Washington Township Museum of Local History

The Museum and California native garden will reopen for tours and visitors, beginning June 2021. Visit every Wednesday and the second Sunday of each month from 10am 4pm. In order to comply with county guidelines regarding Covid-19, we ask that you maintain a social distance of 6 feet or more from people outside of your household as well as utilize a proper face covering inside the museum. ... Suggested donation: $2 per visitor / $5 per family Museum members and children 5 and under are always FREE We are located at 190 Anza Street in the Mission San Jose district of Fremont. Questions? Call us at 510-623-7907 or email us at [email protected] Open dates and times for summer 2021: WED, June 2nd from 10am 4pm WED, June 9th from 10am 4pm SUN, June 13th from 10am 4pm WED, June 16th from 10am 4pm WED, June 23rd from 10am 4pm WED, June 30th from 10am 4pm WED July 7th from 10am 4pm SUN July 11th from 10am 4pm WED July 14th from 10am 4pm WED July 21st from 10am 4pm WED July 28th from 10am 4pm WED August 4th from 10am 4pm WED August 11th from 10am 4pm SUN August 15th from 10am 4pm WED August 18th from 10am 4pm WED August 25th from 10am 4pm

The latest issue of the City News features boxART! Read about the photos here: https://museumoflocalhistory.org/boxart/ Didn’t get your City News?... https://www.fremont.gov/Archive/ViewFile/Item/2252

Niles Chamber of Commerce Band - taken sometime in the 1920s. What we know: Many of the names of the people, the approximate time frame, and that this was shot in Newark. What we don't know: Where in Newark. Help! Any ideas?

Enjoy a movie of parade in Niles in 1962, freshly posted by the California Revealed program with the California state library.

"The Nursery Gang, 1897" shows some of the California Nursery Company workers, thirteen years after the nursery was established in Niles and five years before John Rock passed away in 1904. This picture was scanned in by the California Revealed project for the museum. Go to the link and you can expand the picture to better look at the faces. You can see that some of the people were office people and some were laborers. You can see the lanterns hanging on the walls and the dog...s. Where was this picture taken? As you know the nursery was originally 463 acres, extending into Quarry lakes and covering many of the neighborhoods. If you live in one of the apartments next to the nursery, look for the line of sycamores near the swimming pool. That is about where the old office, safe, reading room, bunkhouse were located. The line of sycamores is the south side of the original driveway. There was a lot of work involved in preparing materials to be scanned by Kelsey and Patricia. Thank you for including this in the submission to the state library project. And thank you, to the state library people who did this scanning and uploading! https://archive.org/details/cafrwtm_002163

In 1899 the Niles lodge of the IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) visited San Francisco. We see many familiar names listed on the back of this photo: Tyson, Shinn, Sneden, Clarke, Chittendon, and Rock. Possibly this photo was taken when the lodge travelled to an event in San Francisco for the Golden Jubilee for the IOOF. The Niles IOOF Lodge was established in 1893 and their first meeting room was over the post office. There were 30 charter members. ... The photo shows the banner and it says Niles Lodge 382; IOOF ; Established March 19th 1893; Niles Cal." Check out the ceremonial collar shawls - some with not emblems, some with stars, and some are very ornate. If you google "IOOF ceremonial collar shawls", you will see similar shawls. If you have the Arcadia Press book on Niles, you can flip to page 25. The link will be in the comments below for the online book.

: WE HAVE REACHED OUR GOAL AND GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT WE HOPED TO SELL. Thank you for participating in the 2020 Ducks 4 Bucks Fundraiser! ------------------------------------- The 26th annual duck race will take place on Sat, Oct 3rd at 12:45pm.... DUCKS 4 BUCKS IS HERE and it's gone virtual!. Sponsor 5 Ducks for $25 and get the 6th Duck FREE. Enter online at https://www.duckrace.com/Fremont/teams/10729

Don't forget to submit your ideas to the city for the parks master plan for the next 15 years. Probably many of you history fans visit our local historic parks - Rancho Higuera, Shinn Park, the California Nursery, Patterson House. What would you like to see there? More signage? Bathrooms? Better facilities for renting? Remember to tell them what you like, too. Just go to the bottom of the page and type in your comments. Just takes a few minutes.

