| COUPLE SINKS SAVINGS INTO RESTORING PAST *
REJUVENATION OF SOUTHERN PACIFIC LANDMARK LINKED TO BIGGER
PLANS FOR DOWNTOWN FRESNO.
Jim Steinberg The Fresno Bee
Paul and Dora Jean Hansen plunked down $16,025 in
1981 for what they believe is the oldest building in
Fresno: the Southern Pacific depot
at Tulare Street and Broadway.
They worked on it, sold it, bought it again out of
bankruptcy, and plan to spend another $2 million on the grand
relic in the Queen Anne style.
Archivist Bob Ellis of the Fresno County Historical
Society likes to avoid superlative statements, but couldn't
think of an older building, original to Fresno.
"It very likely and possibly is" the oldest, he said.
Predictions of downtown's renaissance may exceed the
number of cars on the longest freight train that clanks down
the SP tracks just west of the depot each day. But the
Hansens point to growing business in the depot's
section that already houses rent-paying clients: a pool and
spa firm, home care, a phone company, business equipment
financing, a traffic survey firm, income tax preparation,
para-legals, the Japanese-American Citizens League, a
telephone company and political campaign consultant.
Now they look to the old Pullman shed, where travelers
once rode into town by train and spent one night or several in
detached Pullman cars hooked up to electricity. The shed is
structurally unsound, Paul Hansen said, so he plans to tear it
down and rebuild it.
He intends to put a restaurant in the rebuilt shed
within four years.
Return to the depot hasn't been all gravy. Paul
Hansen chased off men who had become used to bathing in the
depot's fountains. Transients and railroad tracks often
go together, and several homeless people gathered Wednesday
under a tree just north of the depot. Praying for a
stadium
City Council Member Linda Calandra and her supporters
gathered in the depot on election night. As they waited
for returns, Dora Jean Hansen called the depot "part of
the regeneration of downtown."
Her husband can feel it. He's been through this before,
he said. He restored other old buildings, most memorably the
original University of New Mexico building in Santa Fe.
Hansen addressed the skepticism issue. How, he was
asked, would he respond to people tired of hearing or reading
about the promise of downtown Fresno's imminent
rebirth?
"I don't know the answer except that two things are
very important," he said. "Companies are moving back downtown.
And people like us are investing life savings because we
believe it is happening."
He mentioned a third thing.
"We are praying for the baseball stadium," he said.
Historic landmark
He ticked off good downtown prospects: expansion of the
Fresno Convention Center, a new federal courthouse, an
expanded Fresno Community Medical Center, a new
Butterfield microbrewery.
"A lot of neat things are happening, and it's not the
old propaganda baloney," he said.
And beyond that, Hansen said, "Dora Jean and I really
like this old building."
They hand out historical information sheets.
The Central Pacific Railroad, which became
Southern Pacific Railroad Company, established
its Fresno Station in 1872 "on a barren location known
as the "Sinks of Dry Creek.' "
The railroad built a small, wood-frame depot.
Fresno began to boom in the 1880s, and construction
began on a larger depot in 1889.
The last SP passenger train left the depot at
1:59 p.m., April 30, 1971.
The depot was named a landmark in the National
Register of Historic Places in 1978, and the City Council
placed it on the local official register of historic
preservation in 1979.
Fresno Bee, The (CA) Published March 28, 1996
Section: METRO Page B1
All content © The Fresno Bee and may not
be republished without permission.
Send comments or
questions to newslib@infi.net
All archives are stored on a SAVE (tm)
newspaper library system from MediaStream Inc., a
Knight-Ridder Inc. company. |
