Actions Taken

SHRC Registration Actions Taken in 2023

The nominations below were reviewed by the State Historical Resources Commission during the year 2023. Scroll down to view subsequent actions by quarter. New actions are added to the end of this page after each quarterly State Historical Resources Commission meeting. Agendas from past meetings are downloadable in PDF format below on the right sidebar.

January 20, 2023 SHRC Meeting

The folloiwng properties were reviewed at the January 20, 2023 SHRC Meeting, held virtually via Zoom and CAL-SPAN.

Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places

 Electra Designed by master naval architect Leslie Edward “Ted” Geary and launched in 1930, at over ninety-six feet length, Electra embodies the distinct characteristics of a luxurious plumb bow, narrow beam, fantail yacht of the early twentieth century. Constructed of Alaskan golden cedar with oak frames, and finished with teak decking with brass brightwork, stained glass, and stately interiors, Electra illustrates the craftsmanship and skill of Pacific Coast yacht builders of the era. 

 

Chinatown Gardens Archaeological District, situated on the northeast edge of Mokelumne Hill’s historic Chinatown in Calaveras County, encompasses the archaeological remains of a commercial market garden operated by the town’s Chinese residents between the 1850s and 1898, a small residence area, and the community’s Buddhist Temple. As the only known extant such Chinese garden in California, the district represents a unique association with Chinese commercial agriculture and offers information potential on agricultural methods and the lifeways of the gardens’ caretakers.

 

 Fudger, Eva K. House is a two-story house of irregular plan, featuring multiple roof planes clad in clay tile, second-story wood balconies, and smooth stucco exterior. The house is situated on a curved portion of the street with a half ellipse shaped lot, adjacent to the Wilshire Country Club golf course in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. The 1926 house is an important example by master architect Roland E. Coate and an excellent representation of the Spanish Colonial Revival/Monterey Revival style.

 

 Fullerton College Historic District was planned, laid out, and constructed using Public Works Administration, then Work Projects Administration funding, from 1935 to 1942. Master landscape architect Ralph D. Cornell developed the formal college campus layout following Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia plan, with the historic core of the campus consisting of rectangular-shaped classrooms and administrative buildings arranged in axial fashion around an inverse T-shaped central library. In designing the college buildings, resident architect Harry K. Vaughn wanted an architectural style different from the adjacent Spanish Colonial Revival style high school, and he combined Spanish elements with Moorish features to create a Hispano Moresque style unique to Fullerton.

 

 New Lynn Theater in Laguna Beach’s downtown neighborhood is a two-story movie theater designed by architect James Conway in the Mediterranean Revival architectural style. The New Lynn Theater is part of a legacy of movie theaters created by the Aufdenkamp family. Since construction in 1935, the theater was a source of entertainment for the local community until its closure in 2015. The building represents one of the extant contributions of the Aufdenkamp family, who largely pioneered entertainment in Laguna Beach. The theater is most representative of patriarch Fred Aufdenkamp, who helped to establish the downtown Laguna Beach business community and operated the theater when it opened.

 

 Stone Hotel in Daggett, San Bernardino County, is an 1883 false-front building with stone walls, originally built as an eating house and adjacent 1908 Thistle General Merchandise Store. Stone Hotel was an eating house and railroad hotel located adjacent to Southern Pacific Railroad's main line. Before the introduction of dining cars in railroad passenger service, eating houses were essential stops on passenger railroads, where patrons could disembark the train and quickly consume a meal before continuing their journey. The hotel is also associated with two significant individuals; innkeeper Aaron Williams, and frequent regular patron Walter Scott, better known as Death Valley Scotty.

 

 Properties nominated as Points of Historical Interest

 Hatano Farm is nominated for listing as a California Point of Historical Interest for its association with the Japanese American farming tradition of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, as an example of the postwar movement and settlement of Japanese Americans, and as one of the few remaining flower farms in Los Angeles County. Established in 1953, Hatano Farm continued the longstanding tradition of Japanese American flower farming on the peninsula. Although Hatano Farm does not date back to the period before World War II, it is the nature of the Japanese experience that led to its establishment there a decade later. During their incarceration at Poston, several peninsula farmers bunked with the Hatano family, eventually inspiring them to relocate their farming efforts from Northern to Southern California. James Hatano and his family settled in the South Bay and continued the Japanese American farming legacy there.

April 21, 2023 SHRC Meeting

The following properties were reviewed at the April 21, 2023 SHRC meeting, held in San Francisco, San Francisco County. 

Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places

 Bear Harbor Landing Historical and Archaeological District encompasses 721 acres along the Mendocino County coast, associated with the California timber trade and maritime commerce through the use of the area as a doghole port. A unique solution of chutes and cable systems, known regionally and colloquially as doghole ports, extended from the Sonoma and Mendocino County bluffs down into small coves, allowing lumber and produce to be transferred from cliffs above to waiting ships moored some distance from the rocky shore. The interrelated components of the timber industry and Bear Harbor community were dependent on the doghole port’s location and means to load vessels safely and efficiently.

 El Segundo Woman’s Club was founded in 1922 to promote civic, educational, and philanthropic interest in the community. In 1936, the club purchased the former El Segundo Schoolhouse for use as their clubhouse, an approximately 4,000 square-foot timber framed building constructed in 1912 and transported to this location in 1937. El Segundo Woman’s Club remains the only organization of its kind in the City of El Segundo and continues to carry on the philanthropic and civic initiatives that have distinguished the organization since its founding.

