LAKEPORT — A San Francisco cable car the Lake County Fair Board has owned since 1956 will get a much-needed makeover, following the Lake County Board of Supervisors decision on Tuesday.
Richard Persons, chief executive of the board, said while the board wanted to get the cable car off of its property, it wanted to see the car stay in the county for history”s sake.
“(The cable car) has huge historical significance, not just to Lake County, but to everybody in the world,” said Persons. He noted that the focus of the Lake County Fairgrounds is to be a community event center, and it could not afford to restore the cable car.
The car sits under a low covering in a corner of the fairgrounds, guarded by two trees on one side and a chain link fence on the other.
Kelly Cox, the county”s chief administrative officer, asked that the board to consider moving the cable car, and possibly allowing it to come to rest beside the Lake County Museum after being refurbished.
The only cost to the county, said Cox, would be to actually move the car.
Dist. 5 Supervisor Rob Brown said loading the cable car onto a trailer and unloading it shouldn”t be a problem.
“I would like to see it happen,” said Cox. “It”s a good thing for us to preserve. It”s been in the county litterally for decades. We want to keep it here. Want to help facilitate that.”
Cox told the Board of Supervisors he”d been talking with Lake County Sheriff Rod Mitchell, who had expressed support for housing the cable car at the County Jail while it is refurbished, and possibly providing inmate assistance in the process.
Persons said the Lake County Historical Society had shown interest in giving the car its needed facelift, and in raising the funds necessary to do so.
Dist. 4 Supervisor noted that the car would fit well into the City of Lakeport, adding to its ambiance. He added that a history of how the cable car came to Lake County should be compiled for onlookers.
Hailed “Old 38” by a Lake County newspaper in 1956, the San Francisco cable car is described as a replica of one of a fleet made in 1890 and destroyed in 1906 earthquake and fire, according to Don Holmgren of the San Francisco Cable Car Museum.
Holmgren goes on in a document he provided to the Lake County Fairgrounds to explain that to cut costs, the city of San Francisco downsized its cable car system, donating many cars to civic organizations or auctioning them off to individuals.
A 1956 news clipping quotes then-Fair Board Chairman Lloyd Hamilton saying they were lucky to get the car so cheaply shortly after purchasing the car for $875. The article quotes then-fair manager saying, “we have already received a letter from the Great Danbury State Fair in Connecticut asking if we would sell the car.”
The article goes on to compare the price tag to one $5,000 asking price for a cable car that was fitted with rubber tires and driven to Puyalop, Oregon. Two of group of three cars bought for $1,250 each were sent to Europe, the article reports.
The article was one of several historical documents provided to the Lake County Fairgrounds by Mo Carpenter, anthropologist and a relative of Hamilton.
Since its arrival in Lake County, Don McCloud said it”s been refurbished twice. McCloud sat as the board”s director for 12 years. Shortly after his third and final term ended about eight years ago, he and three friends volunteered to give the cable car a facelift. They replaced windows and wood that had fallen to dry rot, and painted it outside and in.
“It breaks my heart that when they water there (where the car sits), they just blast that street car,” said McCloud. He added that it “just needs to be dolled up.”
The vote to approve the county”s acceptance of the Lake County Fairground”s donation of the car passed unanimously.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
