City of Roseville

When Roseville incorporated in April 1909, the City Council was known as the "Board of Trustees" and the Mayor as the "Chairman of the Board." It was not until August 1927 that the present titles of City Council and Mayor were adopted.

Prior to 2019, the Roseville City Charter called for at-large elections, with the highest vote-getter becoming the next vice mayor for two years, then the mayor for two years. In 2020, Roseville voters approved several changes to the City charter, including having the role of mayor rotated among the districts.

Roseville Mayors:
William Sawtelle (1909 – 1911)

Robert F. Theile (1911 – 1912)

Dr. Bradford Woodbridge (1912 – 1922)

Walter M. Turner (1922 – 1923)

George W. Guptil (1923 – 1924)

Dr. Bradford Woodbridge (1924 – 1928)

Walter Hanisch (1928 – 1930)

Dr. Bradford Woodbridge (1930 – 1932)

H.T. Miller (1932 – 1934)

R. J. Rolufs (1934 – 1938)

L.C. Anderson (5/17/1938 – 5/24/1938)

Charles Cope (1938 – 1942)

Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson (1942 – 1944)

Andrew Weber (4/1944 – 11/1944)

Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson (1944 – 1950)

William Finger Jr. (1950 – 1952)

L. Harold Wentworth (1952 – 1954)

Paul J. Lunardi (1954 – 1956)

George Campbell (1956 – 1958)

Paul J. Lunardi (1958 – 1959)

George Buljan (1959 – 1960)

George Campbell (1960 – 1962)

Robert Mahan (1962 – 1964)

Willard Dietrich (1964 – 1966)

George Buljan (1966 – 1968)

Willard Dietrich (1968 – 1970)

Baron Reed (1970 – 1972) - Roseville's youngest Mayor, elected at age 28

George Buljan (1972 – 1974)

Kenneth Royer (1974 – 1976)

George Buljan (1976 – 1978)

June Wanish (1978 – 1980) - Roseville's first woman Councilmember & Mayor

Harry Crabb Jr. (1980 – 1982)

Richard Roccucci (1982 – 1984)

Harry Crabb Jr. (1984 – 1985)

Alan V. Pineschi (1985 – 1986)

Jim Ross (1986 – 1987)

Phil Ozenick (4/1987 – 11/1987)

Bill Santucci (1987 – 1989)

Pauline Roccucci (1989 – 1991)

Bill Santucci (1991 – 1993)

Mel Hamel (1993 – 1995)

Harry Crabb Jr. (1995 – 1996)

Claudia Gamar (1996 – 1998)

Harry Crabb Jr. (1998 – 2000)

Claudia Gamar (2000 – 2002)

F.C. “Rocky” Rockholm (2002 – 2004)

Gina Garbolino (2004 – 2006)

F.C. “Rocky” Rockholm (12/2006 – 1/2007)

Jim Gray (2007 – 2008)

Gina Garbolino (2008 – 2010)

Pauline Roccucci (2010 - 2012)

Susan Rohan (2012 - 2014)

Carol Garcia (2014 - 2016)

Susan Rohan (2016 - 2018)

Bonnie Gore (2018)

John B. Allard II (2019 - 2020)

Krista Bernasconi (2020 - 2022)

Bruce Houdesheldt (2022-2024)

Krista Bernasconi (2024-present)

Roseville City Managers:
David Koester (1947 - 1969)

Robert Hutchison (1969 – 1988)

Allen Johnson (1988 – 2003)

Craig Robinson (2003 – 2009)

Mike Shellito (2009 – 2010)

Ray Kerridge (2010 - 2015)

Rob Jensen (2015 - 2018)

Dominick Casey (2018 - present)

The following history of Roseville was written by Leonard "Duke" Davis, considered by many the foremost authority on the history of Roseville.

Davis was a founding member of the Roseville Historical Society and instrumental in documenting Roseville history through the many books he authored. He partnered with the historical society on several projects about the history of Roseville.

A Roseville native and lifelong resident, Davis taught for more than 40 years at the junior high school, senior high school and community college level.

Davis partnered with the City on "The Story of Roseville, California: Milestones and Memories 1850-2000" for the city's 90th anniversary. The book was updated in 2009 for the city's centennial.

"His contributions to the preservation of Roseville's unique history as well as the reverence he felt for the city's history cannot be overstated," said the Roseville Historical Society in tribute.  Mr. Davis passed away in October 2014.

Long before there was a railroad or a Roseville, there was the land, encompassing mile after mile of waving grasslands. Towering over this sea of grass were thick groves of valley oaks, which provided protective canopies for carpets of wild flowers. Golden poppies, buttercups, lilies and monkey flowers blended with the darker hues of brodiaeas, lupine and purple owl's clover that blanketed the plains.

Several sparkling streams meandered through this beautiful countryside and along their shady banks grew wild roses with their delicate shades adding to the mosaic of color. Wild game such as deer, antelope, Tule elk and California grizzlies roamed over the lush grasslands, while California quail and other game birds frequented the thickets and brush lands. Today, only a few signs of this wonderland remain.

