PERRIS DEPOT HABS CA-2910 120 West Fourth Street HABS CA-2910 Perris Riverside County California PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY PACIFIC WEST REGIONAL OFFICE National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 333 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94104 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY PERRIS DEPOT HABS No. CA-2910 Location: 120 West Fourth Street Perris, CA 92570 Latitude: 33°46'57.3"N Longitude: 117°13'45.8"W Present Owner: Orange Empire Railway Museum, Inc. 2201 S A Street Perris, CA 92570 Present Use: Perris Valley Historical Museum Significance: The Perris Depot is significant for its role in the economic and social development of Perris. The Perris Depot is also significant as an excellent example of High Queen Anne-style architecture, and for its connection to James W. Nance, a prominent Perris builder and investor. Historian: Nathaniel Heilmann, Intern Margo Nayyar, Architectural Historian California Department of Transportation Division of Environmental Analysis Cultural Studies Office 1120 N Street Sacramento, CA 95814 Project Information: The Perris Depot recordation was completed as one of the mitigation measures for the State Route 74 widening project. The Perris Depot was determined eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on February 3, 1989 under Criterion A and C for its role in the development of the City of Perris’s economic growth, and as a distinctive and exemplary example of Queen Anne commercial architecture. Its period of significance is 1892-1944. The Perris Depot was subsequently listed in the NRHP on August 5, 1994. Date: June 2015 PERRIS DEPOT HABS No. CA-2910 (Page 2) Part I. Physical Information A. Physical History 1. Date of Construction: 1892 Articles from the Redlands Citrograph dated January 16 and March 19, 1892 detail the construction and celebration of the opening of the depot in 1892.1 Furthermore, the August 1892 Perris Sanborn Map depicts the Depot.2 2. Architect: Benjamin Franklin Levet, Sr. Benjamin Franklin Levet, Sr. (1864-1949)3 was born in Butte, California and became a civil engineer and architect for the Atchison, Pacific and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe Railway). By 1890, at the age of 26, he had been credited for designing numerous railway depots throughout Southern California, including the San Juan Capistrano and Mentone depots. Specializing in various revival styles of architecture, Levet’s buildings were described as Moorish Arabian, Victorian or Gothic. In 1893, he designed the Le Grande Station in Los Angeles, the principal station for the Santa Fe railway system.4 The unique Moorish dome and the red brick construction was a local and nationally recognized feature until the 1933 Long Beach earthquake which irreparably damaged the station, forcing its closure.5 Levet married Florence M. Perris (1867-1946)6 on September 27, 1890, becoming the son-in-law to Frederick T. Perris, Chief Engineer for the Santa Fe Railway.7 3. Original Owner/Use: California Southern Railroad The California Southern Railroad (CSR) was a subsidiary railroad of the Santa Fe Railway located in Southern California. Chartered on October 12, 1880 the company 1 The Citrograph (Redlands, CA), January 16 1892; The Citrograph (Redlands, CA), March 19 1892, on file at the Perris Valley Historical Association and Library. 2 Sanborn – Perris Map Company, Limited, Perris 1892 [map], 50 ft. to an inch, “Digital Sanborn Maps – 1867 – 1970 – Sacramento Public Library,” accessed April 13, 2015, http://0-sanborn.umi.com.www.saclibrarycatalog.org/. 3 Ancestry.com, California, Death Index, 1940-1997 [database on-line] Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. Electronic resource accessed April 1, 2015. 4 “National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) Registration Form: Perris Depot,” National Park Service, July 5, 1994, 1, electronic resource, http://www.nps.gov/nr/research/, accessed various. The NRHP nomination did not include footnotes stating the sources. Sources used are in the bibliography. 5 Nathan Masters, “Lost Train Depots of Los Angeles” KCET Los Angeles (January 17, 2013), accessed April 6, 2015, http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/la-as-subject/lost-train-depots-of-los-angeles.html; Southern California Institute of Architecture, “On the History of the Santa Fe Freight Depot, Los Angeles,” accessed April 6, 2015, http://web.archive.org/web/20060427000402/http://www.sciarc.edu/v5/about/freightyard.php. 6 FamilySearch.org, “Benjamin F. Levet and Florence M. Perris California, County Marriages, 1850-1952,” accessed April 6, 2015, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XLZP-H25. 