The Past is Present in Placerville #4: Bedford Avenue

Good morning. This is Tina again with a little tour of one of my favorite streets in Placerville, Bedford Avenue. I have lived in two different places on this lovely quiet street, which I will show you in this post.

Below is the first apartment building built in Placerville. It says so on a plaque on the front of the building, which I should have taken a picture of but didn't. I don't have the date, but it was built in the the last half of the 1800s. I don't have an older photo of this building, just the photo below which I took in September.

I lived in the top right apartment in the mid-seventies. It was a great apartment, with large rooms, two bedrooms, one and a half baths, a giant kitchen with a great butler's pantry, a backyard with a deck and clothesline, and a claw foot bathtub. It was furnished with eclectic antiques, and had plastic curtains in the living room. The heat was an old oil stove. I lived there about two years. Its been renovated a bit since I lived there, we didn't have air conditioning or awnings on our windows.
Bedford Avenue is located in the area which was once called Log Cabin Ravine. At least a million dollars came from placer mining on this ravine. About a mile out Bedford is Gold Bug Mine. I will do a post one day on the mine.

Across Bedford and down a ways on the West side of the street is this old home, the Ollis-Plumado house at 2934 Bedford Avenue. It is located just North of the Placerville Shakespeare Clubhouse. It sits below the road since sluice mining lowered the ground level. Note the palm tree. The people of Placerville who built these old homes did dearly love their palm trees!

This is a more recent photo of the Ollis-Plumado house. Sorry it is so small. The home was once owned by a well known artist around Placerville, Ann Gladwill. It is now a bed and breakfast inn known as The Seasons, named after Ms. Gladwill's series of four paintings of Placerville area sites.

Across the street on the East side of the Seasons are three great old homes. Two of them are shown here on this old postcard. These are the Bosquit house on the left and the Weatherwax house on the right.

Another old postcard showing the Bosquit house.

One of the stories of how Placerville received the name Hangtown, was that five outlaws robbed a trading post on Log Cabin Ravine, and they were the ones who were first hanged, giving the town its nickname.

This is a photo I took of the Bosquit house in September. It is in great shape and still looks the same.

Another recent photo of the Bosquit house.

This is the Weatherwax house, which is next door to the Bosquit house. It is located on the corner of Bedford and Coleman streets. The Weatherwax house has some wonderful old rock work on the porch and into the yard.

This old home is located to the left (North) of the Bosquit house. I was excited when I found this photo on the web. It was only identified as a home in Placerville but I recognized it immediately, since I once lived in a small cabin which is located just to the left (North) of this home.

This is a closeup of children sitting on the front porch. The porch is now enlarged across the front right of the home, but the stairs remain the same. There is also now a driveway taking up part of the front yard, and an extra window added on the lower left front.

This is a recent photo of the home from September.

This is a recent photo of the home from the right (Bosquit home) side. You can see how the porch has been extended.

This is the little cabin on the North which I once lived in. It was only a studio, with a bathroom and a little kitchen. It was a nice snug little home. I moved from here into the apartment to the South down the street past the Bosquit and Weatherwax homes. I moved all my wordly goods from here to there in a wagon.

One last recent shot of the cabin.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to Bedford Avenue. Stop by sometime and take a stroll down what is now a one-way street. It is right across Highway 50 from Main Street and the Courthouse, and well worth the trip.