goldfields

In 1979 Helen Sommer Gage was interviewed in an oral history project about her memories of early Chico. The interview is called Chico Changes: The Bidwells, the Park, First Street, the Esplanade, 1888 to 1979, and the interviewer was Insu Justesen. The typescript of the interview is available at Special Collections, Meriam Library, CSU Chico.

Helen Sommer Gage was born in 1888, and had grown up knowing the General and Mrs. Bidwell. As a young woman she was a friend and companion to Mrs. Bidwell, and often stayed overnight at the Mansion. Here is what she had to say about the development of The Esplanade:

IJ: How do you feel about the remaking of the Esplanade? I know that they took out a lot of trees and remade it.

HG: They didn’t remake it exactly. After General made his first visit to Washington as a member of the House, that was his first view of a real beautiful city. He was just enchanted with the tree-lined streets and the beautiful homes set back in lovely gardens. He made up his mind: if he ever had a town it would have broad streets lined with trees. And that was one reason why Chico’s streets are broader than the towns that were laid out at that time.

He planted locust trees from one end of town to the other. They were very beautiful, and they were very fragrant, but of course they did scatter blossoms and all that sort of thing. It had been his project to make the Esplanade a beautiful, tree-lined street. I remember after they cut them all down, it was horrible, just a blazing mass in the summertime. And I remember Mrs. Bidwell having one of those little carriage parasols that turned sideways. Whenever her carriage was driven out when they came out of the Mansion gate she would never look towards the Esplanade. And she’d say a little prayer to herself, like that. . . . But she felt so terribly to see that beautiful tree-lined street that in the springtime was just filled with these beautiful, white blossoms. She just couldn’t look at it. And a lot of people felt that way too.

IJ: I know that this century, when those trees did finally grow, I heard that when you drove along Esplanade you were completely enclosed by the tree branches meeting overhead.

HG: You mean the old trees that were there. Yes, they were big trees. I think it’s beautiful now. I think they probably have a better type of street tree. That was all they had in those days.

Meriam Library, Special Collections

Paris! Barcelona! New York City! Chico!  Chico?

What puts Chico in the same class as these world-renowned cities? It is Chico’s own Esplanade, a boulevard noted for its beauty and charm.

In The Boulevard Book, authors Allan B. Jacobs, Elizabeth Macdonald, and Yodan Rofé study the “History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards.” A beautiful large volume with numerous drawings and diagrams, this book was published by The MIT Press in 2002. Allan B. Jacobs is a notable urban designer and professor emeritus at the UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Design.

The authors have this to say about The Esplanade:

The Esplanade in Chico, California is a relatively new multiway boulevard and it is unexpected, but it plays second fiddle to none of the others. . . .

One would not expect to find a multiway boulevard in a small, agriculturally-based community in the northern Central Valley of California. Boulevards of this type are so often associated with formal structure and strong, centrally directed design — characteristics not usually associated with agricultural communities. Often, too, boulevards start out as such; they are designed and built that way from the outset. Not so The Esplanade. It began as a private road on Rancho Chico, the 25,000 acre Bidwell family estate, and was first used principally by farm wagons. [Although it crossed Rancho Chico, which was Bidwell’s private property, the Esplanade (the former Shasta Road) was always a public thoroughfare.]

But by as early as 1898 it had been planted with four rows of trees and become a public roadway for buggies, wagons, bicycles, and pedestrians. By 1905 there were streetcars on The Esplanade, part of what was to become a remarkably comprehensive public transit system in a small city, one that permitted travel as far south as San Francisco.

The authors continue with a detailed analysis of The Esplanade and its functionality. At the time this study was written, the only criticisms they had were that the needs of pedestrians at crosswalks could be better addressed, and that the Esplanade really needed an ice cream shop about halfway along. (I’ll vote for that! although I do like a softie cone from Big Al’s.)

By the way, if you are wondering about the world “esplanade,” it comes from Middle French, via Spanish, from the Latin word explanare, meaning “to make level.” Originally an esplanade was a clear level space around a fortification, but it came to mean “a level, open area; especially : an area for walking or driving along a shore.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)

I was glad to see this article in today’s Chico Enterprise-Record about the historic significance of the Esplanade. Amy Huberland, an archeologist and the assistant coordinator for the Northeast Information Center at Chico State, is calling attention to the need to proceed carefully when dealing with a road that has historical significance, not only for Chico, but for all of northern California.

Bicycle path along the Esplanade, with rows of trees marking other lanes. Photo courtesy Special Collections, Meriam Library, CSUChico.

Today’s Esplanade is based on the Marysville-Shasta Road that dates from the Gold Rush, if not earlier. When John Bidwell and Peter Lassen first came this way, the road was no more than a faint track, based on native trails and the trails of the fur-trappers. There is a good map accompanying the Chico E-R article.

By the time Rancho Chico was established it was a busy road. It ran along side the Feather River as far as Hamilton, and then struck out across the valley in a northwest direction, headed for Red Bluff on the Sacramento River. Travelers could stop at Neal’s Ranch or Bidwell’s Ranch along the way for refreshment and information.

D.F. Crowder, who came to Chico in 1856 at the age of twelve, described it this way:

There was no bridge across Chico creek but there was a ford near where the present bridge now stands. The Shasta trail, now the Shasta road, lead off almost due north as it does now and it was black with immigrants — just like ants, coming and going. Some had ox teams, some were afoot and others drove mules. I don’t remember ever seeing a burro at that time.

This was the road that became the Esplanade, and later Highway 99. It ran right through the middle of Rancho Chico. In the 1890s John Bidwell began to develop the road with an eye toward selling off lots along the road. He planted rows of trees along the broad track of the Shasta Road to mark off lanes for carriages, wagons, riders, and pedestrians. He doesn’t say much about this project in his diary, but he referred to it in this entry for March 31, 1891:

Wife drove with me this A.M.- Laid out lines on W. side Esplanade for road

Although some changes are necessary to keep the Esplanade safe and effective in the 21st century, I hope we can keep its historic character in mind as changes are planned.