The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
100 year ago – May 12, 1921
Local men busy in prospecting for oil
Prospecting for oil in this vicinity is an important step in the development of the varied resources of the Healdsburg section and its contiguous territory that has but recently been taken. For some time Maynard Young of Healdsburg and Joseph Pohley of Windsor have been making close observations of oil indications in this territory. Through their description of the formation conditions they have been assured of the assistance of trained experts of the oil fields of the south in the development and the boring of wells. During the past few weeks Young and Pohley have been securing lease options on various tracts of land for prospective drilling. It is their intention to secure at least 8000 acres of land. Extending from the north, particularly at Lyttons, and to the south, including the Windsor section, the soil formation bears indications of oil deposits. During the great earthquake of several years ago large cracks appeared in the earth. From some of these a heavy flow of oil gushed out during the short interval of the temblor.
50 years ago – May 6, 1971
National Guard Armory newest Healdsburg school?
An unusual school housing possibility for primary school children will be discussed at the regular meeting of the Healdsburg Elementary Board of Trustees this evening at 7:30: the abandoned National Guard Armory. Ever since the defeat of the school bonds last month, school administrators have been casting about for other housing alternatives to relieve the double sessions at Fitch Mountain School and now they may have found a place. In March Healdsburg’s Company C of the California National Guard moved out of its facilities on Powell Avenue to the Napa Armory because of a state-wide reorganization. If used, the facility could handle all kindergarten and some first graders, thus relieving overcrowding at Fitch Mountain.
25 years ago – May 1, 1996
Battle waged over old bottles dug from street
Healdsburg’s history was being carried away by men in hardhats and for several days nothing was being done to stop the plundering. Century old bottles, some thought to have been buried in the 1906 earthquake that did massive damage in Healdsburg, are some of the artifacts being carried off from trenches being dug along Healdsburg Avenue and Mitchell Lane to accommodate large concrete storm drains. The way city contracts are written, everything in the trenches except human bones and prehistoric items are “spoils of the job and belong to the contractor.” The inspector of the site invited Healdsburg Museum Curator Marie Djordjevich to claim the bottles, but she was greeted coldly by the construction workers and was forced to leave empty handed. One of the bottles the Tribune was able to photograph bore the name “C.D. Evan’s Druggist, Healdsburg.” Clarence Evans had a drug store in town from 1899 to 1910.