Other accounts were not so complimentary, particularly during summer months when green grasses turned brown under the relentless California sun. This was quite different from lands east of the Mississippi River where summer rains brought rich harvests. In contrast, the broad plains of California’s inland valleys were seared and cracked by summer droughts and 100 degree heat. The myth of the California desert, for many, would persist for some time.

Long before the first Europeans invaded this unspoiled wonderland, native civilizations had existed here for thousands of years. Over 300,000 people, divided into seven linguistic families encompassing 64-80 different languages, inhabited California. One of these groupings was the Maidu, whose territory embraced the vast valley region which extended from the Sacramento River to the edge of the Sierras. The southern Maidu, also called Nisenan or Nishinam, held the entire American, Bear and Yuba rivers’ drainage systems.

The abundance of plants and animals encouraged the development of numerous Maidu towns in the Roseville region. One important Maidu center of activity was along the banks of Strap Ravine, east of downtown Roseville, on lands which later became part of Johnson Ranch. Evidence of their existence can still be seen in the bedrock mortars where they ground acorns with stone pestles. Petroglyphs (ceremonial markings) may still be seen on the large boulders found in the Maidu Historic Site.

Another Maidu town in the Roseville area centered along Dry Creek adjacent to the old Enwood gravel pit, which extended downstream to where the Lincoln Estates subdivision is now located. Considerable excitement occurred around 1964 when contractors uncovered traces of Maidu culture. Amateur and professional archaeologists alike rushed here in large numbers searching for ancient artifacts.

Community leaders Myron and Dorothy McIntyre, who had previously donated creekside lands for today’s Lincoln Estates Park, donated an additional 15 acres in 1998. Four of those acres are to be used for an extension of Lincoln Estates Park and 11 are to be preserved in perpetuity as a “passive” open park area.

A third major Maidu area, which was concentrated along Dry Creek west of present day Riverside Avenue, extended to today’s railroad tracks. Thomas Dudley, one of the area’s earliest white settlers, recalled paying the chief of a nearby tribe a 50 pound sack of flour for relinquishing his claims to lands staked out here.

The Maidu actively managed the landscape to create an Eden-like setting with floral and faunal abundance supporting a large Maidu population. Most of their homes were simple brush covered conical shaped huts – of the single family type. Their most important structure was an earthen-covered ceremonial Roundhouse - a rounded structure 30 to 40 feet in diameter, made of timber, brush and earth, built over and around a four or five foot deep depression. In the center of the Roundhouse was a fire. The Roundhouse served as the spiritual and healing center for the community.

Many oak trees grew in the area, providing acorns, a Maidu food staple. The acorns would be ground, leached to get rid of their bitter taste, cooked in a water-tight basket and eaten plain or mixed with berries, grasshoppers or dried salmon. Roots, seeds, nuts, leaves and shoots were gathered and stored for year-round use for food, medicines and material goods. Rabbits, ground squirrels, quail, ducks, geese, fish from area streams and other small wildlife were also part of the Maidu diet.

Disease, miners and settlers killed or forcibly removed many of the Maidu from their traditional homelands. Today, Maidu descendants still live in Placer County and celebrate their heritage and traditions that helped them withstand this cultural onslaught.

Martin Schellhous

Most miners who flocked to California following James Marshall’s historic discovery in 1848 had little thought of staying. They intended to get rich and return home by fall. Consequently, the rich agricultural region of southwestern Placer County was largely ignored during the early years of the gold rush. This “plains” region as it was called by forty-niners, although rich in agricultural opportunities, was thought to be devoid of gold.

The story of Roseville had its beginnings in the aftermath of the fabled California Gold Rush when discouraged gold seekers left the mineral regions to take up farming along those rich creek bottom lands earlier ignored. These intrepid pioneers, many of whose descendants still reside in the area, formed the nucleus of what was to become the “first families” of Roseville. One of the first sections of southwestern Placer County to be settled was the rich lands of the Dry Creek District.

Among the pioneer settlers of the Dry Creek District was Martin A. Schellhous who came to California with his wife and acquired a 240-acre ranch. Having brought a number of cattle with him from Michigan, Schellhous turned his attention to stock raising.

Later diversifying and expanding his agricultural pursuits, he planted vineyards, orchards and fields of grain on his property. His youngest son Earl recalled before his death in 1960, that their apple orchard and vineyards were among the first in western Placer County.

Mrs. Schellhous and sons

Martin Schellhous died in September 1873, at the age of 54. His wife survived him by 33 years, passing away in 1906. Their children divided up the ranch and continued to farm the family property. Earl Schellhous, the last of the surviving Schellhous boys, ran cattle on the old home ranch until shortly before his death, thus making the Schellhous ranch one of the oldest continuously operated ranches in the area at the time.

Six generations of the Schellhous family have lived, and continue to live, in the Roseville area.


