“Wanderlust: A guide to local history museums - San Jose Mercury News” plus 1 more |
| Wanderlust: A guide to local history museums - San Jose Mercury News Posted: 22 Dec 2010 11:57 PM PST Saratoga Historical Foundation Museum 20450 Saratoga-Los Gatos Rd., Saratoga, 408-867-4311, www.SaratogaHistory.com This year marked the 90th anniversary of Prohibition in the United States -- an experiment that banned the manufacture, sale and transport of alcoholic beverages. But Saratoga -- a one-time lumber town -- was one of the first towns in the state to become "dry" in the 1890s and stayed that way until the end of World War II. Come find out more about how the town became "dry" and the impact on local wineries, in the exhibit "Uncorking Prohibition," which runs through Jan. 31. On display are such artifacts as an 1855 silk banner presented to the Sons of Temperance, a Carrie Nation hatchet-shaped pin and Women's Christian Temperance Union white ribbon pins. In addition, the Saratoga Historical Foundation offers docent-led historic walking tours year round. The tours last about 60 minutes with lots of easy walking. Make an appointment at 408-867-4311. You can also take a self-guided walk or bike tour around town to see some of the early-day homes. Maps can be downloaded from the website, under "Historic Tours of Saratoga." San Jose's History Park South end of Kelley Park, 408-287-2290, www.historysanjose.org This 14-acre outdoor museum -- with paved streets, running trolleys, and 27 original and replica homes, businesses and landmarks -- is the largest and most evocative landscape of times-gone-by.Pick up a map of the grounds at the Museum Store in the Pacific Hotel; tours also are available. Among the many historic structures is a fruit barn, once part of the Stevens Ranch, which provides an overview of farming in the valley. There's a replica of the livery barn Dashaway Stables, with carriages and buggies. A trolley barn holds antique vehicles, a horse-drawn streetcar and trolley cars. In downtown San Jose, Peralta Adobe (175 W. St. John Street, 408-287-2291) is San Jose's oldest address. Visitors can view two rooms furnished with period pieces. An adjacent structure is the exquisite Fallon House, a Victorian mansion built in 1855, showcasing 15 rooms typical of the Victorian period. To schedule tours, call 408-918-1047. Cupertino Historical Society and Museum 10185 N. Stelling Rd., Cupertino, 408-973-1495, www.cupertino historicalsociety.org Visitors to this newly redesigned museum are greeted by a life-size image of settler Elisha Stephens, circa 1862, and a map of the Anza expedition, which stopped at the site of the present-day city and named it in honor of San Giuseppe da Copertino, Italy. Also on display are artifacts from the Baer blacksmith shop, Cupertino fruit crates, cannery tools and a "One Room School House" display with old books and a 1909 report card. The original 1900 store ledger, listing names of customers and debts, can be viewed in the "General Store" cabinet. Located within the Quinlan Community Center, the museum features a new "vignette" floor plan, which enables it to display rotating exhibits based on a 2,400-item collection. Future themes will focus on the Ohlone period, early pioneers, the wineries, the floral industry, churches and the residents and businesses that created Cupertino. History Museum of Los Gatos 75 Church St. (walk down the hill, following signs), 408-395-7375, www.museumsoflosgatos.org. In the late 1970s, local preservationists realized that something must be done to save the town's historic landmark, the decrepit and worn annex of 1850s-era Forbes Mill. Built by Scottish immigrant James Forbes, the roof was unsound and the floor was mere dirt. The town that grew around this beautiful stone building was first called Forbes Mill, then Forbestown and finally Los Gatos. Thanks to their efforts, this birthplace of Los Gatos has now been saved -- and is the site of a history museum. Currently on display, in addition to milling, logging and World War I artifacts, is the special exhibit "Bear in Mind: The Story of the California Grizzly." It features casts of a grizzly jaw, replica bear "poop," grizzly-motif silver spoons and a prehistoric image of a bear, chipped from volcanic stone. Hunted to extinction in merely 75 years, the last verifiable California grizzly was killed in 1908. This traveling exhibition, on loan from the California Exhibition Resources Alliance, is a fitting tribute to a wild animal that once flourished -- and evoked fear -- in our mountains. Woodside Store and Museum 300 Tripp Road, Woodside, 650-851-7615, www.historysmc.org/woodside.html This is a fully restored wooden structure once used by dentist and postmaster R.O. Tripp as a general store, post office and dental office in the heyday of Woodside's lumber industry. Built in 1854 and active until 1909, today it is a county store filled with goods that a teamster, wagon maker, lumberman or blacksmith might want. Browse the shelves of the Woodside Store, restored to its 1880s appearance, and see the goods available in the mid- to late 1800s -- from canned fruit and frying pans to nails and sewing machines. Also on display are Tripp's dental tools, wine bottles and postal records. Palo Alto's Museum of American Heritage 351 Homer Ave., Palo Alto, 650-321-1004, www.moah.org Although not specific to Palo Alto, the charming Museum of American Heritage preserves and presents a glimpse of Bay Area households of the early-to-mid 1900s, featuring electrical and mechanical devices of homes in the era. (A future Palo Alto Museum, on Hamilton Street, is planned.) In a special exhibit, "Holidays in the Bay Area," the Museum of American Heritage joins with the Lego Train Club to build a 12-by-25-foot train layout with city, farm and suburban scenes. (How many Bay Area locales and structures can you identify?) The Lego exhibit runs through Jan. 9. Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum 570 E. Remington Dr., Sunnyvale, 408-749-0220, www.heritagepark museum.org Overlooking a beautiful apricot orchard and a huge courtyard, the two-year-old museum is housed within the recreated home of Martin Murphy, founder of Sunnyvale. It features a new exhibit about the Sunnyvale-based Lockheed Missiles Division, source of the nuclear-armed ballistic missile built during the Cold War. Mountain View's Rengstorff House 3070 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, 650-903-6392, www.r-house.org The Rengstorff House, Mountain View's oldest house, is one of the finest examples of Victorian Italianate architecture on the West Coast. Its holiday decor is on display until Dec. 26. The Rengstorff House also features a windmill and pump, linking the house to Mountain View's early agricultural history. The Air King windmill was mail-ordered from Montgomery Ward. Mountain View's future History Museum and Education Center is planned for the 12.5 acre-Cuesta Annex; the property acquisition and the project were recently approved by the city council. Design review and an environmental impact report are currently under way. Los Altos History Museum 51 S. San Antonio Rd., Los Altos, 650-948-9427, www.losaltoshistory.org Located in one of the few remaining apricot orchards of Santa Clara Valley, this impressive 8,200-square-foot museum offers a "Crown of the Peninsula" exhibit, exploring the transformation of an agricultural paradise into a high technology hub. Nearby is the landmark J. Gilbert Smith House, built in 1905 and refurbished to replicate a 1930s farmhouse. Scotts Valley's Scott House Old Santa Cruz County Road, 831-438-6506, www.svchamber.org/svhistory The primary goal of the Scotts Valley Historical Society is the restoration of the Scott House, listed on National Register of Historic Places and built in 1853 by Hiram D. Scott, the namesake of Scotts Valley and former owner of the 4,436-acre San Augustin Rancho, now the city of Scotts Valley. The house, a fine example of a Greek Revival architecture, is one of the earliest structures constructed of locally milled redwood and represents one of the few surviving fine 1850s homes available to the public in California. Tours of the house are available by appointment. Call for more information. San Lorenzo Valley Museum 12547 Highway 9, Boulder Creek, 831-338-8382, www.slvmuseum.com Come here to learn all about the logging that built our region and changed our mountains forever. A near-working steam-operated drag saw is on display. There are also several different types and sizes of saws and other logging implements. An old oxen yoke is on display. A circa-1900 kitchen includes a hand-crank washing machine, a suction-type vacuum cleaner, an early electrical toaster and waffle iron, antique stove and early kitchen utensils. A temporary exhibit, created in partnership with the Santa Cruz Surfing Club Preservation Society, is "Big Trees to Surfboards -- The Redwood Connection." In 1885, three Hawaiian princes selected prime redwood slabs from the Grover Mill in Brookdale, had them shipped to the Grover Planing Mill in downtown Santa Cruz for shaping into surfboards and then rode those boards at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River -- the earliest recorded surfing in the Continental United States. This exhibit includes photos of the princes and early surfing, vintage shaping tools, and the progression of surfboards from a redwood slab to hollow paddle board to full-size replica redwood board to modern boards. Gilroy Museum 195 Fifth Street, Gilroy, 408-846-0446, www.ci.gilroy.ca.us/cityofgilroy/community/museum/default.aspx The Gilroy Museum is housed in the historic 1910 Carnegie Library Building. More than 25,000 items relating to the history of Gilroy and southern Santa Clara County are in the collection. For exercise and education, join members of the Gilroy Historical Society on guided walking tours through the city's historic section. Tours are on the first Saturday of each month, 10 a.m. to noon. Reservations are not required but recommended; call the museum. Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 408-920-5565. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| $15,000 Bail Set for "The Pedophile's Guide" Author Phillip Ray Greaves II - CBS News Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:44 PM PST  Phillip Ray Greaves II (AP Photo/Pueblo County Sheriff's Office) BARTOW, Fla. (CBS/AP) A Florida judge set a $15,000 bail Wednesday for Phillip Ray Greaves II, author of "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct," a how-to guide for pedophiles that was pulled form Amazon.com last month. Greaves was arrested Monday at his home in Pueblo, Colo. on a Florida warrant that charged him with violating Florida's obscenity law, which prohibits the "distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd claims jurisdiction in the case because Greaves sold an mailed a copy of his book to undercover deputies in Florida who requested a copy. During the hearing Wednesday, Greaves' attorney, Francis Solorzano, first asked Judge John Kirkland to drop the case before requesting that the judge reduce or eliminate the $15,000 bond. "What we're dealing here is mere words," Solorzano said. "There are no images in the book." But Kirkland said the judge who signed the arrest warrant had already found probable cause and could not override that decision. Kirkland decided to keep the bond at $15,000 and said if Greaves does post bond, he must stay in the state of Florida, not use a computer and not have contact with anyone under the age of 18. Greaves has no criminal record, but his self-published book of advice on how to make sexual encounters with children safe caused a flap when it showed up on Amazon in November. The book was later removed from the site. He writes in the book that pedophiles are misunderstood, as the word literally means to love a child, and adds that it is only a crime to act on sexual impulses toward children. Greaves goes on in the book to offer advice that purportedly allows pedophiles to abide by the law. Greaves is being held at the Polk County Jail and told local media Tuesday that he "only has sex with grown-ups" and that writing and selling his book falls under his constitutional right to free speech. If convicted of the third-degree felony, Greaves could be sentenced to five years in prison. MORE ON CRIMESIDER This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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