Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Once Upon a Time in Placerville #7: Spring and Sacramento Streets, More Museum Photos

Good morning. Tina here, the lone sister who doesn't work at JoAnne's. Congratulations to both Lori and Heidi on their new positions. I can't wait to go and buy some beautiful fabric from each of my sisters.

This morning I am going to share with you a rather jumbled collection of photos I gathered together the last time I worked at the El Dorado County Museum. Some are old, some are more recent, but I thought all were interesting. Most of them are located on either Spring Street or Sacramento Street in Placerville.
This is actually Main Street. I believe this was the O'Keefe house. At one time it was a real estate office, and it is now the home of an attorney who assists senior citizens with their legal battles. Once upon a time in Placerville there were a lot of homes located on Main Street, and I plan a post on them in the future.

Wow, all of a sudden we are on Sacramento Street. I apologize for the jumble I have made of these pictures. I have to load them on here backwards and I always get a little mixed up during the process.


This lovely old home, located across the street from the Catholic church, still looks much the same. The road has been widened and moved closer to all the homes along the west side. This is a lovely porch, and must have been a lot nicer to sit at when it was further back from the traffic.


This home is further up Sacramento Street on the right as you start to climb around Sacramento Hill. I will show you a couple more photos of this place a little later in this post. It has a lovely view to the north of the town of Placerville. There is a panoramic photo at the Fountain Tallman Museum in town which shows this home. I should have it on this post but the photos are still on my old PC so it will have to be at a later time.

This is the same house with the lovely porch above (see, I told you these photos were jumbled). You can see how close the street is now. Somewhere in my photo files I have a picture of a family friend who had just gotten married at the church across the street and was ready to climb into a lovely horse-drawn carriage in her wedding gown, wearing a pretty crown of flowers. This home is in the background.

This gracious old home is also on the north side of Sacramento Street as you climb the hill. I have never gotten to look inside, but in my imagination it has many window seats and built in cabinets all through it. The fence is no longer there.

Just past the above house, we return to the old home with the wonderful view. The home now has a second story deck which juts out on the right. I would love to sit there on one of those cool evenings when a thunderstorm threatens and the lights begin to twinkle below. Maybe there is a football game going on across the way at El Dorado High.

Another view. This is the south side of the house.

All of a sudden we are back down Saramento Street to the Ford garage in the commercial area. And it is snowing.

This lovely rock house also sits across from the Catholic church. Its front yard is basically gone,
so I hope they have a good sized yard in the back to make up for it.

Such a beautiful home. You can see how nice the yard once was in this picture. It looks like Beaver Cleaver or the Father Knows Best family should live here.



The old Studebaker garage, later a Datsun business. I am not even sure what is located here now.

There was a great little ice cream place here in the 80's. I liked to get a hot fudge sundae with peppermint or mint chocolate chip ice cream.

This is located near the fire station, and I think there is a dry cleaner's here somewhere. I should have done some "now" pictures, but since I don't walk very well, I am falling down on the job. (Just trying not to do it literally!)

Back to the old garage area again, this time it is a 76 Union Oil dealer. Union Oil put out a great series of postcards at one time, which included the Coloma area.

This home, the photo above and the next two photos, was marked as the Simpson house, and noted as being on Sacramento Street. I can't place it there in my memory, and I want to put it up on Sacramento Hill, overlooking the Weber Creek canyon to the south, and with a nice view to the west.

If this is the home I remember, it was torn down in the late 80s or early 90s due to being very dilapidated and hadn't been lived in for a long while. It was replaced by a large domicile with wonderful landscaping.

You can see in the the wonderful view in the background. I love that deep wrap-around porch!

Just like that we are back in time on the corner of Main and Sacramento Streets. Up to the left in the corner is a glimpse of the old county library in the Fox house.

We are quickly whisked away and here we are on Spring Street. This old place is a very lovely home, also too close to a busy street, also serving as part of Highway 49, and just a few homes away from Highway 50. There are several beautiful old houses along this side of the street, but I wouldn't want to live in any of them due to where they are. They back up to a steep hill, so don't have much for a back yard, barely any front yard, and parking? almost nonexistent. It is a shame, but at least they are still standing, and are lived in.

I am ending with a very old photo of the Chichester-McKee house, which has been used as a bed and breakfast, and has been for sale for quite a while. It is also on busy Spring Street, but has parking and an entrance off of High Street on the back side of the home.


That is it for today. I hope you enjoyed our visit.

3 comments:

  1. I DID enjoy my visit!
    I always enjoy my trips back to Placerville's past - thank you.

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  2. oooh how I love these old photos! thank you so much for posting them. I think the garage at the corner is where Mel's is now (that's where I worked for five years). Funny how the lots that were car businesses now seem to be restaurants. I remember the ice cream shop at the next corner, was it Leatherby's? In high school I went there all the time for french fries and sundaes. We need a small place like that now, not corporate like Mel's but a little family owned ice cream parlor with booths and vinyl barstools and old fashioned jukeboxes. I wish builders and developers would take some lessons from these old photos!

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