Frank Raines Park, Stanislaus County

Today we did one of my favorite day trips to Mines Road in Livermore and Del Puerto Canyon Road where Alameda, Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties converge. We go there almost every spring for birding, and to see the wildflowers. It is a good place to see Western Bluebirds, Lewis’ Woodpeckers, Phainopepla, Western Kingbird, and if you are lucky, which we were today, Black-headed Grossbeak and Wood Duck. We missed Roadrunner though. I expected the wildflowers to be spectacular given our very wet winter, but while the wildflowers were good – I’ve seen better in this area in previous years.

Every time we do this day trip I am struck by how remote this place seems, knowing we are less than an hour from home. The birds, the profusion of wildflowers, the rocks, the terrain are so profoundly different from where we live it is like being in another state. After driving for miles, taking in a new scene with every turn in the narrow road, you come to Frank Raines Park, and though I know it’s there – it has been for the 26 years we’ve been doing this trip, I am always a bit surprised to see it, because it appears in the middle of nowhere.

To make my point, a site on Google identifies the nine closest towns, they are: Ashrama, Westley, Patterson, Solyo, Grayson, Jet, Ohm, Vernalis, Crows Landing, and Stomar. Other than Patterson, have you ever heard of any of these towns?

Frank Raines Park is 2000 acres. It is best known as an off road vehicle park – not exactly my kind of place, but I am glad these sort of parks exist, because it provides a place for those who enjoy the sport to do their thing, without destroying sensitive habitat outside the lands set aside for off road biking. The part of the park we always stop at is a traditional county park with picnic facilities, bar-b-ques, a restroom and baseball field.

The park was dedicated in 1953 and what I like about it is all the stone work. There is a stone wall with monumental columns along Del Puerto Canyon Road, at either side of the entrance to the park. Within the park there are stone walls that define the picnic and parking areas. There is a round, raised stone planter built around an Oak tree, and a curved stone wall with built-in seat walls on both sides. All this stone work reminds me of the stone work done by the CCC during the depression, but according to a Stanislaus County website, it was built by county personnel.

So, who was Frank Raines? Now, this is the great thing about writing a blog. I have visited this park literally dozens of times, and to be honest I never really thought about Frank Raines before, but it’s the weekend and I try to post to my blog every weekend. That means I need to come up with a topic, and this weekend Frank’s my man.

Thanks to Google, I now know that Frank Raines was born in Vallejo, California in 1876. He first arrived in Stanislaus County in 1895 and was a man of many trades – a farmer, a fireman, a telegraph operator, a first baseman and short stop baseball player, and a publisher. He published the only newspaper ever published in Grayosn, the Try-Weekly, oh, and he also raised turkeys. But Frank’s real claim to fame is that he served on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors for 36 years – from 1916 to 1953 – the same year the park was dedicated.

The other bit of history about this park is that in includes a historic marker for the Patterson and Western Railroad. The inscription on the granite monument reads in part as follows: “The narrow gauge railroad winding some 25 miles from Patterson through Del Puerto Canyon operated from September 20, 1916 to August 14, 1920. During World War I, the railroad brought the much needed minerals of magnesite, manganese chrome and quicksilver down the rugged canyon to the processing plant. The railroad served dozens of mines. There was a 3000 foot tramway up to a mine high up on the side of the canyon.” Erected 2001 by Estanislao Chapter, E Clampus Vitus.

This is an interesting day trip through rugged cattle ranchland, that offers glimpses of a different lifestyle and a different time. It’s a beautiful drive and a favorite of cyclists and motorcyclists on cool spring days.

Doyle Drive HALS

I started this blog in October 2009, and now realize I have posted very little about the Doyle Drive HALS project my firm has been working on since November 2008. I believe it’s the largest HALS project currently underway in the United States and as such has been a thrill to be part of. Doyle presented us with several unique challenges and has been tremendously satisfying to work on. In my career the projects I have most enjoyed are those that have been large and complex - given that criteria Doyle Drive is the ultimate challenge and has been immensely satisfying.

Background
The Presidio was designated as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1962 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) are in the process of replacing Doyle Drive that traverses the Presidio of San Francisco and connects to the Golden Gate bridge in order to improve the seismic, structural and traffic safety of the roadway. As part of the environmental review the Finding of Effect document acknowledged that the project will impact cultural resources.

