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 years ago – July 18, 1918
Summer visitors a good asset
Hundreds of summer visitors in this section yearly are the best advertisement that can be had. They like the climate, they appreciate the well stocked stores presided over by accommodating clerks, they like our Saturday evening band concerts and dances. They are pleased with the good restaurant, candy store and ice cream parlor service. It is not uncommon to hear them say that Healdsburg is the nicest place they have ever visited. The Russian River, with its delightful bathing and boating facilities, is a decided attraction that few cities enjoy so handy to the business and residence districts. Summer visitors all have money to spend and the cash trade helps augment the volume of business of every establishment in this city.
50 years ago – July 18, 1968
Missing sidewalks will be no more
An encouraging note has been sounded by a number of property owners along Powell Avenue, who say they are not going to wait for the formation of a special assessment district but will on their own initiative install curbs, gutters and sidewalks where none now exist. Reasons cited for going ahead individually are that it may be possible to get a better basic price than through a district; and utilization of a district setup adds considerably to the costs because of legal fees and other costs. If all property owners will go ahead and have the work done on their own (to city specifications and under direction, of course) a major street (perhaps the second busiest in town) will have been improved, and pedestrians (especially tots and children of school age) will be able to walk on a new sidewalk instead of competing with vehicles for the right-of-way on the pavement where there are now no sidewalks.
25 years ago – July 28, 1993
Trees fall as prices climb
Tufts of shredded bark jolted from logging trucks can be seen lining roads around Healdsburg this summer. Skyrocketing timber prices and hard economic times are tempting property owners to sell the trees off small pieces of land. With federal regulations limiting logging in national forests and logging on timber company land restricted by ongoing suits and inspections, prices for logs have doubled or even tripled this past year. Small property owners can command unprecedented sums for a few trees. Logging trucks have rolled recently from sites on Mill Creek, on Eastside Road, Westside Road and out Dry Creek Road at Canyon Road.