 Kelso Depot, Restaurant and Employees Hotel (Boundary Increase II) is located in the railroad community of Kelso within Mojave National Preserve. As listed on the National Register in 2001, the 1.95-acre property comprised the Kelso Depot, Restaurant and Employees Hotel, the Coal and Supply Shed, and the designed landscape. A boundary increase approved in 2019 increased the district to seven acres to include six additional contributing buildings and a structure associated with the community that developed around the hotel. This second boundary increase enlarges the district to thirteen acres and encompasses five additional contributing structures associated with water conveyance in the district.

 Willows-Glenn County Airport is a 320-acre general aviation airport on the western edge of the city of Willows, the Glenn County seat. Contributing resources include three multi-plane hangars and the former Airport Administration Building, the paved flight apron, and a steel tower with rotating beacon. Constructed in 1928 as an Intermediate Landing Field along the Seattle to Los Angeles Air Mail route, the airport was used by the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. In 1956, the property became the base of operations for the first air tanker squad to be formed in the United States—a squad composed primarily of veterans, and their biplanes—to fight forest fires from the air.

 Wolf Store and Vail Ranch Headquarters is an approximately four-acre district in Temecula, in the southwest corner of Riverside County, located near the intersection of three Mexican land grant ranchos. Contributing resources include a short segment of the Southern Emigrant Trail, the Wolf Store adobe constructed adjacent to the road in 1867—Temecula’s center of commerce and township administration from 1867 through the mid-1880s—and two circa 1906 Vail Ranch era buildings in the wood framed bungalow Western stick style.

 

 Milbank, Isaac, House is a Santa Monica "Ultimate Bungalow" built and designed by the Milwaukee Building Company, whose principals Mendel Meyer, Julius Schneider, and Philip Holler, had designed the eight residences of Adelaide Drive, the most desirable portion of their Palisades Tract development, with spacious lots and ocean views. The home's first owner, Isaac Milbank, was the son of the co-founder of New York Condensed Milk Company, later known as the Borden Company, and worked as its vice president. This house was Milbank's seasonal residence, and it is principally significant for its architecture, a locally prominent example of the Craftsman style.

 Trower, Charles, House, located in Napa, was the residence of Napa mayor Charles Trower during his term in office. Trower was principally involved with improvements to Napa's water system and the city waterfront during his term of office. The residence, a two-story foursquare with elements of Queen Anne and Craftsman architecture, is significant as the only remaining building surviving from Trower's term in office, as Napa's city hall from his term of office, and his principal workplace, no longer stand.

 Midway Sunset Jack Plant Constructed in approximately 1913, the Midway-Sunset Jack Plant is an extremely rare example of central power and “jack-line” oil pumping technology, on its original site and housed in its original building. The Midway-Sunset Jack Plant is also significant for its association with the early twentieth century development and production of California’s largest oilfield, the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in western Kern County.  

 St. Luke's Episcopal Church Constructed in 1910, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church occupies the northeast corner parcel of the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Clay Streets in San Francisco and is as an excellent example of an early twentieth century, steel-frame, Late Gothic Revival church designed by master California architect Benjamin Geer McDougall.

 

 

 

Properties nominated as California Historical Landmarks

California Historical Landmarks Associated with the Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail is a series of amendments to five existing California Historical Landmarks, all associated with the October-November 1769 expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá through Ohlone territory, all located in what is now San Mateo County, and the expedition's interactions with the Ohlone people. This common historic context provides updated documentation and geographical information regarding the expedition, and the critical role played by the Ohlone in the success of Portolá's journey.

 Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Menlo Park (CHL 2 Amendment) marks the end of the Portolá expedition during the week of November 6-10, 1769, the point where the expedition reversed course after sighting San Francisco Bay.

 

 Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, San Pedro (CHL 24 Amendment) marks the Portolá expedition's campsite of October 31-November 1 in the San Pedro Valley.

 

 

 Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, San Gregorio (CHL 26 Amendment) marks the site where the Portolá expedition camped in October 24-27, 1769, while several members of the expedition recovered from illness. The expedition returned to the site on their trip back to the coast.

 

 

 Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, San Andreas Valley (CHL 27 Amendment) marks where the Portolá expedition met the Ssalson people, who provided the expedition with food and hospitality.

 

 

 Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Sighting of San Francisco Bay (CHL 394 Amendment), previously identified as the site of "discovery" of San Francisco Bay, is the point where members of the Portolá expedition first viewed the southern edge of the bay.

 

 

 Properties nominated as California Points of Historical Interest

Site of the 1938 National Surfing and Paddleboard Championships is approximately 28.5 acres, the location of Los Angeles County’s first surfing and paddleboard competition billed as a national event. The event was both a successful visitor attraction for the City of Long Beach and a notable contest for Southern California surfers and paddleboarders during the pre-war period. The site represents a former surf break and proximate beach area, located between the former Municipal/Rainbow Piers and The Pike amusement zone. Beach reclamation and redevelopment projects, first initiated in the 1940s and extending into the 2000s, have noticeably altered the Long Beach waterfront. The nearshore surf break, where the surfing competition was held and that intersected the paddleboard course, was eliminated during Long Beach’s extensive coastal redevelopment.