About the time Martin Schellhous located in the Dry Creek District, Thomas S. Dudley was engaged in business in Sacramento. While in Sacramento, he married Eleanor Stuart in 1850 and pursued the hog raising business. Facing steep competition from other markets, Dudley and his wife moved to the Dry Creek District where land could be acquired cheaply.

Due to an abundance of acorns, hogs could be sold profitably for 25 cents a pound that other competing shipping businesses could not match. In the Dry Creek District, Dudley purchased Gifford Poor’s squatter claim for $200 and received a government grant for an additional 320 acres; by 1878, the ranch totaled 710 acres.

Thomas S. Dudley

It was in a little barn on the Dudley ranch in 1865 that Roseville’s first school came into being.

The family home, however, burned to the ground in 1879 followed shortly thereafter with Dudley’s death. The ranch lying adjacent to Dry Creek continued on in the hands of two of his sons-in-laws: Robert Theile and Alvah J. Sprague.


Another pioneer rancher of the Dry Creek District was Josiah G. Gould, who headed north to the Dry Creek District in the early 1850s and eventually settled on a ranch extending through what would later be bounded by Dry Creek and present P.F.E and Walerga Roads.

Having established title to his original ranch properties, Gould brought his family from Pennsylvania to California in 1854 via the overland route and began an uninterrupted 125 years of occupancy. Grain and livestock proved to be mainstays for the ranches of the period before wide-scale irrigation allowed for grapes and other fruits.

Large scale farming however is no longer practiced on the Gould lands for most of their once extensive holdings have been sold off and today are sites of modern subdivisions. The last Gould to actively farm the ancestral lands was Arthur V. Gould, born on the family ranch in 1881 and died there on Nov. 11, 1976.

He worked as a rancher and gardener continually for more than 70 years up to a few short months before his death. Today, numerous members of the Gould family reside in and about the Roseville area.

The year following Josiah Gould’s arrival in Roseville (1855), Tobias S. Grider acquired 640 acres of government owned land where Roseville’s railroad switching facilities would later be located. Grider sold his properties to the California Central Railroad in 1859 when it was in the process of extending the iron rails from Folsom to Lincoln. After moving to North San Juan, Nevada County for a period of time, Grider returned to the local area in 1861. However, he soon left for southern California in 1862 where he spent most of his remaining years. He died at Downey on June 29, 1886.

Northwest of Roseville is the fertile land along Pleasant Grove Creek. Surviving records show that this district was populated as early as 1854. One of the pioneer settlers of the Pleasant Grove District was a man named Leet, who settled on 10,500 acres of land with government script. Leet was subsequently bought out by Stephen A. Boutwell, who commenced ranching in the Pleasant Grove region in 1856.

Walter F. Fiddyment

Young Walter F. Fiddyment, in company with his widowed mother Elizabeth Jane Crawford Fiddyment, arrived in the Roseville area in 1856.From that time on, the Fiddyment name has played a prominent role in local agricultural interests.

Elizabeth Fiddyment arrived in California in 1854 and initially settled in the Elk Grove section of Sacramento County with a sister and a brother-in-law. She reunited with another sister near present day Roseville two years later along with her new husband George Hill, whom she had married in 1854, and their children.

She entered into farming with her sisters and their husbands in the Pleasant Grove District and later obtained her own parcel of land from one of her brother-in-laws in payment for a debt. The couple expanded their already extensive land holdings; however, tragedy struck and Hill died in 1861, leaving Elizabeth Fiddyment to run the ranch and care for the children.

Despite her ranching responsibilities, she still found time to play an active role in the creation of the informal Pleasant Grove School on the family ranch and even served as its first teacher. Her presence in the community was keenly felt as she cared for the sick and the infirm at any hour of the day.

In 1869 she married for a third time to Ashby Jones Atkinson. When it became evident that Roseville was destined to become more than just another shipping station along the railroad line, Elizabeth Fiddyment purchased much of the unsold portions of the original town site.

In 1906, part of her land holdings were subdivided into what became the Atkinson Tract in present day Roseville Heights. Atkinson Street perpetuates the memory of this pioneer rancher, business woman, humanitarian and mother who so much typified the spirit of western womanhood during the nineteenth century. She passed away on June 19, 1906 and is buried in the Fiddyment family plot in the Roseville cemetery.

Southeast of present day Roseville, in Sacramento County, is an agricultural region originally known as the San Juan Grant. A pioneer settler of this area was Peter Van Maren, who took up residence there around 1850.At the time of Van Maren’s death in 1876, he had acquired 787 acres of land valued at $23,000.

Zachariah and Ann Astill

Zachariah Astill, a native of England, also settled near the Dry Creek District with his land straddling the Placer and Sacramento counties. After residing in St. Louis for three years, his large party of friends and family joined a wagon train headed for California via the Great Salt Lake route. Many members of the Astill family stayed in Salt Lake while Astill, wife Ann and young son James pushed on to California in 1852 and took one of the first land grants in the area southwest of Roseville.