Historic Documentation
ICF International was retained to complete HABS (Historic American Building Surveys), HAER (Historic American Engineering Record) and HALS documentation as part of the mitigation for the impacts on the cultural resources. The HALS team is being directed by Dana McGowan, Archaeologist with ICF. ICF is doing the historic research and will prepare the historic narrative component of the HALS documents. Brian Grogan has been engaged to complete the HALS photography and PGAdesign is doing the measured drawings. Landscape Historian, Meg Scantleberry is the point of contact for Caltrans and is working closely with the ICF team.

The Project
Doyle Drive is 1.2 miles in length. Portions of the roadway are at grade and much of the highway is on an elevated structure constructed in 1936. The cultural resources that will be potentially impacted by the replacement project include buildings, roadways, stone walls and curbs, concrete batteries, views and historic forests all associated with the Presidio’s 169 year military history. The period of significance is from 1776 to 1945. The project is divided into six planning districts that correlate with districts defined in the National Register nomination.

Methodology
When we started the project we sought samples of similar work to use as a model, but because the HALS program is so new we found little that was relevant. The project schedule was urgent so we set about creating a methodology that seemed logical and well suited to the task. Our previous work doing cultural landscape inventories (CLI) and reports (CLR) and contributions to historic structures reports (HSR) provided some guide. Our experience with HALS of three of the four California sites was also tremendously helpful, but those sites were all very different and thus not directly applicable to Doyle Drive. Our work on Piedmont Way in Berkeley, California is a surface road – a X block curvilinear parkway conceived by Olmsted. This was our most relevant HALS experience.

Normally the first task in for any cultural landscape documentation effort would be familiarization with the site’s history and a methodical review of existing documentation and historic records and photographs, but because of the immediate urgency of this construction project PGA was forced to start the existing conditions field work without the benefit of such preparation.

Our first task was to decide on what scale the field recording should be done at, what sheet size our final documents should be, and to lay out sheets to cover the irregular but generally linear site. Ultimately 82 sheets were needed to depict the site.

PGA plotted sheets for the area first scheduled for tree removal and got to work. Had time allowed we would have developed our methodology, field tested it, made refinements and retested until our recording techniques were well developed. Without the luxury of time we started our field observations and recording and refined the process each day. This approach resulted in some inconsistencies in recording methods which ideally would have been avoided.

We plotted two sheets for each area; one to record softscape features, i.e. plants, non-paved surfaces, and topography and the other for hardscape features. While in the field we worked in teams of two; one person drew what they saw on the plan sheet while the other made notes on the field inventory form we had created for the project. These teams of two proved an efficient working group and also helped with decisions on what and how to record features. They also provided a degree of safety that was reassuring while working in overgrown areas hidden from view.

The softscape team had existing surveys for tree locations and species identification. We field verified this information making corrections as needed. Shrub and ground cover masses were sketched on the plan while species were identified and listed on the inventory forms. Initially, we recorded a list of species for each sheet, assigned numbers and noted the plant numbers on the plan sheets. After a few days in the field we were able to prepare a plant list of the species we had found in the field. We then assigned each species a two-character acronym for the shrubs, perennials, ground cover and vines, and we used a four-character designation for trees. Cotoneaster lacteus became CL while Pinus radiate/Monterey Pine was PR/MP.

The hardscape team went through a similar process starting with field sketches and written descriptions of features such as curbs, stone walls, rails, lights, etc. Many of these features were occurring repeatedly, so to reduce the time needed to record duplicate descriptions the team developed a system of abbreviated codes and organized them by feature type. This not only reduced field recording time it also improved consistency for how things were being recorded.

These improvements in recording efficiency enabled the observers more time to capture more detail and to do more than just see the site at a micro level of detail. I now had time to look at the whole site and record impressions of what I was seeing. I made notes on what stood out in this piece of the Doyle Drive puzzle trying to capture the character of the site. Later, the pieces of the puzzle would need to be assembled in order to read the whole landscape

Field Photography
To augment the official, large format, black and white photography I used a digital camera to record the existing conditions. I took several types of photographs: 1) detail shots such as manhole covers and concrete stamps which provided data such as dates, contractor and manufacturer’s names, individual plants, signs, rail details, etc; 2) images of individual features like buildings, specimen trees and historic stone walls, 3) overviews of large areas, 4) multiple shots of panoramic views, 5) distant views from particular vantage points, and 6) shots that show topographic changes in the landscape.

