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CALIFORNIA S T A T E LIBRARY FOUNDATION Number 117 2017 CALIFORNIA S T A T E LIBRARY FOUNDATION Number 117 2017 EDITOR 2 � � � � � �Finding the California State Library’s First Sacramento Home Gary F. Kurutz By Dr. Leigh Johnsen EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Kathleen Correia & Marta Knight 8 � � � � � �The Minor Arts in the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building COPY EDITOR By Dr. Mark T. Riley M. Patricia Morris BOARD OF DIRECTORS 16 � � � � �“Miss California”: A Profile of the State Library’s Caroline E� Wenzel Kenneth B. Noack, Jr. By Gary F. Kurutz President Donald J. Hagerty 22 � � � � �Robert Livingston Presents Commemorative Coins Vice-President and Medals to the State Library Thomas E. Vinson By Dr. Robert J. Chandler Treasurer Marilyn Snider 24 � � � � �Hidden Treasures – Santa Catalina Island Edition. Secretary From the Collections of the California State Library By Gary Noy Greg Lucas State Librarian of California 26 � � � � �Foundation Notes JoAnn Levy Marilyn Snider Spotlight on New Acquisitions: Phillip L. Isenberg Thomas W. Stallard Marilyn & Lee Snider Make a Generous Donation Mead B. Kibbey Phyllis Smith By Gary F. Kurutz Gary Noy Angelo A. Williams Jeff Volberg Foundation Co-Sponsors Best Practices Exchange Of Walking Beams, Paddle Wheels, and Diesel Engines: Gary F. Kurutz Marta Knight The Paul Jorgen Gothesen Collection Executive Director Foundation By Michael Dolgushkin Administrator Sacramento State University Hosts Special Exhibit of Shelley Ford Bookkeeper State Library Rare Books The California State Library Foundation Bulletin is 30 � � � � �Recent Contributors published when we are able. © 2004-2017. Opinions of the authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their institutions, Front Cover: A portrait of Mercury/Hermes, Jupiter’s messenger, pictured with his the California State Library or the Foundation. winged helmet and a caduceus, a staff circled with ribbons, is repeated several times The Bulletin is included as a membership on the corridor friezes of the Library & Courts Building. See article by Dr. Mark T. Riley. benefit to Foundation members and those Back Cover: This neoclassical plaque that graces the south wall of the first floor individuals contributing $40.00 or more annually corridor of the Library & Courts Building was created by San Francisco sculptor to Foundation Programs. Membership rates are: H. Winterhalder. See page 11. Associate: $40-$99 Illustrations / Photos: Pages 2-5, Center for Sacramento History, Rebecca Crowther, Contributor: $100-249 Sponsor: $250-$499 photographer; all remaining images are from the collections of the California State Patron: $500-$999 Library, Vincent Beiderbecke, photographer. Institutional: $500 Design: Angela Tannehill, Tannehill Design | www.angelatannehill.com Corporate: $750 Lifetime Member: $1,000 California State Library Foundation Pioneer: $5,000 1225 8th Street, Suite 345, Sacramento, CA 95814 Subscription to Libraries: $30/year tel: 916.447.6331 | web: www.cslfdn.org | email: [email protected] bulletin 117 1 Finding the California State Library’s First Sacramento Home By Dr. Leigh Johnsen he California State Library has been corner of J and Third Streets, and a struc- California in or before 1850. At that point, misplaced for decades. It’s not as ture adjacent to the Hastings Building he had a wife twelve years younger than though we can’t find our way to its often called either the Hastings Annex or himself, an infant son, and apparently current locations in Sacramento or San the Wormser Building.2 an older son from a previous marriage. Francisco. The problem rests with opinions This article argues that the Hastings The Sacramento City Directory for 1851 of where it stood in the middle of the nine- Building never hosted the State Library. describes him as a merchant and banker.3 teenth century. Instead, it advances the candidacy of the Hastings prospered in Sacramento. By The building most often cited as its so-called Wormser Building, and it envi- 1853, he commanded enough capital to home between 1854, when Sacramento sions minor roles for the Jansen Build- purchase three buildings on the southwest became California’s seat of government, ing, another structure on J Street, and the corner of J and Second Streets damaged or and November 1869, when the Library Overton Block. destroyed by Sacramento’s disastrous fire moved into the State Capitol, is the Hast- The Hastings Building, the long-favored of November 1852, but then rebuilt with ings Building, which still stands at the candidate, may be the most famous struc- bricks. One stood directly on the corner, southwest corner of J and Second Streets ture in Old Sacramento. Its owner, Ben- the other two adjacent to it on the west side in Old Sacramento.1 Other candidates jamin Franklin Hastings, was born in of Second Street. Their previous owner, have included the Overton Block, at the Pennsylvania