Besides farming, Zachariah Astill operated a small blacksmith shop providing services for other ranchers and farmers in the area. The tools Zachariah Astill brought with him from England are still in the hands of the family and are treasured possessions. Zachariah Astill and many other local settlers provided their ox teams and horses to aid in the building of the Central Pacific Railroad through the area.

This pioneer agriculturalist died on Nov. 19, 1874 followed by his wife Ann on Aug. 15, 1877. Both are buried in the pioneer cemetery at the corner of Broadway Street and Riverside Boulevard in Sacramento. After the death of his father, James Astill continued to farm the vast tract of land. When the state highway was rerouted through Sylvan Corners on a direct line to Roseville in 1912, Astill provided the land for the direct approach into town.

A charter member of the Methodist Church in Roseville, he assisted in building and maintaining the church. At the time of his death on May 24, 1923, Astill was considered one of Roseville’s leading citizens and the owner of numerous rental properties in town. The old Astill family home, located along what later became known as P.F.E. Road, burned to the ground in 1950.

Although having long since disposed of most of their once vast land holdings, numerous descendants of Zachariah and Ann Astill still live, work and raise their families in and about Roseville.


J.F. Cross settled near Antelope in 1854 or 1855, and at about the same time John Aiston commenced farming the area between the southeastern corner of Sylvan Corners to the vicinity of where the San Juan High School now stands on Greenback Lane.

Surviving records show that John R. Dyer, born in Missouri in 1833, located here sometime between 1854 and 1857 subsequently becoming one of the pioneer settlers of the Center Joint District (west of Roseville extending to the Sacramento River). An active member of the embryo town of Roseville, Dyer was one of the earliest members of Roseville Lodge No. 203, I.O.O.F. and for a time (1870s-1880s) associated with J.D. Pratt in the operation of the Pratt & Dyer brick kiln on Dry Creek at the foot of Taylor Street. His wife, Julia Agnes Dyer, died on May 22, 1896 and Dyer himself lived until Aug. 19, 1913. His son continued operating the ranch until 1956 when it was sold to Mr. Ross Riolo.

Northeast of Roseville between the present towns of Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln lies the famous Spring Valley Ranch – founded by George Whitney in 1855. When Whitney commenced raising sheep there, the entire region was unfenced and open to settlement. Whitney retired in 1868, turning over his interests at that time to his sons, Joel Parker Whitney and F.L. Whitney and later died in 1913.

F.L. Whitney disposed of his interests to Joel Whitney in 1872, who continued to operate the historic old ranch. By 1882, there were some 4,000 acres under cultivation on the Spring Valley Ranch and it reached an outstanding total of 21,764 acres ten years later. Joel Whitney continued to operate his vast land holdings until his death on July 23, 1924.

Members of the Whitney family occupied the famed “Oaks” mansion until 1946 when the ranch was purchased by a Washington State lumberman. In May 1960, the Spring Valley Ranch was acquired by the Sunset City Corporation and plans were announced for the development of a completely integrated industrial-commercial residential community. Work on the initial phases of this undertaking began in the spring of 1962.

Pioneer ranchers of southwestern Placer County were not primarily interested in crop agriculture. Prior to the coming of the railroads, stock raising was their principal source of income. Several reasons led ranchers to this option.

First, there was an abundance of good grazing land, and many preferred to engage in stock raising rather than the more laborious work of tilling the soil.

Secondly, before the arrival of the railroads, there was no way of getting perishable commodities to market except by slow, plodding ox teams. And lastly, little water was available for irrigating this dry portion of the county until ditches were brought into the region by such organizations as the North Fork Ditch Company. With the advent of the railroads, wheat, hay and other grains particularly adaptable to dry soil were grown. Still later viticulture and horticulture were developed.

East of the San Juan Grant near the juncture of today’s South Cirby Way and Old Auburn Road was the Half Way House, a popular stage and express stop on the Sacramento-Auburn Road. Numerous stock ranches were located in the vicinity of this busy way station, situated midway between Sacramento and Auburn.

The Half Way House was also known as the 18 Mile House. In the days before automobile odometers, the only way the traveling public could gauge distances was by these numbered houses; some public inns, others private residences. Today, only the 12 Mile House (now empty and boarded up) and the 14 Mile House (still a private residence) remain from the bygone era of slow moving teamster wagons and crowded stagecoaches winding their way laboriously over the Sacramento-Auburn Road. The Half Way House remained a busy stage and teamster stop until the advent of the railroad.

Work began in 1855 on what became California’s first railroad, the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which extended 22 miles between Sacramento and its terminal at Folsom. This pioneer line was completed in February of 1856. At Folsom, numerous connecting stage and express lines met trains for transfer of freight and mail to stagecoach and express wagons delivering to up-country locations.

Residents of southwestern Placer County and the mining country lying to the north, however, were far removed from Folsom and benefited little from the Sacramento Valley Railroad and continued pressuring for an extension of that line to meet their needs.