Each field day I took 150 – 275 images. At the end of the day I named each image or group of images with a name intended to help the viewer understand what they were seeing and where it occurred.

Collecting the existing conditions data, with our four person crew, took the bulk of two months. Doing the work in winter provided the added challenge of needing to dodge rain and drizzle since we were unable to record field notes if the paper was damp. Rain days actually proved to be good because we used that time to organize material collected and to prepare for the next field day. More on Doyle in a future post.

The Pig Palace - Jack London State Historic Park

My business partner, Cathy Garrett is actively working on a cultural landscape report for Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County. Yesterday, I visited the park to take photographs and measurements of some of the features in the study area. The 1400 acre park occupies land once owed by author Jack London, and is where he and his wife Charmian lived between 1911 and 1916. Its association with London is what makes it a historic site, and it is also a good example of a farm of that period. He named the property “Beauty Ranch”.

There is a lot to see in the park and ten miles of trails traversing oak woodland and mixed evergreen forest – almost too much to see during a single visit. I’ve been to the park four times in the past two years and I’m beginning to feel like I know the core of the park. I have not explored any of the back country trails beyond London Lake.

The Londons lived in the cottage and Jack had an addition built onto the cottage where he wrote. There is a nice perennial garden associated with the cottage; unfortunately, the park service did not restore the garden that is featured in historic photographs – it is a modern garden unlike the one that existing while the London’s lived there. The park also includes the House of Happy Walls, built by London’s widow and where she lived until her death in 1955. It now houses a London museum. You can walk down to the ruins of the Wolf House, which was built to be their permanent home but it burned to the ground, leaving only the stone walls and fireplaces, the night before they were to move in.

There are several barns and stone buildings associated with various aspects of the winery, and other structures used in the farming operations. A pair of 40-foot, cement-block silos stand between a vineyard in the foreground and an oak woodland background, providing a prominent and picturesque landmark.

My favorite part of the park though is the Pig Palace. Who would have guessed, an astoundingly prolific writer and an adventurer, would have had time to devote to farming, or interest. If you visit the site you will learn that Jack London practiced “scientific agriculture”. He was applying all kinds of innovative techniques to improve farming methods. The museum and interpretive signs, posted throughout the park, provide a wealth of information on this and other topics. Did you know that London developed a spineless cactus?

The Pig Palace, so named by locals who scoffed at London’s methods, is a beautiful structure sited on a knoll and shaded by overhanging branches of oaks. Yesterday, the light shone through the new leaves of the oaks, creating a stunningly beautiful effect. The Palace is laid out in a circle for efficiency. At the center is the two-story feed tower. Feed is loaded in the upper portion and pours into buckets when the farmer opens a shoot. The ground floor has troughs and a tub for bathing the pigs. Sanitation was an important part of London’s method and enabled him to avoid the cholera that was killing his neighbor’s animals.

Surrounding the feeding tower are individual suits for pigs. Each has an iron gate and a two-part stone enclosure. The inner portion is open air and has a built-in concrete food trough and a separate water bowl. Galvanized water lines and hose bibs, mounted on the stone walls, are there to fill the water bowl and to clean the enclosures. An opening leads into the second part of the enclosure, which has a roof to provided shelter from cold or heat. From that space each enclosure has a private, fenced-in exercise yard. London’s objectives with this unique design were two-fold: to provide a facility that would function efficiently for the farmer and to develop an improved breed of pigs for the market.

If you visit the park and take the walk to London Lake be sure to take the short trail to the Pig Palace. Oh, and one more tip – don’t bring a picnic lunch from home – instead stop at the Glen Ellen Village Market, just before you take the road up to the park. They have the greatest deli that makes wonderful sandwiches and the chocolate mousse cake is perfection.

