Coming Up: 2010 Haybalers Homecoming Day

This Friday, October 22, is the Hollister Haybalers Homecoming Day. Whoo-hoo! Go Balers!

The homecoming parade will begin at 2 p.m., starting at the high school and ending in downtown Hollister.

The Balers will play the North Salinas Vikings that evening. The Junior Varsity game will start at 5 p.m. and the Varsity game will start at 7:30 p.m. at the Andy Hardin Stadium.

For more details, check out the San Benito High School Web site.

Okay, all you former Balers. How many of you still remember how to sing our Alma Mater?

Hail Alma Mater
Hail to thee, our Alma Mater
Hollister to you;
Rally round the crimson banner,
Loyal, fine and true.

Chorus:
Outward, onward, o’er our mountains
Let the echoes roll;
Hollister, our Alma Mater
Long the bells will toll.

Nestled in our peaceful valley
Ye whose hall we love;
In thy honor we are singing.
Hymns of praise above.

Chorus:
Outward, onward, o’er our mountains
Let the echoes roll;
Hollister, our Alma Mater
Long the bells will toll.

 GO HAYBALERS!!!!!!!

Tuesday in Hollister: Standing Beneath Time

No guessing games today. We all know where we are, the northeast corner of Fourth and San Benito Streets. We're standing in front of the Eastern Star Masonic Temple Building, which is 102 years old. The clock tower is just as old.  Over the summer, the building got a new colorful look. Click here to see what it looked like before. Nice, huh?

I like looking into the store windows as I go by there to see what new dresses are being showcased. The dresses look like something Cinderella's fairy godmother would whip up for her.  They make me wish I was going somewhere fancy so I could buy one of those dresses to wear.

When I was a kid many years ago, the storefront was a grocery store owned by the Lum family. Anyone else remember the grocery store? Anybody know what other businesses came before or after the grocery store? Please share. All I know is the antique store that was there before the dress store.

If anyone is curious about the Order of the Eastern Star, check out this site. And, if you want to read something about the clock tower, check out "Happy Birthday to Time!"

21st Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake

Use of photo is courtesy of the Wapple House Museum
Research Room, San Benito County Historical Society.

So, where were you 21 years ago when the earth shook long and hard at around 5 o'clock in the afternoon?

Twenty-one years ago today (October 17, 1989) was a Tuesday.  The Giants and A's were about to play their third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park.  Then the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. It was a slip on the San Andreas Fault that measured a surface-wave magnitude of 7.1. It caused the Cypress Street section of the Nimitz Freeway in West Oakland to crumble and a section of the Bay Bridge to fall. Many residences and buildings collapsed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Cruz county. Sixty-three people were killed as a result of the earthquake, and nearly 4,000 people were injured.

The earthquake's epicenter was about 30 miles northwest of Hollister. According to an October 23, 1989 article in the Hollister Free Lance ("Rain Brings New Misery to Victims: Quake Damage Climbs" by Dennis Taylor), the earthquake caused more that $100 million of property damage in San Benito County. About 500 homes and commercial buildings were damaged and more than 400 residents were displaced.

For many days after the earthquake, downtown Hollister between Fourth and Sixth streets were out of bounds because of major damage to buildings. Eventually, several buildings were razed. That stretch of lawn next to the Vault and the parking garage was once lined with businesses, for example. That's how much downtown Hollister changed after the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Do you recall where you were and what you were doing when the earthquake happened?

For more about the Loma Prieta Earthquake, check out these links:

• "Responders recall hours after the Big One" The Weekend Pinnacle Online  
• "The Great Quake, 20 Years Later" The Weekend Pinnacle Online 
• 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake  
• The San Andreas Fault From Above

The Hollister Mural

Really? You haven't seen this mural in person?

What are you waiting for? If you want an idea of what downtown Hollister was like during the 1950s and 1960s, go check out this beautiful mural. You'll find it in the small public parking lot on Fifth Street, between the Vault and the Granada Theater.  The mural was painted by Ernie Valles, a local artist.

Here's a closer look of part of the mural. Click the photo for a larger image.

Tuesday in Hollister

How many of you figured out what is now standing where the Hartmann Hotel (later the Dabo Hotel) was?

The hotel once stood at the northeast corner of 6th and San Benito Streets. It was torn down after being damaged by a 5.6 earthquake in 1961.

Standing on that corner today is the Wells Fargo Bank. The previous occupant was the Wachovia Bank. Before that, the World Savings Bank occupied the building. And, according to Marie at the "Take 25" Facebook page, the Monterey Savings Bank was there before that bank.

Tuesday in Hollister: What is There Now?

Photo is courtesy of the Wapple House Museum Research Room,
San Benito County Historical Society.

This photo shows the Hartmann Hotel around 1922. Several decades later it became the Dabo Hotel. According to the California Tourist Guide and Handbook by Wells and Aubrey Drury, which was published in 1913, lodging at the Hartmann Hotel was $2.50 A.P. (a person?). We'll never see those kind of lodging prices again!

The Hartmann Hotel was located on San Benito Street. Do you know what business is on that corner today? Can you bank on it?

For a sharper view of the Hartmann Hotel in the 1920s, click here.

Click here to see how the hotel, now known as Dabo Hotel, looked in 1961.