify for capital punishment and more stringent procedures. Conviction is only the start of a long appeals process. The system has slowed down in the wake of revelations that courts have convicted and executed the innocent. This system also delays final judgment for the guilty.

San Luis Obispo County now has four men on death row:

As of midnight November 5, 2008 there were 628 condemned men in San Quentin
with 637 beds available. There were 15 condemned women at the Central California Women’s Facility with design capacity of 17.

Whether you are for or against the death penalty a report released in the summer of 2008 states that the largest and slowest death row in America has broken down costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Today more California death row inmates die of old age than execution.

Wayne Nicholls made the photos.

Posted in 1970's, News | 6 Comments »

Remembering Rileys

Former owner Ross Humphrey, left, and tearful manager Kim Humphrey thanked staff Sunday at closing time as 105 year old local department store, Rileys closed for the last time.

January 31, 1993

Rileys department store was a major shopping destination for five generations.
They were the last department store downtown and the last independent. Both J.C. Penny’s (reduced to a catalog outlet) and Sears had left downtown for Madonna Plaza a few years before. Montgomery Wards and Woolworth’s were long gone. The store that covered the block of Chorro St. between Higuera and Marsh Streets was closing.

Carol Roberts wrote the story.

Employees at Rileys were somber throughout Sunday, saying goodbye to customers and ringing up the sales that ended 105 years of history.
The tears didn’t come until after the doors closed for the last time at 5 p.m., ending a weeklong going-out-of business sale at the store that had become an institution in San Luis Obispo.
Store manager Kim Humphrey served pizza and drinks to the 40 employees who were there at the end.
“I just want to say how much I appreciate all of your help,” she sobbed, “especially this last couple of months.”
Her father, Ross Humphrey of Atascadero, and his brother Robert Humphrey of San Luis Obispo, owned the store for 30 years. They sold it five years ago to the Charles Ford Co of Watsonville.
“This is sad as hell,” said Ross Humphrey, “not only for us but all the people who shop here.”
Rileys opened in 1887. His family bought it in 1945. He and his brother took over in 1955.

Many employees had worked for years at the store.
Charlotte Brown, a 17-year Rileys veteran was quoted:

“The Humphreys treated us like family”, she said. “They were always there when we needed them. They always made us feel important. They never looked down their noses at sales people. We were all equal.”

My sister helped pay for college working in the house wares department. The building was separate from the main store and money had to be sent up in a pneumatic tube to cashiers who would send back the change and receipt.

The advent of freeways tilted the retail playing field to nimble big national chains. Those who could make the move to suburban shopping centers and compete in the discount shopping environment thrived.
The death knell came in the form of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which heavily damaged the Watsonville area stores of Charles Ford Co. in October 1989 leading to bankruptcy.

Tom and Jim Copeland would buy the building.

What do you remember about Rileys?

Posted in 1990's, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »