NEWS & NOTESFROM THE

COLMA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 1993

October, November, December 2006 Newsletter #75

A Message From Your Board Members

Our fundraising dinner, compliments to theFisicaro's for all of their food and hard work,netted us over $10,000. There were many thathelped in so many ways that we could not fitthem all on this page. We have sent individualthank you letters to each of them. It was a teameffort. Our annual tea fundraiser that wasscheduled for Nov. s", 2006 will be held onFebruary 10th

, 2007. We needed more spacebetween these two events.

Special Dates

October 28t\ Saturday 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

So.S.F. Historical SocietyOpen House for the Plymire Schwarz House519 Grand Ave. So. S.F.Call 650-875-6988 for further info.

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October 30t\ Monday 7:00 p.m.

Fourth quarterly meeting of CHASpeakers from the CountyElection Board1500 Hillside Blvd. Museum

November 7th, Tuesday 2:00 p.m.

CHA Boardmeeting1500 Hillside Blvd. Museum

November 15t\ Wednesday 7:30 p.m.

DC/Colma History GuildMitch Postel, speaker from theSan Mateo County Historical Assoc.Meeting held at the Doelger Center, Daly City

History Lane Theme - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

We will be attending the October 15th Annual San Mateo County Historical Associationsevent that use to be called "Victorian Days In The Park". It is now held at the OldRedwood City Courthouse which is now the San Mateo County Historical Association'sMuseum. History Lane will be held outside this year. Booths from most of the HistoricalAssociations in the county will be taking part with their displays as we will be doing. Weare sharing a booth with the Daly City/Colma History Guild. This will work well for bothof us as it is hard to get volunteers to serve hours in the booth that day. Not only will theCounty Historical Assoc. be taking part, the City of Redwood City will also have booths,displays and activities. Sunday only, October rs", 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

( Colma Historical Association

A major portion of the restoration of tile Old County Courthouse, home of tile HiS(OIY Museum, is tilerecreation of the original front entrance. Thesteps are in place and work on tile columns has begun.

Weekend America Radio Station.

On October 7th, we had a visitor from the radio station "Weekend America". Her name isJulie Small and she is interviewing people in Colma about the cemeteries and why we haveso many! Pat Hatfield took her on a tour of the town and gave a short history of how itcame about. It will air on Saturday, October 27th• Not sure of the time but you can findout by bringing up the web site Weekend America.Org or call 213-621-3482.

A Message from our Hospitality Chair: (Dorothy Bechtol)

I want to thank all of you who were so gracious to bring the treats for our last meeting.Frank Maffei had purchased a lasagna for that evening and we goofed using theCommunity Center kitchen. We were given the wrong instructions on how to turn on theoven and when we went to serve the lasagna at the end of the meeting it was still ice cold.The oven had not heated up. So - it is still in the freezer for this coming meeting onOctober 30th• We will be having the meeting here at the museum and we do know how toturn our oven on, so it should be ok! We do need other things to serve. Please phoneDorothy at 650-756-8051 or call the museum at 650-757-1676 if you can help us out.

PG&E's Community Service Program

PG&E gave the Colma Historical Association $150.00 as partof their Community Service Program. THANK YOU PG&E.This program was initiated to recognize the efforts ofindividual employees and retirees through a corporatecontribution. So we thank our boardmember Frank Maffei,a retired PG&E employee of 38 years. Frank retired inNovember 1993. He joined our association in 1994 as arailroad consultant. BART had just offered us the ColmaTrain Depot and we needed someone with his expertise onthe Southern Pacific Railroad. Frank was instrumental inhelping us acquire the rails to place beside the Colma Depotwhen it was moved.

Quarterly meeting will teach us how to cast ballots!

Our last quarterly meeting, usually held on the last Tuesday of October will be changed toMonday the 30

thinstead of the 31st which is Halloween. Our guests that evening will be

from the County election board to show and tell about the new electronic voting machines.Please come and bring anyone you know who votes, to learn about how this new procedureworks. There will be a film clip about it and the new electronic machines to see and maybepractice on. We will meet in the museum at 7:00p.m. This is very important for all of usto feel comfortable and to know what we are doing when we cast our ballot on Nov. 7th.