In the spring of 1857, The California Central Railroad Company was formed in Sacramento to extend the Sacramento Valley Railroad from Folsom to Marysville, gateway to the Northern mines.

Charles Lincoln Wilson, who had been a leading force behind the Sacramento Valley Railroad, was the key figure in promoting the California Central. Work began on surveying land between Folsom and Marysville in June 1857, after which rights-of-way were purchased from land owners along the proposed route.

One of these land owners was Tobias S. Grider, whose ranch lay directly along the proposed route. Grider, well aware of the increased value of his lands by the coming of the railroad, sold a strip of land six rods wide for $1. The deed of sale also provided for purchase of additional lands, if deemed necessary, for a depot, side tracks and other necessities. Grider’s belief that passage of the railroad through his property would increase its value proved to be correct.

Two years later (November, 1859), he sold his ranch totaling 374.62 acres to Tabb Mitchell, editor and publisher of Auburn’s Placer Herald, and George L. Anderson for $1,500 and left the area. Work started on the first division of five miles in November, 1858. By March, 1859, a work force of 150 laborers had completed grading from Folsom to the Half Way House.

Charles Lincoln Wilson

Within a few short years, railroads began to inch their way through the area. January of 1860 saw grading completed over the entire length of the California Central, followed by laying of track and by April of 1860, rails reached the Half Way House.

At this point, work stopped as the always financially strapped company had run out of money. It would not be until the summer of 1861 that Charles Wilson was able to raise sufficient funds to continue work. To cut expenses, the labor force was reduced from 150 to 90. Many laborers were Chinese who would also work for considerably less money than their white counterparts.

Wilson’s idea of using Chinese labor was later adopted by Charles Crocker when the Central Pacific Railroad was built across the foreboding Sierra Nevada Mountains. Laying rails to the town site of Lincoln took place on Oct. 21, 1861, when once again money ran out. Construction was not able to begin again until December, 1866. In the interim, Lincoln, named for Charles Lincoln Wilson, would develop as a busy railroad terminal for the Central.


While work was slowly progressing on the California Central in 1858, Theodore D. Judah surveyed a route for a proposed Auburn Branch Railroad. He also made a preliminary survey of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which convinced him that a practical route for a transcontinental railroad across this thought-to-be-impossible barrier could be accomplished.

Theodore Judah

Three years later, Judah’s dream of a transcontinental railroad was realized with organization of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. A railroad bill, passing through Congress in July, 1862, led to a contract for the first eighteen miles of track with Crocker & Company on Dec. 27, 1863.

Work commenced on the bank of the Sacramento River at the foot of K Street on Feb. 22, 1864. The route of the first eighteen miles of Central Pacific track would terminate at Tobias S. Grider’s old ranch where a new railroad town called Roseville would soon rise. Crossing the American River by a specially built railroad trestle, the Central Pacific entered Placer County via the “12 Mile Tangent” to Dry Creek which was spanned by four 55-foot bridge sections.

At Grider’s, the Central Pacific intersected with the California Central on Jan. 29, 1864. During this period, many local ranchers, including Henry Holt, James Astill and John Doyle, were engaged in teaming, or hauling materials, and making ties for the railroad. The place where the two railroads crossed was then appropriately designated as “Junction” on railroad maps.

The new tracks were quickly put into use. On April 6, 1864, the locomotive Governor Stanford, with a number of passengers, left the foot of J Street for the eighteen mile trip to “Junction”. This unheralded trip was the pioneer run of the railroad which was destined to become the nation’s first transcontinental line.

By April 26, 1864, trains began running daily from Sacramento to the Junction.

Between that date and April 30, 1868, a total of 298 passengers paid $354.23 to travel Central Pacific rails over the 18-mile route. This sum represented the very first passenger revenues earned by the railroad company. By the end of December, revenue earned on this short run totaled $103,357.

Governor Stanford locomotive

At Junction, the traveling public could transfer to trains on the California Central, with which the Central Pacific intersected on its way from Folsom to Lincoln and later Marysville. Passengers from Lincoln and Marysville could likewise catch the Central Pacific trains here back to the capital city. Completion of the Central Pacific Railroad to Junction on January 29, 1864, rendered that portion of the Central between Folsom and Junction obsolete and it gradually fell into disuse.

In 1869, the Central Pacific acquired California Central holdings. Shortly thereafter, the tracks between Folsom and Junction were taken up and moved to Rocklin for use as spur lines between granite quarries there and the Central Pacific main line. Today, only a few traces of the California Central remain—a small section of road bed on the floodplain near Warren T. Eich Intermediate School and the old railroad cut on today’s Folsom Road between Dry Creek and Atlantic Street.

The Central Pacific was absorbed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1887 and more recently (1996) by the Union Pacific. The historic wood-burning locomotive Governor Stanford has survived the passage of time and is now on permanent display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento as a treasured symbol of our living heritage.

