Photograph courtesy of the Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association
Grand Entrance: Martin Avenue, around 1915, still had streetcar tracks running down the center of the street. The original Hanchett Resident Park gateway pillars that current neighbors want to rebuild, are visible, as are the palm trees and one of the original Mission Bell street markers next to the telephone pole. The mansion to the right is now the site of the business complex housing Togo's and Pasta Pomodoro.
Hanchett neighborhood searches for longtime pillars of the community
By Mary Gottschalk
The pillars of Hanchett Park are gone but not forgotten.
Members of the Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association are considering re-creating the pillars that once stood at Martin Avenue and The Alameda and similar ones that stood on Tillman Avenue near the intersection of Race Street and Park Avenue.
Lorie Bird, a SHPNA director, is heading the search for photographs of the pillars that once marked the gateway entrances to Hanchett Resident Park.
"So far we've found two pictures of the pillars," Bird says.
The one of the Martin pillars was taken around 1915, shortly after most of the houses in Louis Hanchett's development were completed.
It shows the long-gone streetcar tracks that went down Martin. To the right is a large mansion, which gave way to Tiny's Drive-In and is now the complex housing Togo's and Pasta Pomodoro. One of the original Mission Bell street markers is also visible near a telephone pole in the photo.
Bird points out another interesting aspect of this photo--the height of the palm trees. In the photo, they don't appear to be much taller than six feet, but now, some 90 years later, they tower high above the homes on Martin stretching from The Alameda to Park Avenue.
The second photo is of the Tillman pillars and was taken in the mid-1960s. The tree and building in the photo are still there, although the tree has been drastically trimmed back.
Both pillars appear to be made of concrete, with wooden eaves extending from the tops. There are some decorative overlays, but the details aren't clear.
The Martin photo also shows a wooden arbor extending from the pillars over the sidewalks. The Tillman photo has no arbor.
"We're not sure what happened, but we think at some point the pillars deteriorated. Over time the wooden arbors got busted or deteriorated to such a point that they were finally pulled down," Bird says.
The Palm Haven neighborhood in Willow Glen did an extensive restoration and re-creation project of its Mission Revival style pillars in 2005.
Restoration of the seven Palm Haven gateway pillars cost $117,000.
Anyone with photos or information on the Hanchett Park pillars is asked to contact Bird via email at Lorie.Bird@shpna.org or call 408.938.0669.