Historical Clippings Book (HC-04) (198 pages)

CITY LIMIT POP S563 ~ as ELEV .2420 ‘2 y Grass Valley is located on Highway 49, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. A sign “We Buy Gold” is a holdover from the days of the Gold Rush. Lola Montez lived here with a pet bear, and was a friend of Staff Photos by notables the world we over, including kings Gary Gillis and queens. The Mark of ‘Cousin Jack’: Tho Sacramento Union Monday, April 21, 1969 3. Still Shows in Grass Valley: By BOB WYCKOFF Sacramento Union Correspondent Grass Valley is located some 60 miles northeast of Sacramento and somewhere between the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the Gold Rush villages became ghost towns while others rushed into the 20th Century; Grass Valley did neither. A blend of the old and the new, the quaint and the modern, this Mother Lode town on Highway 49 refuses to give up the past completely or to accept totally the present. It isa living, breathing paradox. You walk down Mill Street, the main business thoroughfare, under covered sidewalks slieltering you from the summer sun and the occasional winter snow. Above the corrugated metal covering are neatly painted, iron-shuttered, second-story brick facades — outstanding examples of Mother Lode architecture. Below the covering, vast expanses of glass, fancy wood paneling and masonry-veneered store fronts announce outwardly that some merchants have accepted the demands of today. This is Grass Valley — my town. A semi-cosmopolitan, _ self-contained, mini-metropolis: Population 5,563, altitude 2,453, chartered city with a mayor-council system of government. Come with me for a look around. We cross Mill Street to the east side. There the fluted stone columns of the Bank of America symbolize the solid security every town needs. Next door is the stock brokerage firm of Carlton Thomas — an optimistic financial touch. There’s still gold in them thar hills, or at least in a few pockets around town. On down the street you see the gleaming white front of the Grass Valley Union building. The 104-yearold daily newspaper is the city’s conscience, goad and gadfly. Come inside and meet the publisher, R. Peter Ingram. You can call him Pete, although he’s third Ingram in succession to hold editorial sway over the paper’s destiny. Pete talks like a civic-minded publisher: ‘‘Recreation and.tourism are the s toa ful county . . . We aren’t encouraging light industry and we should. We need a mall on Mill Street.” Pete is for progress. A few doors down and on the same side of the street — you can’t miss it — is the cavernous Del Oro. A 1,100plus seat motion picture palace of plush design, the Del Oro hasn’t been filled with paying customers since Charles Laughton threatened to keel-haul Fletcher Christian. Let’s talk with Mac, the manager. Mac McAlexander bemoans the many empty seats. ‘‘It’s the tube. And the fact that although people are paying more for everything — food, clothing, gasoline — they won’t accept increased theater admission prices. It just doesn’t make sense to me.” It’s time for a coffee break. Here at Bunce’s Cafe you can get the famous Cornish pasties, the traditional luncheon fare of the hardrock miner of yesterday. The pasty is a conglomerate of beef chunks, potatoes, parsley, suet and seasoning wrapped up in a biscuit-like shell the shape of an apple turnover. The ‘Cousin Jack’”’ miner not only introduced the pasty to Grass Valley’s gastronomic delight but also brought his own brand of Cornish conservatism, which has colored generations of thinking. To call a person a hard-headed ‘‘Cousin Jack” is to compliment him. At the coffee table is Don “‘Shorty” Breuer, a 6-foot 7-inch clothing merchant, and public relations specialist Don Knudsen. “We have all the problems here in Grass Valley that they have anywhere else — narcotics, hippies and the like — but we don’t get all the metropolitan publicity that San Francisco and Sacramento get,’’ Knudsen said. The slowness with which change is accepted bothers Breuer. “‘It seems they (the establishment) don’t want anything new. When a Citizens of the city pass the day at the Holbrooke Hotel, California’s oldest hotel in continuous operation. One of the many gold mining operations long since turned into a landmark for tourists to wander over. Grass Valley’s main shopping area and the spirits of the past. new merchant in town comes up with an idea he’s shot down.” Breuer has been a Mill Street fixture for 20 years. Both are optimistic and tell us that Grass Valley is in a period of “transition’’ which eventually will produce a healthier economy and a more representative population cross-section. “There are a lot of retired persons and too few in their early thirties to make for a balanced community,’” Knudsen said. Let’s meet a Grass Valley couple in their early thirties. Francis and Mary Viscia have two children ages 6 and 10, “We lived in the country a few years abut we've always wanted an old home to restore,’’ Francis said. Last spring he bought a century-old, two-story brick home on Rhode Island Street in Grass Valley and is restoring the ten-room relic. “The kids like it in town and we like the feeling of owning a part of Gold Rush history,"”’ said Francis,who operates an antique store in nearby Nevada City. Before you go, you'll have tomeetour town’s best booster. He’s Dr. Hjalmer Berg, a four-year expa~. + triate from the Bay Area, who runs a bookstore on Main Street across . from the Holbrooke Hotel. He hasnamed the store 3R Productions. .-. Unusual name, but then Dr. Berg is ° more than the usual book seller. He’s a philosopher, and never better .-. than when on the subject of GrassValley. : “My exile is self-imposed,’’ he tells us. “Grass Valley is the end of my rainbow. I’ve found something more valuable than the ‘pot of gold’ I’ve found real people in all age -? groups, good people, and I've also found good air to breath.”’ This is my town, and my people. And you're welcome to share them =with me. % 839.

