Street signs give sparse indication of Rio Vista’s rich history
RIO VISTA — The founding fathers and original pioneers who settled Rio Vista are long gone.
Some memories live on in family descendants who still live in the area — the Hamiltons, the Pezzaglias, the Branns, the McCormacks — but many others are gone. Poof. No whisper of those original settlers. Unless you take a trip through the Rio Vista Museum, their names are often unknown to newer city residents. Only a smattering of families are memorialized by having streets named after them, such as the Hamiltons, Drouins, Christensens and Brunings.
“I think that it’s strange,” said Phil Pezzaglia, the local historian whose family was among the first to settle the area. “Unfortunately they were not real good at naming streets after people.”
The Brunings: Gertrude and Joseph were considered among the city’s founders and were major benefactors and “movers and shakers” in Rio Vista. Four streets are named after the family: Bruning and St. Gertrudes avenues run off of Second Street. Gertrude Street is now an alley that runs parallel to Montezuma Avenue and Seventh Street. Saint Joseph Street runs off Bruning Avenue.
Bruning, along with his wife, arrived in the area in 1858. The Brunings donated much of the land that present-day Rio Vista sits on — from Main Street to the Montezuma Hills — in 1862 after the original town was destroyed in a flood. Childless, they were instrumental in setting up the city’s education system by paying for the first public schools. There are no family members located in the area today.
The Hamiltons: Pezzaglia said this family arrived in the 1870s and there are still Hamiltons today farming and ranching in the Montezuma Hills. Hamilton Avenue, which has been there since the 1930s, Pezzaglia said, runs off of Edgewater Drive near Riverview Elementary School.
The Drouins: This family quickly established itself in the “hamlet” of Rio Vista about the same time as the Hamiltons, the 1870s. The family — headed by Felix Drouin — took up ranching and became involved in the community. Drouin Drive runs off of Sierra Avenue.
Homecoming: This is a subdivision, accessed either from Church Road or Poppy House Road, which is off of St. Francis Way, has streets named solely after former mayors and City Council members. Some are from recent history, such as Jerry Rubier, who began mayoral terms in both 1980 and 1988, and Fred Harris, who began as mayor in 1996. Christensen Way could either by named after Martin — Rio Vista’s first mayor in 1893, according to Pezzaglia — or his sons, who also served as Rio Vista mayors. Martin Christensen Jr. began his term in 1908 and John Christensen began his in 1933.
But what about others notable in the city’s history?
Pezzaglia shared several names that he’s surprised aren’t memorialized by street signs:
- John Sidwell, the first postmaster and a hotel owner who also lived in the original settlement of Rio Vista in 1858 before the city moved to higher ground after a devastating flood in 1862.
- John Squires, another hotel owner, who, along with Sidwell, built the first two hotels in Rio Vista. He also settled in the “original” Rio Vista before the flood, according to the book, “Images of America, Rio Vista.”
- Samuel and Jennie Perry were settlers in the original town, as well. Samuel Perry was one of the town’s merchants.
Pezzaglia also named the McCormacks and the Branns. There are no streets named after the Pezzaglia family, either. Then there are other early settlers: the Keyeses, Chases, Westgates, Ponds and Kagees, along with Isaac Dunham.
“Sometimes when things are named after people they overlook those individuals who are well-deserving of having something named after them,” Pezzaglia said.
From the initial inquiry by the Daily Republic, Bob Bard’s enthusiasm for the street-name subject grew as he popped off name after name of early settlers with no street sign recognition.
“What about Mayhood?” he said of the prominent ranching family. “Mayhood farmed here a long time. And they’re still around here.
“Brann is another one . . . there is no Brann Avenue and they still own property around here. Dick Brann (who still lives in town) was a county supervisor into the 1980s.”
Bard, who is past president of the Rio Vista Museum Board of Directors, said he never really thought about street names, but when pressed came up with a dozen family names from way back when.
“Ideally it would be nice to have some of these streets named after these pioneers, but that’s not what they decided to do,” he said. “I’m not philosophically damaged by it, but I think it’s interesting to think about all these families.”
Pezzaglia and Renee Tingey, who is on the museum’s Board of Directors, recently stood outside the museum debating the issue.
Tingey, in joking fashion, mentioned some of the streets named after vacation spots, with Yosemite, Shasta and Tahoe drives located in a housing tract close to Main Street. Drouin Drive runs through this housing area.
“Maybe that’s where the people who founded (Rio Vista) had cabins,” she said, laughing.
Those living on Yosemite Drive can stretch their imagination, Pezzaglia said, and perhaps think their street was named after a namesake steamship that exploded in 1865 as it pulled away from the pier in Rio Vista. More than 70 Chinese died in that explosion and are now buried in the “old Chinese cemetery” located across from Shelby’s Coffee Shop, Pezzaglia said.
“But I don’t think so,” he said, laughing at the nonexistent connection.
While some pioneering families aren’t immortalized on street signs, they were unobtrusively memorialized in housing tracts. What newer residents might not know is the origin of their housing tracts. Some are named after the pioneering families who sold the land, Pezzaglia said.
Some of those are:
- Drouin’s Addition are the lots on the even side of Second Street, Pezzaglia said. The tract starts at the alley after St. Gertrudes Avenue and ends just past Santa Clara Avenue.
- Trigueiro Tract is on the north side of Highway 12 and opened in 1947. St. Francis, Gardiner and Flores ways are part of that tract. They were pioneer property owners and still have descendants in town, Pezzaglia said. He added that within the tract is a Virginia Drive, and said the Trigueiro’s had a daughter named Virginia.
- Sullivan, Larson and McCormack Tract is in the vicinity of Logan, Fifth and Sixth streets.
- Hamilton’s Addition is located on the northwest side of Fourth Street from Bruning Avenue to Santa Clara Avenue.
- Perry’s Addition includes the houses on Third Street and the odd-number houses on Fourth Street running between Bruning Avenue to Santa Clara Avenue.
Reach Susan Winlow at 427-6955 or swinlow@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=129401
Posted by Susan Winlow
on Jan 24 2012.
Filed under Featured Stories, Rio Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
In his book ”Generation of Swine” author Hunter S. Thompson claimed that President Nixon had a Chinese mistress who lived on a river boat in Rio Vista.
I don.t make these things up…..that.s what he wrote.
Well, he is a California boy.