7 “NRHP Registration Form: Perris Depot,” National Park Service, July 5, 1994, electronic resource, accessed various, http://www.nps.gov/nr/research/. PERRIS DEPOT HABS No. CA-2910 (Page 3) sought to build a rail connection between National City, south of San Diego, to Barstow, approximately 185 miles north along the Southern Pacific Railroad, a segment of the transcontinental railroad connecting California to Illinois.8 The Transcontinental Railroad connected the east and west coasts by transporting goods and passengers across the country. Local economies along the route relied on the railroad to import and export their goods. The railroad had the ability to build an economy, or destroy it by leaving. The railroad connection between Barstow and San Diego gave San Diego the opportunity to transport goods along the transcontinental railroad. Construction began in National City at the end of 1881, and proceeded northward to the present day cities of Oceanside, Fall Brook, Temecula, Lake Elsinore, Perris, Riverside, Colton and Barstow. The tracks between National City northeast to Colton, through Perris, were completed in March 1882. The tracks between Colton to Barstow were completed on November 9, 1885, effectively connecting Southern California to the Transcontinental Railroad.9 A massive flood in February 1884 damaged the CSR rail running between San Diego and Temecula, effectively cutting off the city of San Diego from rail service. The company laid off nearly all of its employees on March 19, and by July defaulted on its first mortgage bond. The Santa Fe bailed out the CSR with the purchase and transfer of bonds, and by repairing the damage between San Diego and Temecula. By November of 1884, the Santa Fe officially announced the CSR as a subsidiary company of the Santa Fe.10 The CSR, as a branch line off the Transcontinental Railroad, created a land boom throughout Southern California; however, this boom did not translate into the success that the Santa Fe envisioned. For all the advantages as part of a Transcontinental Railroad, San Diego could not match the growth of its rival city, Los Angeles. Los Angeles’ population doubled in size during the boom years from 50,000 to 100,000, and the Los Angeles Port received four times the amount of cargo ships that San Diego received. Beginning in 1886, due to the 1884 flood and the growth of Los Angeles, the CSR used Los Angeles as its major western port.11 The CSR continued to operate the interior line from Barstow south into San Diego until the creation of the “Surf Line” in 1888, which connected Los Angeles to 8 L. H. Haney, A Congressional History of Railways in the United States, 1850-1887, Issues 1-2, (Madison, WS: Democrat Printing Company, 1910), 152; 9 Richard Dodge, “Perris and it’s Railroad,” Dispatcher: Railway Historical Society of San Diego, California 29 (November 15, 1959), accessed various, http://www.oerm.org/sites/default/files/Perris%20and%20its%20Railroad%20sm2.pdf. 10 Douglas L. Lowell, “The California Southern Railroad and the Growth of San Diego, Part 1,” San Diego Historical Society Quarterly Vol. 31 no. 4 (Fall 1985), accessed March 30, 2015, http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/85fall/railroad.htm. 11 Lowell, “The California Southern Railroad.” PERRIS DEPOT HABS No. CA-2910 (Page 4) Oceanside. 12 South of Oceanside, the Surf Line utilized CSR’s tracks into San Diego.13 A disastrous 1891 flood in Temecula Canyon destroyed the railroad line between Temecula and Fallbrook Junction, a vital link for the CSR’s interior line to Barstow. This time Santa Fe decided not to rebuild and the segment of track between Temecula to Fallbrook Junction was abandoned.14 In consequence, the direct line between Barstow and San Diego was no longer extant and rail traffic was required to deliver between Barstow, west to Los Angeles, and then south to San Diego.15 While not ideal for San Diego, Perris’s direct railroad line to Barstow, and the Transcontinental Railroad, remained intact. Perris’s growth and commerce was directly attributed to its connection to the Transcontinental Railroad. The CSR, between Barstow and Perris, was officially reclassified from a mainline to a branch line in 1889.16 4. Contractor: James W. Nance James W. Nance was born in Charles County, Tennessee in 1852. He began his career as a cotton planter and general merchandise merchant. He married Laura C. Rodgers (1855-1938)17 in 1874. They had two daughters, Evelyn and Harriet, in 1882 and 1898, respectively.18 After spending six years in the Mississippi Valley, Nance contracted malaria and, in the humid Mississippi climate, his health deteriorated. Finding no relief in the mountains of his native Tennessee, he and his family moved to San Diego, California in June 1882. Three months later they moved to Los Angeles, and when his health continued to decline he turned to his physician, Doctor Worthington, who advised him to relocate to a very dry and high altitude climate. Nance traveled to Perris Valley in Riverside County in hopes of finding relief. 19 Arriving in the treeless valley plains, he fell enamored with the land and immediately purchased 200 acres of land for $1 with a $1,999 mortgage, and began farming.