CITY LIMIT POP S563 ~ as ELEV .2420 ‘2 y Grass Valley is located on Highway 49, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. A sign “We Buy Gold” is a holdover from the days of the Gold Rush. Lola Montez lived here with a pet bear, and was a friend of Staff Photos by notables the world we over, including kings Gary Gillis and queens. The Mark of ‘Cousin Jack’: Tho Sacramento Union Monday, April 21, 1969 3. Still Shows in Grass Valley: By BOB WYCKOFF Sacramento Union Correspondent Grass Valley is located some 60 miles northeast of Sacramento and somewhere between the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the Gold Rush villages became ghost towns while others rushed into the 20th Century; Grass Valley did neither. A blend of the old and the new, the quaint and the modern, this Mother Lode town on Highway 49 refuses to give up the past completely or to accept totally the present. It isa living, breathing paradox. You walk down Mill Street, the main business thoroughfare, under covered sidewalks slieltering you from the summer sun and the occasional winter snow. Above the corrugated metal covering are neatly painted, iron-shuttered, second-story brick facades — outstanding examples of Mother Lode architecture. Below the covering, vast expanses of glass, fancy wood paneling and masonry-veneered store fronts announce outwardly that some merchants have accepted the demands of today. This is Grass Valley — my town. A semi-cosmopolitan, _ self-contained, mini-metropolis: Population 5,563, altitude 2,453, chartered city with a mayor-council system of government. Come with me for a look around. We cross Mill Street to the east side. There the fluted stone columns of the Bank of America symbolize the solid security every town needs. Next door is the stock brokerage firm of Carlton Thomas — an optimistic financial touch. There’s still gold in them thar hills, or at least in a few pockets around town. On down the street you see the gleaming white front of the Grass Valley Union building. The 104-yearold daily newspaper is the city’s conscience, goad and gadfly. Come inside and meet the publisher, R. Peter Ingram. You can call him Pete, although he’s third Ingram in succession to hold editorial sway over the paper’s destiny. Pete talks like a civic-minded publisher: ‘‘Recreation and.tourism are the s toa ful county . . . We aren’t encouraging light industry and we should.. We need a mall on Mill Street.” Pete is for progress. A few doors down and on the same side of the street — you can’t miss it — is the cavernous Del Oro. A 1,100plus seat motion picture palace of plush design, the Del Oro hasn’t been filled with paying customers since Charles Laughton threatened to keel-haul Fletcher Christian. Let’s talk with Mac, the manager. Mac McAlexander bemoans the many empty seats. ‘‘It’s the tube. And the fact that although people are paying more for everything —

food, clothing, gasoline — they won’t accept increased theater admission prices. It just doesn’t make sense to me.” It’s time for a coffee break. Here at Bunce’s Cafe you can get the famous Cornish pasties, the traditional luncheon fare of the hardrock miner of yesterday. The pasty is a conglomerate of beef chunks, potatoes, parsley, suet and seasoning wrapped up in a biscuit-like shell the shape of an apple turnover. The ‘Cousin Jack’”’ miner not only introduced the pasty to Grass Valley’s gastronomic delight but also brought his own brand of Cornish conservatism, which has colored generations of thinking. To call a person a hard-headed ‘‘Cousin Jack” is to compliment him. At the coffee table is Don “‘Shorty” Breuer, a 6-foot 7-inch clothing merchant, and public relations specialist Don Knudsen. “We have all the problems here in Grass Valley that they have anywhere else — narcotics, hippies and the like — but we don’t get all the metropolitan publicity that San Francisco and Sacramento get,’’ Knudsen said. The slowness with which change is accepted bothers Breuer. “‘It seems they (the establishment) don’t want anything new. When a Citizens of the city pass the day at the Holbrooke Hotel, California’s oldest hotel in continuous operation. One of the many gold mining operations long since turned into a landmark for tourists to wander over. Grass Valley’s main shopping area and the spirits of the past. new merchant in town comes up with an idea he’s shot down.” Breuer has been a Mill Street fixture for 20 years. Both are optimistic and tell us that Grass Valley is in a period of “transition’’ which eventually will produce a healthier economy and a more representative population cross-section. “There are a lot of retired persons and too few in their early thirties to make for a balanced community,’” Knudsen said. Let’s meet a Grass Valley couple in their early thirties. Francis and Mary Viscia have two children ages 6 and 10, “We lived in the country a few years abut we've always wanted an old home to restore,’’ Francis said. Last spring he bought a century-old, two-story brick home on Rhode Island Street in Grass Valley and is restoring the ten-room relic. “The kids like it in town and we like the feeling of owning a part of Gold Rush history,"”’ said Francis,who operates an antique store in nearby Nevada City. Before you go, you'll have tomeetour town’s best booster. He’s Dr. Hjalmer Berg, a four-year expa~. + triate from the Bay Area, who runs a bookstore on Main Street across . from the Holbrooke Hotel. He hasnamed the store 3R Productions. .-. Unusual name, but then Dr. Berg is ° more than the usual book seller. He’s a philosopher, and never better .-. than when on the subject of GrassValley. : “My exile is self-imposed,’’ he tells us. “Grass Valley is the end of my rainbow. I’ve found something more valuable than the ‘pot of gold’ I’ve found real people in all age -? groups, good people, and I've also found good air to breath.”’ This is my town, and my people. And you're welcome to share them =with me. % 839.