With completion of the Central Pacific Railroad through southwestern Placer County, a marked change occurred in that region. Towns sprang up; settlers came in rapidly; and a new era of prosperity was inaugurated. The region saw the arrival of many new faces that would later play an important role in its development.

George Kirk Cirby, a Roseville pioneer of the 1860s, was born in Pennsylvania in 1826. He crossed the plains to California in 1849 and located in Sacramento in 1850 where he engaged in freighting operations to the mining regions. After his marriage to Mary Jane Newinglam in 1858, Cirby gave up the life of a teamster and moved to Roseville to become a farmer, eventually acquiring 800 acres of land (High Sierra View Ranch) south of town, extending on to the old DeKay place on what is now Sunrise Boulevard.

With his wife and fourteen children, Cirby farmed extensively and at one point owned a large dairy business. He was a charter member of Roseville Lodge No. 203, I.O.O.F. and also served as a trustee for the local elementary school district in the 1880s and 1890s and for several years served as clerk of the board. Cirby died on Feb. 8, 1895 while his wife died twelve years later.

The old Cirby ranch has remained in the hands of the Cirby family until most of it was sold to various real estate developers. Today, the ranch site is largely taken up by modern housing tracts and the sprawling campus of Oakmont High School. Cirby Way and George K. Cirby Elementary School perpetuate the memory of still another Roseville pioneer family.

W.J. "Bill" Doyle and sons jack, Bob and Tom

John Doyle came to California in the 1860s and engaged in stock raising and farming on his ranch which extended from the area where Roseville Square is today. Doyle married Clara Mertes in 1874 and had two children. The family lived on the ranch until 1893 when Doyle purchased the fine two-story brick residence on Church Street built by William Sawtelle.

While many other prominent names were selling their land and leaving town during the bad times of the 1890s, Doyle was content on buying up their land at cheap prices; he believed in the area’s potential for growth. One such acquisition was the bottom portion of the Odd Fellows Building on Pacific Street which he purchased from J.D. Pratt for ten dollars in 1896.

Doyle would not live to see the town he had so much faith in boom, for he died on Feb. 11, 1910. In 1960, part of the Doyle ranch was sold to for the construction of the city’s first shopping center, Roseville Square.


In 1863, James William Kaseberg gave up the freighting business and went into business with Stephen A. Boutwell and William Dunlap raising sheep in the area northeast of present day Roseville. Kaseberg later bought out his partners and through additional purchases and leases created a ranch expanding an impressive 50,000 acres.

His Diamond K Ranch was at one time the largest tract of land acquired in the Sacramento Valley, not based on Mexican land grants. Kaseberg died in 1905. His son, William, donated the land for the Kaseberg Elementary School, Roseville Union High School baseball diamond and Roseville’s Sierra View Country Club. The Kaseberg mansion now serves as the club hall for the Diamond K Mobile Home development.

The junction, located in the heart of a potentially rich agricultural area, was particularly well suited for one of the eagerly sought after freight stations springing up along the Central Pacific’s right of way. This fact did not go unnoticed by Sacramento entrepreneur O.D. Lambard who on August 13, 1864, laid out a new, but largely paper, city with numbered blocks arranged on both sides of the railroad – names were given only to Pacific, Atlantic, Washington, Vernon and Lincoln Streets.

There were no commercial buildings, no private residences, and no man-made improvements. But Lambard was convinced the location of his city would soon attract investors. These investors, he reasoned, would build a prosperous community that, in turn, would attract still more investors, and he would make a great deal of money selling choice lots and blocks. Lambard’s reasoning was sound, at least at the beginning, and gradually a “real” town began to develop.

There are several versions of the manner in which Roseville acquired its name. One states that the town was named for nearby Rose Springs or the ranch of the same name. A second story maintains that the name was bestowed in honor of Rose Maberry, who supposedly was born on the site of Roseville.

Still another version claims that the name was due to a dispute between railroad men over the charms of a pretty waitress called Rose. A fourth account was suggested by Walter F. Fiddyment, a pioneer of 1856. According to Fiddyment, (who admittedly was not present when the name was chosen) the people of the immediate area got together at a picnic to select a better name than Junction. After discussing the matter at some length, it was decided to name the town after the most beautiful girl present – a girl named Rose.

However, the most acceptable explanation seems to be the one offered by Mrs. Cassie Tomer Hill, one of the town’s earliest residents. According to Hill, the name was chosen because of the many wild roses which grew profusely in ravines in and around town. Support for this version may be found in early newspaper comments which refer to the preponderance of wild flowers in the vicinity of Roseville.

The first mention of Roseville in the newspapers by that name appeared during the presidential race of 1864. In November of that year it was disclosed that the people of Roseville and vicinity had cast 29 votes for the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, while the Democratic nominee, General George McClellan received 17 votes.