Garin Regional Park

It’s the weekend, when I usually write my posts, but I just wasn’t in the mood to visit a historic landscape. Instead Dianne and I headed to Garin Regional Park for a hike and some bird watching. Garin Park is contiguous with Dry Creek Park and together they offer 3082 acres of open space in Hayward and Union City. It was a perfect time to visit the park because it was cool and sunny, a few wildflowers were out, and the trees were just leafing out, so it was easy to see the birds. There was a lot of bird activity – calls, drumming and flitting about, so we easily saw a Black-headed Grossbeak, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Western Bluebird, Warbling Vireo, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and the flashiest Red-winged Blackbirds with blazing epilates. We also saw a Red-throated Loon on Jordon Pond, which was unusual for this time of year.

We took a leisurely hike soaking in beautiful scenes – green coated hills, tight candles on the Buckeye, bright California Poppy, darting lizards, a quiet pond, families picnicking - walking under massive oak limbs, down narrow paths lined with fresh poison oak, and over the narrowest wooden bridge I’ve ever seen.

Everything was vibrant and I was taking lots of photos, and thinking, “I wish there was something historic here so I’d have a reason to write about this special place on my HALS blog.” After our hike we headed to the visitors’ center, housed in an old red barn, but found it closed with a note saying, “Out to lunch, back shortly.” Something about the note made me suspicious. We waited till nearly 2:00, but when I inquired at the entry booth, I learned that the visitor’s center does not open until Memorial Day weekend.

Fortunately, an interpretive sign provided me with just want I was hoping for – a historic hook, and not just an ordinary history about the ranching culture in the Hayward area. Turns out this site was once known as Ukrania. Here is the text from the sign.

“A long the ridge behind this panel lies a 52-acre parcel of historical significance. This farmstead known as “Ukrania” was the home of Ukrainian patriot, writer, and publisher Father Agapius Honcharenko. He and his wife Albina lived here for 43 years during their exile from Ukraine. Born in Kiev in 1832, Honcharenko attended Kiev Theological Seminary and entered a monastery at 21. He was appalled by the Church’s suppression of peasants while the monks lived in luxury. This led him to dedicate his work to the overthrow of the feudal system in the Russian Empire. His writings and activities earned him his revolutionary reputation among government officials. Among freedom fighters and patriots, he was respected around the world. Honcharenko faced many hardships including arrest warrants and death threats, forcing his escape to New York. In 1867, while being stalked by Czarist police, he moved to San Francisco. Finally in 1873, he was tracked to the west. Honcharenko sought sanctuary on the remote farm they purchased in the Hayward hills. For decades, they quietly tended their orchards, while Honcharenko remained a champion of the under classes. He died in 1916, a year after Albina’s death.”

The site is State Historic Landmark No. 1025. Honcharenko and Albina are buried at the site.

East Bay Regional Parks acquired the property in 1965. Today little remains of the original farmstead except the barn, some remnant stone walls that appear to have lined the original drive to the barn, and a two acre orchard with 160 varieties of heritage apples. So, for history lovers, bird watchers, hikers or wild flower seekers – this is a great spot.

Sakai and Oishi Nurseries - Part 3

This is the third post in a series; you should read the first post before this chapter. Since 2004 several studies have been completed for the Sakai and Oishi Nurseries. They have focused primarily on the history of the site, the significance of the cut-flower industry in the Bay Area, and the buildings and structures on the two sites. What has not been studied in detail are the various systems that were needed to operate the nurseries – these will be illuminated as part of the HALS work that PGAdesign and Denise Bradley are currently completing.

In part two, I wrote about the pedestrian circulation systems and how they differed on the two sites. I’ve mentioned the other systems. Part 3 is about those systems.

Water Sources and Distribution
Both nurseries have several wells on site, which were the primary source of water. In later years Oishi nursery had a connection to the city main. Pumps drew water up into wooden storage tanks – both on grade and elevated. Water was drawn out of the tanks to supply water lines for irrigating or was routed to the boiler room where it was heated to produce steam.

Water lines fed a manifold of galvanized pipe at the center of each greenhouse that branched at each flower bed and was connected to a plastic pipe and drip or soaker type lines spaced about 8 inches apart in each raised planter. These were used to water the flowers, initially manually and later the operation was automated

Fertilizer was mixed in large steel or plastic tanks and was injected into the water lines when needed. Manually controlled valves would release or shut off the fertilized water as needed.