Railroad workers from China were in our area in two different periods: 1866 and 1869. The Western Pacific finished 20 miles from San Jose to the middle of Alameda Cañon in 1866. Later in the summer of 1869, after the 'Golden Spike' ceremony in Utah, three gangs of Chinese railroad workers fanned out along the line to complete Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to Alameda (and later Oakland). Where did these workers come from? "Dr. Barbara Voss, Director of Archaeology ...for the Chinese Railroad Workers of North America Project at Stanford University, filmmaker Barre Fong, and associates will screen Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project and host a panel discussion on the film and the contributions of Chinese to the American West, specifically the transcontinental railroad. Learn about their collaborative research program studying the home villages of the 19th century Chinese immigrants." For more on this project: https://cangdong.stanford.edu This program is brought to you by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. Sign up here for the talk on November 11th: https://www.sbthp.org/calendar

September meeting from the Washington Township Historical Society! Nike missile launchers!! Monday, September 28, 2020 at 7 PM The meeting will be held online. Please use the link below to access the meeting:... https://us02web.zoom.us/j/76473734687 - you can log onto the site about 15 minutes earlier and make sure all systems are good. You will click to add a link to Zoom and then "join the meeting" then use Computer sound and video. Guest Speaker: Al Minard Speaking on the NIKE missile sites here in Alameda County and the Bay Area. 12 were in the Bay area, including Coyote Hills and Lake Chabot in Castro Valley. They were functional from 1955 to 1974.

We’re halfway to our goal! Can you help us reach 250 ducks? https://www.duckrace.com/Fremont/teams/10729

DUCKS 4 BUCKS IS HERE and it's gone virtual! Sponsor 5 Ducks for $25 and get the 6th Duck FREE. Help us reach our goal of 250 ducks sold. Enter online at https://www.duckrace.com/Fremont/teams/10729

We need your help for our new website! We are NOT using stock photos, only real photos from our local nonprofits. If you want to submit photos, contact us at [email protected]. Of course all photos used will include a photo credit (organization, event, and photographer if known). For layout design purposes, right now we have snagged a few photos from organization sites, and of course we won't use them on the final site without permission. Showing here as layout examples so you know how they will be cropped. Ideally, photos will be at least 1000 pixels wide, and can be cropped to look good in this format. Best photos have lots of people, and are horizontally centered. For photos including minors, be sure you have permission (in one example below, participants signed a release at the event, acknowledging their photo may be used in publicity materials).

The Toyon Branch of the Children’s Hospital held many fundraisers in the Washington Township in 1949: a garden tour of 5 gardens in the Washington Township, a sandwich sale at the California Nursery, a dance recital with a glee club at Niles Elementary, a salvage shop in Niles, a party in the Shinn's garden, and a card party. Read about it in the Oakland Tribune, March 20, 1949.

What a fun event from Alameda County Library -- https://events.aclibrary.org/event/6939820 Women's Suffrage Trivia... August 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing and protecting women's constitutional right to vote. Join us for an evening of online trivia all about women’s suffrage! We’ll split into teams for a fun and collaborative digital scavenger hunt, exploring the people, themes and stories from this fascinating history along the way. No previous knowledge necessary. Please join the program on a device most comfortable for you to navigate online exhibits/resources. Please register below and you will be sent the Zoom meeting details.

Remembering Donna Olsen (1931-2020), by Gus Morrison And then April 22, 1970! The first Earth Day. The day that Donna Olsen changed from being a mom, a wife, a caregiver, a homemaker to become a community activist, an environmental leader, an opinion shaper and a model for others to emulate. The first Earth Day energized the nation and it energized Fremont. Fired with enthusiasm, Donna joined with others similarly energized with the goal of taking action in support of the en...Continue reading

NILES on film in 1974! NOW ONLINE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME! Link is listed below. LOCALS, PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH ALL OF NILES, FOLKS! It's a big deal!... So very excited to share with you this brief but spectacular slice of Niles from 1974. The Movies Go West was made by Geoffrey Bell who a decade later wrote the book The Golden Gate and the Silver Screen. This film is a 15 minute capsule of information about the Essanay film company. We have shown our 16mm print for the past few years at our festival events but now we bring it to your house. Please watch the Outro to the film (listed below the film link) by yours truly to bring more insight to this document of history. Thank you for your support. Rena Kiehn NESFM Board Member Here is the link for today’s festival including this film and my Outro which includes a tour of our Essanay Players mural https://nilesfilmmuseum.org/?tv=5535823256092672