The first building to be erected at Roseville Junction was a crude, unpainted shed used as a depot and freight shipping station by Cyrus W. Taylor, who usually is referred to as Roseville’s first resident. It was located in the “Y” formed at the junction of the north and east bound lines of the Central Pacific Railroad. This pioneer edifice was the first building of any kind to be constructed by the Central Pacific Company and ranchers soon began utilizing its shipping facilities. No photographs of Roseville’s first structure have survived the passage of time.

Shortly after the establishment of the freight depot at Roseville Junction, Daniel Van Treese purchased lots in 1864 and the small building he constructed became Roseville’s first hotel. Van Treese stayed in Roseville less than a year before selling his properties to William Alexander Thomas and moving to Rocklin upon hearing that it was to be the division point for the Central Pacific Railroad.

W. A. Thomas Store

Roseville’s pioneer store was opened in 1865 by W.A. Thomas, who for the previous 16 years had operated the 15 Mile House near today’s Sylvan-Corners.

After the arrival of the railroad, which drastically reduced the teamster traffic to the 15 Mile House, Thomas sold the property and moved to the Roseville Junction in 1865 and opened The Old Thomas Store on the corner of Atlantic and Lincoln Streets.

Besides the typical services of a pioneer store, Thomas’ store for a time provided the town’s post office and the second floor of the store offered rooms for rent.

Thomas also acted as a buyer for the surrounding grain farmers as well as operating a wagon and carriage shop. His son Lee Dignis Thomas entered the mercantile business in 1870 and for many years the firm of W.A. Thomas & Son was one of Roseville’s three leading business establishments.


In February of 1869, Jonathan D. Pratt took over the Thomas store while

Jonathan Davis Pratt

Thomas retained control of the hotel which he had operated in conjunction with his general merchandising business. Less than a month had passed before an announcement in the Placer Herald revealed that Thomas had re-entered the mercantile field at the same old stand.

Pratt then commenced construction of a fine wooden building on the corner of Pacific and Lincoln Streets, and Roseville’s second store was officially dedicated on May 20, 1870 with a ball described as being “one of the largest and most pleasant ever given in the County.”


While Roseville was going about the business of building a town, the community began to lay the foundation of its social structure. Prior to 1865, Roseville had no school of its own, but on October 16 of that year, classes were held regularly in a barn on the Dudley Ranch. A. Nash was the teacher of this pioneer school, receiving for his services a monthly stipend of $55 and board.

By 1867, V.E. Bangs replaced A. Nash as school master. The town still had no school house of its own, but since school exhibitions were held at a building called Union Hall, it is not unlikely that classes moved there from Dudley’s Ranch.

School enrollment by 1869 had increased to forty children. Under the existing state law, when an area had fifteen children, a school district could be formed. Roseville, which until then was included within the limits of the Dry Creek District, made full use of its rights under the law, and a signed petition was presented to the Board of Supervisors requesting the formation of a local school district.

The petition was approved and on May 3, 1869, the Roseville School District was created. With the creation of the Roseville School District, the need for a more permanent school became clearly evident. Talk circulated freely throughout the community about the possibility of erecting a good substantial school, which could also be used as a place of worship since the town had no established church.

Elder Woodruff served as the town’s spiritual leader at the time. Roseville’s first recorded marriage ceremony took place on Oct. 6, 1869, when Elder Woodruff joined Daniel and Melinda Baxter in holy wedlock. It is quite likely that Elder Woodruff also presided over graveyard services at the local cemetery, which was situated at what is now the corner of Douglas Boulevard and Folsom Road (site of the Roseville Square shopping center).

When this pioneer cemetery came into existence is not known, but it is very possible that the cemetery was used by the settlers of the Dry Creek District and surrounding areas as far back as the 1850s.

Maintenance of law and order for the embryo town was under the direct supervision of township officers. James Hovey and R. Fletcher, who served the Roseville area in 1865, were probably the town’s first township officers. By 1869, township officers for Township No. 1, which included Roseville and Allen’s District, were R. A. Woodruff, voting inspector; B. W. Neff, judge; Thomas Dudley, judge; C. W. Schellhouse, first alternate; R. J. Fletcher, second alternate; and Daniel Coleman, third alternate. These township officers were the forerunners of hundreds who would follow in ensuing years.

The first crime to be recorded in the vicinity of the newly established town of Roseville occurred in January of 1869, when Mr. Cross, proprietor of the nearby 15 Mile House, reported being robbed of $100, his watch, some jewelry and other miscellaneous items. Law enforcement for the most part, however, proved to be relatively simple, for Roseville was inclined to be a peaceful community.

However in an era when there was a great deal of free, unfenced government land to be had for the asking, and boundaries not clearly defined, conflicting land claims were the rule, rather than the exception. Several cases of “jumping ranches” were reported in the vicinity of Roseville in 1868-1869. One writer reported three claims in his immediate neighborhood that had no less than six people claiming ownership.

