Kelseyville >> The Lake County Museum at the Ely Stage Stop demonstrates unequivocally that educational events can also be entertainment.
The Historical Society hosts the annual membership picnic Sunday May 19, 2024 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is welcome to all. The event is free to Historical Society members but has a $10 admission fee. If an attendee joins the society at the entrance, it is free. This is a potluck luncheon so guests are asked to bring a casserole dish to share, Notes Dr. John Parker, registered professional archeologist. In 2021, Parker was elected president of the Lake County Historical Society.
This will also be the grand opening of the Richard Paddock Blacksmith Shop. It is an historically correct replica. “We’re still putting the finishing touches on it this week,” Parker said. “We put the forge in a couple of days ago.” The blacksmith shop is housed in a barn built in 2018. One third will be for the blacksmithing activities, one third to house vintage wagons and one third for antique tractors. There is another barn, this one 2,500 square feet, which was site of the original site of the original Stage Stop. It was the location of the James Jaimeson land parcel who settled there in 1859 with his wife, which was called Lost Springs Ranch. Ranches from all over the region stopped there for fresh horses on their way to slaughterhouses in San Francisco, via Mount Saint Helena Trail, through Calistoga with final destination for livestock harvesting to feed the Bay Area population.
Sunday’s blacksmith demonstration is scheduled for 1 p.m. but could begin as soon as the potluck is done. The blacksmith, Roberto Verjera, will arrive from Pope Valley to exhibit his skills and what a typical workday was like in the 1880s. “Every town had a blacksmith shop, it was the hardware store,” said Parker. They made wagons, stagecoaches, nails, hinges, handles … anything made out of metal. We want to bring history to the public so, it’s a public appreciation of the past.”
Parker added, Lake County at that time resembled the wild west depicted in Hollywood movies. In 1868 a group of investors from San Francisco arrived in Lower Lake, the county seat at the time, to expand a small dam on Cash Creek, which had a lumber mill. But the enlarged dam that resulted from the initiative was higher than the normal high water mark and caused flooding and an outbreak of water born diseases in 1868 and 1869. Town inhabitants sued the San Fransico investors and not long after, the dam was dismantled. But it is important to know this history pointed out Parker. The rapid industrialization of the second half of the 19th century led to greatly expanded and modernized industry processes of the 20th and 21st centuries. The last local blacksmith shop, run by Vic Ferron, closed in 1910.
“When I go to a museum, I want to feel like I am stepping back into history,” Parker said. “Some of the museums look like antique shops without the price tags. But the Ely Stage Stop and County Museum is totally educational.” What Ely Stage Stop includes, missing from typical museums, are its interpretive panels, what the preserved artifacts are and came to be. “We got an interpretive panel of a 1906 cable car and another one (depicting) washing machines from the 1700s to the 1930s, including Maytag washing machines. Maytag started off making farm equipment, yet invented an engine to wash clothes, it wasn’t easy (at that time).”
The Museum also maintains an active relationship with County students. Prior to the Pandemic 120 students came through every year, recalled Parker. “The students learned what a stage stop was and what quotidian life was like in the 19th century. “We actually donated funding to pick up students to transport them to the museum,” he said. It has been in existence since 2011.The museum is located about a mile from Kit’s Corner at 9921 Soda Bay Road, Kelseyville. Parker received his Ph.D. in archaeology from UCLA in 1994. His dissertation research focused on changes in settlement patterns in the Clear Lake Basin during the past 12,000 years. He has nominated 54 Lake County historic and prehistoric sites to the National Register of Historic Places and was able to get $4 million in state appropriations for the preservation of 38 of those sites like the Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
“I’m just so excited to see our own blacksmith shop in operation,” he said. “We get a lot of volunteers and we’re keeping history alive.”