Water Collection
Irrigation water was collected and channeled into concrete swales or curbed trenches that run outside and parallel to each greenhouse. These trenches, typically 19” wide, are found throughout both nurseries. There are small, wooden bridges where pathways cross these trenches. The water collection system of swales and curbed trenches includes collection pits of varying sizes, typically 36” by 24” and 30” deep. Some of these pits still have pipes running into or over them. These pits collected water or silt.

Steam Distribution
Steam was used to heat the greenhouses and to provide optimal humidity for the flowers.
Steam from the boiler room was pumped into insulated pipes that was routed to each greenhouse. Many of these pipes run overhead, about 10 feet in the air, and were supported on 4 x 4 posts spaced about 15 feet apart. The steam was released inside each greenhouse and the condensate was collected and returned to the boiler for re-use in smaller diameter pipes, also insulated.

Pesticide System
A separate and parallel set of small diameter pipes was used to distribute water that included pesticides or herbicides. These pipes extended to the center of each greenhouse, and from there one of the nursery workers would attach a special hose to a valve and apply the pesticides with a spray nozzle.

Air Circulation and Greenhouse Cooling System
Maintaining optimal temperatures and humidity inside the greenhouses was critical. The components of this system include roof and side windows, large diameter fans, and swamp coolers. Each greenhouse has both roof and side windows with manually operated wheels and pulleys used to open or close the windows. In later years some of these were automated.

Large fans, housed in 5’ by 5’ square box structures were built into the sides or ends of the greenhouses. These would draw air into and out of the greenhouse. To cool the greenhouses large mats were attached to the end or sides of the greenhouse. An overhead PVC pipe with 1/8” diameter holes drilled every 5” was mounted above the mats. Water fed into these pipes then dripped onto the mats to wet them. As the fans drew in air through the dampened mats it cooled the air inside the greenhouse.

In part one I mentioned that at one spot on the Oishi site we counted 9 parallel pipes. Tom Oishi, who met us on our first day on site, was able to identify what six were for: fresh irrigation water from the tanks, out-going steam, returning steam, pesticides, city water, and water that fed the pipe for wetting the mats. I’ll let you know if we figure out what the last 3 were for.

Left: Cooling mats at Oishi Nursery

Right: Raised beds with soaker type irrigation at Sakai Nursery

Sakai and Oishi Nurseries - Part 2

This week, between rainstorms, I finished the bulk of my field work at the Sakai and Oishi Nurseries in Richmond. In total it took most of four days to walk and record the landscape features on the 6.44 acre Sakai site and the 5.94 acre Oishi property. Each day I took 100+ field photos, printed color contact sheets, and labeled them. I’ve started transferring my field sketches onto clean base sheets, and conferring with James Stockham who is helping with the project. James will transfer the field notes onto the electronic site survey.

While in the field I mostly photographed buildings, paths, trenches, pumps, pipes, sheds, plants, etc. – things that it was obvious what they were. I also took pictures of features that I don’t know what they are or what their purpose is – this is part of the puzzle to be solved. For example, on the Oishi property there are several shed structures measuring about 4’ x 8’ with sloped roofs. They are located throughout the nursery and no doubt had a specific purpose, but I don’t yet know what that was. There are an assortment of carts and wooden containers - how were they used in the operation of the nursery?

There are many similarities between the two operations. They both have complex systems of pipes and trenches to move fresh, recycled and waste water, plus fertilizers, pesticides and steam. They both have wells with pumps, tanks, and boiler houses, and each property includes modest homes that housed the families – two on the Oishi site and four at Sakai. Plants around these homes are mostly typical for the era and locale. Both include species found in traditional Japanese gardens – camellias, Japanese maple, fern pine, and they also include an assortment of other common plants, like geraniums, calla lilies, magnolia and fruit trees – cherry, plum and citrus. An assortment of boulders found near three of the Sakai homes hint at Japanese-style rock gardens, but little is left to decipher.

