Raymond Museum now an historical place of interest

The Raymond Museum is open Sundays noon to 4 p.m. and by appointment

By Elizabeth Gabriel

(Updated: Friday, May 30, 2008, 9:49 AM)

Charles Miller knew what he was doing when he homesteaded 160 acres in 1886 in what is now Raymond.

He knew what he was doing when he chose the site for his house.

He knew what he was doing when he built that house.

Lynn Northrop didn't know what she was doing when she bought his house two years ago, but she's on a spiraling learning curve.

Until Northrop -- she and her husband Wayne are Coarsegold cattle ranchers -- decided she wanted a little challenge two years ago, the house was just an old place that had changed hands numerous times and had, until the 1980s, been used as a rental. In all that time, no one had altered its basic structure.

Northrop said she thought she'd fix it up a little, maybe open a gallery for local artists, but she kept hearing that it was Raymond's oldest home.

"I would have hated to see it go to some inappropriate use," she said.

So, with contractor Dan Powell, she started poking and prodding.

Kicking the dirt around the house yielded old dishes, silverware, square-head nails and bottles. When they yanked off the drywall and drop ceilings, they knew they had hit a history jackpot. The original board-and-batten was pretty much intact. Pieces of old wallpaper clung to the cedar. It was perfect for a town museum, they thought.

That was enough to give Northrop a dream and the drive to see it through.

She was honored Tuesday by the Madera County Board of Supervisors for all her work on the property. The house has been named a California Point of Historic Interest.

Charles Miller

Northrop's research has come up with amazing detail on Miller.

He was born in Hornitos, but his railroading father soon took the family to San Francisco, where he was a Southern Pacific agent. Miller's maternal grandfather was Henry Stegman, a Wells Fargo agent in Yosemite and a man with fingers in several pies in the Mariposa and Yosemite areas.

There is some speculation that young Charles, only 23 in 1886, might have been tipped off by his insider relatives that the railroad was coming to Raymond with plans to make it the jumping-off place for tours of Yosemite. The valley already was a tourist destination, with people arriving on foot, horseback and wagon.

The railroad, ever quick to capitalize on a good thing, decided to take a line to Raymond. From there people would catch stages and go to Wawona by way of what is now Ahwahnee, a 10-hour trip.

He homesteaded the land, laid out the streets and named them. Then he built his house on a rise alongside what would be the railroad tracks. The house is ideally situated to get the best breezes to cool the interior. The tall roof is balanced by a wide, covered porch, perfect for sitting out and surveying one's kingdom.

And until his death from pneumonia in 1893, Miller had quite a kingdom. He was the Southern Pacific Railroad and Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company agent, he ran the Wells Fargo office and was the telegraph operator. For a for a few months, he was the postmaster. He managed the stage company's hotel and was chairman of the committee to build a road from Raymond to Mariposa.

Raymond in those heady days was a booming place. The Vanderbilts came through and parked their private railroad car under a sort of carport made for the purpose. Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir walked its streets. Stories in the national press praised its delights.

All that is there in the house, just waiting to come out.

Back to the present

"It's a happy house," Northrop said. "It has a positive energy."

Once you climb the stairs and cross the porch, the first thing you notice when you enter the living room is the huge RAYMOND sign. "940 feet," it reads. "To San Francisco 198 6/10 M." Beside it is a photo of the depot with the sign in place.

Then you see the post-office window. There's a wood stove, copies of documents, sales books, hats, buttons, shoes, farm and quarry implements -- a trove of local treasures. And they came from someone's barn, attic or garage.

The the donations continue to come in daily, Northrop said.

"There are all these little memories in the house," she said.

At a recent Raymond High School reunion, many of the graduates toured the house and shared their stories. One fellow had lived in the house when he was 10 years old. A picture of the woman doctor who had worked in the town was recognized and fussed over.

Along with documents, photos, historic objects and furniture you might expect to see in a house museum, there is a charming display in the kitchen. Northrop framed bits of wallpaper she found when stripping the home's walls. One, which might be from the 1930s, has cartoon children dressed as cowboys. And if you are a special visitor, you might get to see the paper with a pattern of Delft tile that's hidden behind the kitchen door.

What's next

Northrop said one of her reasons for doing "all this" is to pass on to the younger generations an appreciation for Raymond's past.

"I want them to find the continuum of place," she said. "You wind up connected to people whether you know it or not. I want them to respect that."

One of her goals is to get volunteers to catalog and cross-reference all her bits and pieces. Another is to get a barn built, and an outhouse.

She also sees the house, with it's welcoming shade trees and porch, as a gathering spot for people coming to Raymond.

"Come, eat lunch at the general store, walk down to the museum, she said.

"I want this to be a place people use, not just a place for people to look at," Northrop said.

The Raymond Museum is open Sundays noon to 4 p.m. and by appointment. The address is 31956 Road 608. Take the main Raymond street to the feed store and look across the old railroad right-of-way. There it sits. Call (559) 689-1886.

Addenda

That phone number is the same year the house was built. It's just one of the great little stories about the house. Northrop said she asked for the number, but was told by Sierra Telephone that the 1800 series was used for internal voice mail. But Sheri Colgate said she'd do what she could. Sierra Tel's Harry H. Baker (whose company began in Raymond) made it happen, and the museum got its number.

Here are some other interesting factoids:

The original, hand-dug well -- all 35 feet of it -- is still producing water. Because it has dirt walls, the water is used for irrigation now. Local legend says it has never gone dry.

When Northrop and Powell started working on the house, the kitchen -- like many old houses sort of a lean-to affair -- was separating from the house. Powell pondered the problem and used a fence come-along to get the two structures back together.

Northrop and her children have found numerous buttons and rivets out in the yard. She discovered that Levi-Strauss has an antiquities department that can date such artifacts.

When Northrop went before the state board that designates historic cites, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena was there at the same time, seeking the same honor.

A friend of a friend heard that the house was becoming a museum and donated two short clips of film that docents show on a TV. The old railroad bed, after the tracks were removed, was used for horse racing in the 1940s -- local cowboys vs. trained jockeys. The home-movie clip shows a race or two and people attending. The other piece of tape is of a late-1940s Coarsegold rodeo.

"It's like a puzzle," Northrop said, "every time someone brings something in or recognizes a person in a photograph, another piece is filled in."