Keisaburo, circa1908 d

Our Japanese Cemetery tour on September 10th was an informative tour. We as ?~entslearned a lot about our underground residents at the Japanese Cemetery. The visitorswere also surprised at how many impressive persons are buried there. For instance wehave Makoto Hagiwara, he established the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park andwas the inventor of the fortune cookie. The Rice King, Keisabura Koda who was the onlyAmerican grower to cultivate sweet rice and the first to sow rice seed by airplane. GeorgeShima (Kenji Ushijima) known as the Potato King as he built a virtual monopoly ofCalifornia's potato crops.

Colma's Japanese Cemetery

Colma Train Depot - 1863

Recent depot photographs, donated by the Verlinden Family would indicate it is the secondoldest train depot west of the Rockies. Henry Bender (a noted authority on railroads) whohas researched Southern Pacific Depots for 50 years leans toward this assessment. Thephoto showed here is in the late 1870's or 1880's. This was soon after Southern Pacifictook over the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. Records of it being built were lost inthe San Francisco earthquake. Southern Pacific standard wood depot designs (Approx. 27)do not indicate that this is a SP depot. The conclusion being that is was built by the SF-SJRailroad in 1863.

, The oldest depot in California was built in 1862 by the defunct Sacramento, Placer,Nevada Railroad which is now in Folsom and is privately owned. It had beenabandoned in 1864. The Menlo Park Depot was also built in 1863 after the ColmaDepot by the San Francisco-San Jose Railroad.

YOUR OFFICERS:

DirectorsPatricia HatfieldDorothy BechtolRichard RocchettaDorothy HillmanFrank MaffeiRonald Doyle

Alice LetcavageJudy HniloEd Graham

ChairpersonsAmber CastagnolaFrossanna VallergaDorothy BechtolDiana Colvin

Michael RocchettaDavid Hatfield Jr.

PresidentVice PresidentSecretaryTreasurerRailroad ConsultantSaturday & SundaydocentSunday docentTour guideWednesday docent

EditorDocent ChairRefreshment ChairMembership Chair

Library RoomAssembler, HandymanExtraordinary

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

Please mail to:

M ••• •

1500 Hillside Blvd.

Colma, CA. 94014

650757-1676

Five yearadvance givesyou one yearfree.

COME SEE US!

Office &MuseumHoursMondayTuesday thru Sunday

Quarterly Meetings1st Annual meeting .

2nd Meeting .

3rd Meeting Birthday ....Celebration4th meeting .

Closed10:00 a.m. to3:00p.m.

First Sunday inFebruary, 2:00 p.m.Last Tuesday in April7:00 p.m.July 26th

7:00 p.m ..Last Tuesday inOctober, 7:00 p.m.

Our Address, Fax & e-mailWeb SiteColma Historical Association1500 Hillside Blvd.Colma, CA. 94014650 757-1676Fax: 650 757-1616email=colmahist@sbcglobal.net

Visit our web site www.colmahistory.orgWe have had over 2000 hits on our web site,So it has been a tremendous success. Allthanks to Connie O'Leary, General managerof Fitness West.

""SENIORS $10.00 $40.00

D STUDENTS $10.00 D $40.00

DINDIVIDUAL HHH$15.00 D $60.00

DFAMILYHH$25.00 D $100.00

O"PATRONHHH$SO.OO D $200.00

D"nUSINESS""$lOO.OO D $400.00

AMOUNT ENCLOSED ------

DNEW

DRENEWALNam~e---------- _

Address -------------------------------------City State __ Zip _

Telephone Date _

CHA "E"BERSHIP un JULY.2006-JULY, 2007I 1£N ADREYENO. ROBERT-] ~007

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Membership dues - Renewable from July 2006 to July 2007Please check your name to see if it is correctly dated.Call 650 757-1676 for any change or questions.

Colma Historical Assoc.1500 Hillside Blvd.Colma, CA. 94014

You are invitedMonday, October so", 2006 at 7:00 p.m.To the Colma Historical Assoc. Museum

At 1500 Hillside Blvd. ColmaCall 650 757-1676 for info.