UPDATED INFORMATION! BRONCHO BILLY & FRIENDS SILENT FILM FESTIVAL in ONE DAY! To enter the festival online go to our homepage: www.nilesfilmmuseum.org... When you're on our homepage click on the "Broncho Billy & Friends" icon of the left side and you're in. The links for each day will go ACTIVE at 12:01am that day! Below is the schedule at a glance. FRIDAY, JULY 24th Welcome - Michael Bonham with music by Janet Klein ********** ZOOM Webinar hosted by Steve Massa & guests Rediscovering Roscoe: The films of "Fatty" Arbuckle 5:00pm PDT / 8:00 pm EDT *********** Photoplayer Concert by Joe Rinaudo At The Movies, 1898-1939 - Bruce Calvert Presentation on Theater movie programs Francis X. Bushman documentary trailer by Zack Sutherland Lon Davis talking about the upcoming Francis X. Bushman documentary Sam Gill: Meet The Snakeville Comedy family Snakeville comedy: Versus Sledge Hammers (1915) ********************************************************* SATURDAY, JULY 25th Welcome by Michael Bonham with music by Frederick Hodges SAVING BRINTON available to stream on Vimeo for a small fee or Amazon Prime for free. When an eccentric small-town collector discovers the showreels of the man who brought moving pictures to the Heartland, he begins a journey to restore the legacy of America’s greatest barnstorming movie man and save these irreplaceable cinematic treasures from turning to dust. (90 min) *********** ZOOM Webinar: Saving Brinton Q&A, film short screening with Michael Zahs and directors 3:00pm PDT / 5:00 pm Central / 6:00 pm EDT ************ Films by Broncho Billy Anderson Why Broncho Billy Left Bear Country (1913) Broncho Billy and the Western Girls (1913) Broncho Billy's Sentence (1915) ******************************************** Making of the Broncho Billy DVD by Larry Telles Writing music for silent films by Rodney Sauer FILM PREMIERE of newly discovered split reel: Mabel's Adventures and Useful Sheep (1912) Accompaniment by Rodney Sauer with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra Keystone Studio Locations: John Bengtson Blog Links ******************************************** SUNDAY, JULY 26th Welcome by Michael Bonham with music by Janet Klein ************* ZOOM Webinar 5:00pm PDT / 8:00 pm EDT Chase: A Tribute to the Keystone Kops hosted by Chris Seguin with panel of historians. Film shorts mixed in with the discussion Highlight reel A Thief Catcher (1914) Fatty Joins the Force (1913) *************** - Beyond Keystone: The film work of Al St. John and Buster Keaton by Lea Stans - All About Mabel: Timothy Lefler Highlight Reel and Cinema Chat Podcast - The Movies Go West: Essanay documentary, Outro - Rena Kiehn - For the Love of Mrs. Emmons - Mary Mallory

A letter recently surfaced in the Shinn family archives about what non-native plants grew on the Shinn property before 1870. These plants would have made the journey to California by ship or overland by wagon.

In 1935, Milicent Shinn wrote about the plants that grew on the Shinn property before 1870. So this is a snapshot of what grew here before the railroad connected East to West. All of these plants would have come here by a very long voyage by sea or overland. The family's land was previously owned by Mr. Sims and he had planted fruit trees and roses and trees. Thanks to Shinn descendant, Kathryn Kasch, who recently transcribed this letter which is in her possession. A copy re...Continue reading

As we are handling our own fruit in our own orchards, we can think about those many orchards that grew in our township. Some very familiar names in this Fruit-Handling Corporation. Where was this located? possibly where Schuckl was located. see below.

Today, the City of Fremont is embarking on a journey to create a new comprehensive Parks and Recreation Master Plan, and we want to know how you would like to r...ecreate in the future. Please join us at a virtual public input meeting to help shape the future of parks and recreation in Fremont. The meetings will include an introduction to the Master Plan, live polling, Q&A, and public commenting. To register, visit www.InventFremontParks.com.

While going through a file folder in the Philip Homes Collection we discovered notes from a 1966 tour of Native American sites in the area (by B. Eyselee). He writes that there were native American sites all over the area from Patterson Ranch, to Alameda Creek, Niles Canyon, Niles, Centerville, Alvarado, Mowry’s Landing, Vargas Road, Mission San Jose, Irvington, Warm Springs, Coyote Hills, and the flatland of the bay. Eyselee specifically names whose farms had an abundance of native American artifacts. In addition, a postcard-sized note caught our attention. It is a hand-written map of a 4-acre property near Civic Center Drive and Walnut Ave, where the Leighton Business Center is now located. This map also notes where there were bones, skulls, shells, pestles all over the graded area. Take a look!