around 1812 and arrived in Wesley Merritt, had lost them as a result of 2 California State Library Foundation “Read’s Brick Block, corner of J and Third ing twenty by eighty-five feet. Hastings Streets, Sacramento.” Located on the first floor was the Literary Depot of the Kirk himself, it asserts, occupied one, whereas Brothers, Book Sellers and Stationers. two brothers from Germany named Isa- Sacramento Pictorial Union, July 4, 1854. dore and Simon Wormser ran a clothing apparel business out of the other.7 If the city directory was accurate, either structure could have been considered the Hastings Building. By extension, linking the State Library to either building would have placed it in the “Hastings Building.” Both possibilities, however, rest on the assumption that the directory was accurate, which it was not. In a lithograph from 1854, two two- story brick buildings stand on the south- west corner of J and Second Streets. The one directly on the corner bears Hastings’ name, and its closest neighbor to the west that of the Wormsers. Both have the same facades now as in the past, judging from the number of doors and windows in each. Currently, frontage on J Street for the building the Wormsers rented measures twenty feet, whereas that of the Hastings Historian Dr. Leigh Johnsen stands in front of the Building is forty feet. These dimensions iron doors at the entrance to the State Library when it was located on the second floor of the Wormser remained unchanged from 1854 to 2017. Building in present-day Old Town Sacramento. According to early Sacramento tax records, the only parcel Hastings ever owned in this part of the city stood on the EDITOR’S NOTE southwest corner of J and Second Streets. Leigh Johnsen wrote this article as a consult- The segment that faced J Street bore the ing historian at the Center for Sacramento address of 30 J Street. Tax plats indicate History. He holds a doctorate in American that it measured forty by eighty-five feet.8 history from the University of California, Riv- financial hardship. Hastings bought them It did not have enough space to hold two erside, and a master’s degree in library and at auction, occupied them early in 1853, buildings whose total measurements information science from the University of and modified them to form one structure.4 exceeded those dimensions. Force of logic Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Articles of Hastings ran his bank out of the space on and the weight of evidence demonstrate his have appeared in the Western Historical the first floor. Over time, other businesses that Hastings owned only one building Quarterly, Civil War History, and the Jour- moved into the building, among them fronting on J Street at this corner and that nal of Church and State. In addition, he has Wells Fargo and Company.5 According to somebody else held title to the structure worked for the Claremont Graduate Univer- the Sacramento Daily Union, modifications the Wormsers occupied, at 28 J Street.9 sity, the University of California, Davis, the started in December 1854 made space to Sacramento’s tax plats identify that University of the Pacific, and the San Joaquin house the California State Supreme Court.6 owner as Jonathan Nichols. A native of County Historical Society and Museum. He The Sacramento City Directory for 1854- Massachusetts, Nichols had set sail from has edited the Papers of Isaac Backus and, 55 claims that Hastings owned not only the Salem in December 1848 aboard the Eliza, with John Niven, James P. McClure, and structure that housed his bank, but also the first ship to clear that port for San others, the Salmon P. Chase Papers. We the only building adjacent to it on J Street. Francisco after the discovery of California are grateful to Dr. Johnsen for his meticu- It describes both structures being made gold.10 Charles Osmyn Brewster, a future lous research in locating the beginnings of the of brick, having two stories, and measur- partner of Nichols and another Bay Stater State Library in Sacramento. bulletin 117 3 This image from 1854 shows the B. F. Hastings Banking House, which also served as the first Sacramento location of the California Supreme Court. Next door is the Wormser Building on J Street. hailing from Boston, arrived in California forty-niners. Sometime in 1849 or 1850, stand at 28 J Street. If the city directory around the same time. At that point, both Brewster and Nichols made their ways to of 1854-55 can be trusted on this issue, men were in their early twenties, appar- Sacramento and gained legal title to the lot Nichols, who had become sole owner in ently with neither wives nor children.11 at 28 J Street.12 1850, had it constructed in 1853. 13 The trail gets colder for Nichols and One single-story building stood on Nichols’ building was the second to host Brewster shortly after their arrival in Cali- the lot at that point, and it was prob- the California State Library after it arrived fornia.

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