There are also differences found on the two nurseries – some attributable to differences in what was being grown. The Sakais specialized in roses and the Oishis grew carnations, so the planting beds inside their greenhouses have different construction styles. The pedestrian circulation system around and between the greenhouses is different. At Sakai there are narrow concrete walks that run between parallel greenhouses and 21” wide paths that tee off at each door. The longer greenhouses have 2 sets of doors that subdivide each greenhouse into thirds. These doors and paths are aligned to allow one to walk through one to the next. On the Oishi property I noted only one such concrete path between greenhouses. Another difference is that at Sakai I found remnants of raised planters outside and between the greenhouses suggesting that they were maximizing efforts to utilize growing space wherever possible.

Now that most of the field work is complete, I am reading more of the previous research. The “Historic Architecture Evaluation” prepared in 2004 by Donna Graves, Historian, and Ward Hill and Woodruff Minor, Architectural Historians explains that, “The Sakai and Oishi properties are the only extant cut-flower nurseries begun by Japanese Americans before World War II in the entire Bay Area and are also the last remaining of Richmond’s community of Japanese American flower growers.” The report goes on to say, “The properties are rare surviving Bay Area nurseries, a once prominent industry in the Bay Area.” Their conclusion is that both nurseries appear to be eligible for the National and California Registers of Historic Properties.

Sakai and Oishi Nurseries

I started a new HALS project this week. My firm, PGAdesign was hired to prepare the HALS drawings for the Sakai and Oishi nurseries in Richmond, which are two of three remaining wholesale flower nurseries. Years ago there were several nurseries in this area owned by different Japanese families. Most were closed and demolished when Interstate 80 cut through this neighborhood.

These nurseries ceased operation a few years ago and since that time the buildings and structures have been vandalized and deteriorated from lack of use and maintenance, but the site is still an important cultural resource with a story to tell about a somewhat unique community of businesses and families.

PGA is working with a team of professionals that includes architectural and landscape historians to complete the HALS documentation. The HALS photography was done a few years ago by Brian Grogan – the same photographer we worked with at the Presidio on Doyle Drive. A separate group of architects is measuring and recording several of the buildings and structures that will be saved on site or moved to new locations. The remaining buildings will be demolished to make way for new housing.

Starting a project like this is much like doing a jig saw puzzle. You dump the pieces on the table, turn them over, and sort them by color, culling out the edge pieces. I had reviewed the background material before my first site visit, so I knew what I was looking at, but on day one, the site appears like a lot of loose pieces that one has to quickly sort and assemble.

My first task is to record what is existing in the landscape. The land survey depicts the property lines, locations of the buildings, greenhouses and other major structures. It also shows some of the paving, spot elevations and shrub masses. I look to see what does not appear on the survey, measure it and sketch it onto my plan. Sounds easy. Well, imagine that most of this site is covered in knee-high grass under which are open trenches, holes, thousands of broken panes of glass from the vandalized greenhouses, and pipes of various sizes and materials running everywhere – sometimes 10 feet overhead, sometimes buried, and often just on the surface – there for you to trip over. Walkways that need to be measured are buried under soil, some of the plants that need to be identified have no leaves, and in places the vegetation mass is so dense it is impenetrable. If you can imagine all that you begin to get the puzzle metaphor.

While in the field I measure and sketch, and I also take field photographs that help me confirm what I saw once I am back in the office. Sometimes I see things in the photographs that I had not really noticed in the field. I also use a digital recorder to describe details – this saves time because it is faster for me to record lengthy notes than to write them out. One recorded note explained, “there is a large diameter, red, rubber hose between greenhouses 12 and 13. It has heavy-duty, industrial-grade nozzles. We need to find out what this hose was used for.” I also photographed the hose placing my pencil in the image for scale.

This kind of detail is essential because one of our charges from the National Park Service is to explain not just what the nursery looked like, but how it functioned. This site is all about systems – circulation, watering, heating and cooling, fertilizing, spraying, and it is also where the Sakai and Oishi families lived. The system of pipes that traverse this site is a complex maze. In one location I counted 9 pipes – galvanized and PVC, some insulated, some not – all running in parallel, each with a different function – a three dimensional puzzle. I’ll tell you more about that, and more about the process in subsequent posts.