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05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 96 PAGE 96 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land CHAPTER 7 — SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF CITIES The Natoma Camp at Excelsior and Jackson Roads constructed for the homeless during the Depression (courtesy of June Barmby Sandbakken). Photographer Dorothea Lange and American River migrant worker camp she documented in 1938 (courtesy of NARA LC USF 34-009903-6). 05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 97 PAGE 97 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land CHAPTER 7 — SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF CITIES From the late 1800s until World War II, the Brighton Township had supplied people in many American and European cities with fruit. In its first 50 years from 1860 to 1910, the population grew fivefold to over 2,500. Then the Depression hit and the farms and ranches suffered. People poured into California hoping to find employment in fields and orchards only to discover there was little or no work. Migrant workers from the Dust Bowl states set up camp on the south side of the American River and were photographed there by Dorothea Lange. Farms and farming equipment were repossessed. And, as was illustrated with the Johnson family’s loss of home and land at Walsh Station, Brighton experienced its share of suffering. he area was served by the railroad and many homeless people, referred to at the Brighton suffered from a double blow in those difficult years, as did many agricultural time as “hobos”, rode the rails during the Depression, wandering and looking for communities: although Roosevelt’s New Deal had begun to take effect in some areas, work. They would jump off the rails, hoping to find something more permanent. Japanese relocation eliminated agriculture as the primary source of income for many These homeless individuals found and spread the word about houses of generous communities. It essentially closed the town of Florin down since the majority of businesses families by placing a “mark” on their doors. The mark was invisible to anyone not were Japanese-operated when relocation began. “in the know,” and it meant that the marked house was a place where someone inside would fix a sandwich, or spare a dime in exchange for splitting firewood, feeding Roosevelt’s New Deal, and then the tremendous increase in jobs associated with the war, animals, or completing some needed chore. That mark existed on more than one Brighton did not provide a huge boon to a predominantly agricultural community like Brighton, family’s door. People in the community helped where they could, hiring day workers and but they did assist in the transition from agriculture to industry. That said, many of the others, and sometimes just giving because people needed help. families interviewed for this book expressed strong feelings that relocation represented the real beginning of the end of Brighton’s identity as an agricultural community. It may be The government set up a camp for the homeless in Brighton, out near Excelsior and difficult to determine the exact moment of transformation beyond saying that World War Jackson Roads — the Natoma Residence Camp. Absolutely no sign of its existence remains II was a turning point for the nation as a whole, and Brighton was no different — it began today, yet it included barracks, a hospital, lab, carpentry shop, boiler building, recreation to play an entirely new role in the war and, subsequently, in building the country. hall, and other facilities. 05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 98 PAGE 98 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land Mail plane arriving at Mather Field in 1925. Mather Field, once also called Mills Field — that little landing strip carved out by William A large portion of Brighton Township began reinventing itself — from providing the Ernest Barmby and his mule team in 1917 — expanded into Mather Air Force Base with sustenance for city inhabitants to providing the substance of cities, the elementary World War II, the acreage and landing fields growing exponentially and made of specially building materials necessary for roads and buildings — sand, gravel, stone, and concrete. engineered concrete to bear the weight and speed of the new B-52s. The W.O. Davies Ranch After WWII, aggregate mining steadily evolved toward becoming the single most common that had provided a swimming hole for the Perkins and Florin community and a number use of the land on the acreage from Florin-Perkins to Mather Field and Excelsior, then of small truck farms were sold and developed into the Army Signal Depot. Both provided south to Elder Creek. Aggregate mining had begun much earlier in Sacramento, but with non-agricultural jobs for the offspring of farming families, including June Barmby the war and associated post-war boom, mining would become Brighton’s major industry. Sandbakken, the first 18-year-old civilian woman hired by Mather. Life in Brighton and the Sacramento region began changing rapidly with the advent of new jobs. 05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 99 PAGE 99 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF CITIES The New Miners People in Sacramento have mined for sand and rock for almost as long as they have mined Thousands of cartloads of sand and gravel were dredged from the for gold. First, there were the floods and the need for levees, which required material river bottoms, dumped on the streets between bulkheads, and tamped dredged from river and shore nearby. When the levees alone did not do the trick, the early down. (Holden 1987) Sacramentans raised the entire city just as the Nisenan had raised portions of it before them: And thousands of cartloads of sand and gravel were needed from the region for weirs, The battle cry resounded through Sacramento precincts: Raise the roads, levees, sidewalks, and buildings. Dredge mining along the American in the Folsom streets higher! Vowing to prove the calamity-prophets wrong, city District was a huge enterprise. County statistician W.B. Thorpe reported in 1905 that officials got off the dime and spent a barrel of dollars. In other dredges operated from Folsom to 6-1/2 miles west along the south side of the river and to words, the city in January 1863 allocated $200,000 for the astounding a distance of 1 to 1-1/2 miles from the river. engineering job — raising city streets 10 feet or more above their original levels, or two feet or more above high water marks. Moving further to the west, early aggregate operations included Arden Sand and Gravel at the end of Arden Way near Fair Oaks Boulevard, Mucke Sand and Gravel where Bradshaw The decision had by no means been unanimous, nor without vociferous Road met the American River, Del Paso Rock Products, where Teichert headquarters is opposition from many Sacramentans. But the day came when the city ordered each property owner to construct a brick bulkhead along the today near Watt Avenue and American River Drive, Brighton Sand and Gravel near the street fronting his property. town of Perkins, Perkins Sand and Gravel also in Perkins, and others. 05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 100 PAGE 100 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF CITIES The Teichert Family Business Teichert got started in the Brighton Township when the Company purchased the “Perkins Gravel Company” from Tom Perkins in 1935. Adolph Teichert had started his construction company in 1887 in Sacramento, so by the time Teichert purchased Perkins Gravel, Adolph had been working in the business for nearly 50 years. His actual start came before his arrival to the United States and Sacramento. He was born in 1854 in Nienstedten, Germany, what Henry Teichert calls “sort of the Carmichael of Hamburg.” Adolph began working as an apprentice stonemason at age 14. When he completed his apprenticeship nearly 4 years later he was considered a master mason in Germany. At about the same time he became eligible for military duty, but at 5-feet 4-inches tall, he was too short and was “given an extra year to grow taller” according to Henry. He took that year and left Germany, travelling to New York City. In New York he worked for a fellow named Schillinger who had a patent for the construction of concrete sidewalks, providing for proper joints to control the cracking due to contraction in the setting of the concrete. Schillinger called his product “artificial stone paving.” Over 100 years later, Henry Teichert thought that having a patent on concrete was odd, pointing out that Rome’s Pantheon was filled with concrete walkways and plazas. Be that as it may, it provided his grandfather with an early livelihood. 05112_gsl_128pg_r8_v8.qxd:Stories of the Land 5/20/09 4:02 PM Page 101 PAGE 101 C h a p t e r 07 Stories of the Land One of Adolph Teichert’s work vehicles circa 1912 SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF CITIES (courtesy of Teichert). Adolph was sent out to San Francisco in 1875 by Schillinger to the California Artificial engineering degree at the University of California, Berkeley. That was an eventful year for Stone Paving Company for the construction of new concrete sidewalks. He spent two years the son; he started his own business on the side and also married Augusta Quass, the installing the first sidewalks on the State of California Capitol grounds (Reed 1923).

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