Increased agricultural development in 1869, coupled with an accompanying increase in business activity for Roseville’s pioneer merchants, stimulated a wave of new business development for the town. Roseville displayed signs of becoming an important shipping center for a rapidly growing agricultural district. Among the more prominent businesses to be established in 1869 were the Roseville Hotel and Charles Keehner’s blacksmith shop.

Daniel S. Neff

Established by Daniel S. Neff in 1869, the Roseville Hotel served as one of Roseville’s two leading hostelries throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Neff operated the Roseville Hotel until 1878, at which time he sold out to J.B.R. Davis. The year 1869 also saw the establishment of a blacksmith shop on the corner of Vernon and Lincoln Streets by B.W. Neff, which later became widely known under the name of Charlie Keehner’s Blacksmith Shop.

After two years of working for Neff, Keehener bought out his former employer. For 30 years, Keehner operated the blacksmith and systematically bought up business lots along Vernon Street, which he later sold when the railroad shops were being moved to Roseville from Rocklin in 1907.


Of all the new towns cropping up along the railroad, Roseville’s future seemed brightest. Located at the junction of two railroads with plenty of open land for future expansion, Roseville appeared to be ideally situated for a major railroad center replete with roundhouses and other facilities. This was Theodore Judah’s view point when he ran his survey through the area.

O.D. Lambard expected this too when he purchased the site for a town. Businessmen like Thomas and Van Treese also believed in Roseville’s potential when they moved their places of business to the new town. Numerous investors who bought up choice lots and, on occasion, entire blocks for investment purposes likewise had high hopes for Roseville’s future.

It came as a shock then when Rocklin, not Roseville, was selected as the site for the major railroad facility in Placer County. On Nov. 2, 1863, Theodore Judah, chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad died in New York as a result of fever contracted while crossing the Isthmus of Panama. His successors, the “Big 4” of railroad fame (Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, and C.P. Huntington) ignored Judah’s recommendation in favor of Rocklin.

As a result of this fateful decision, Rocklin would develop as Placer County’s major railroad center and a city of importance second only to Auburn. Roseville, on the other hand, would find its growth severely curtailed, limited primarily to being just another one of the ubiquitous railroad shipping stations along the railroad’s right-of-way.

The question then arises, “Why did the railroad locate its roundhouse and other terminal facilities at the less desirable Rocklin site, some four miles distant from the junction, instead of at the more logical Roseville site?” The reasonable conclusion is that Rocklin was chosen because the foothills begin there, where helper engines were attached to trains for the long haul over the Sierras’ summit.

Major consideration was also given to the fact that Rocklin’s extensive granite deposits, largely untapped before the arrival of the railroad, could provide considerable revenue for the then financially strapped railroad. From the beginning, however, it was obvious the “Granite City” was far from being an ideal location.

But it was not until 1906 that a two-year transfer of terminal facilities from Rocklin to Roseville began, thus putting Roseville on track to becoming the major rail center Judah had prophesied some 43 years earlier. Fate sometimes has a strange way of affecting history. Judah’s premature death kept Roseville from becoming one of the most important railroad centers on the West Coast for nearly half a century.

The announcement that Rocklin, not Roseville, had been selected as the division point for the Central Pacific Railroad in Placer County was met with mixed reactions.

Some, like Daniel Van Treese, packed up and moved to Rocklin. Sales of choice building lots for investment purposes declined somewhat, which led O. D. Lambard to dispose of the unsold portions of his town to G. T. M. Davis in 1871.Others, however, were more optimistic.

While conceding that Roseville was not going to become the important railroad center that everyone had expected, they remained convinced the steady agricultural development that showed no signs of waning would ensure Roseville’s future as a trading center for area farmers and ranchers.

IOOF Building

As a result, between 1870 and 1879, Roseville experienced the “slow but sure” development which characterized many California towns in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Gradually a town of substance and stability would emerge. New construction already underway and reported in the Placer Herald of Jan. 1, 1870 included a new hotel being erected by Daniel S. Neff, who had formerly operated the 17 Mile House.

One of the more prominent buildings erected during this period was J.D. Pratt’s store and hall opposite Neff’s hotel. Pratt, a dedicated member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.), played an integral part in obtaining a local chapter in Roseville. Formal application for a charter was filed on May 16, 1872 and approved on June 26, 1872. The organizational meeting of Roseville Lodge No. 203, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, convened in the hall above Pratt’s store and Pratt himself was elected as the organization’s first secretary.

Other businesses established in 1870 included Captain Brown’s dry goods store (part of which was to be used as a millinery shop by his daughter), R.J. Fletcher’s livery stable and Thomas A. Berry’s Saloon.

Tom Bery

Berry accompanied his parents to Roseville in 1863 where his father was reported to have been the town’s first justice of the peace. After marrying, Berry opened Roseville’s first barber shop (1875); a one-story structure on Atlantic Street. He later opened and operated “The Corner Saloon” near his barber shop. Berry tore down his original saloon in October 1881 and built a fine billiard hall and saloon on its site, which he operated until his death on Oct. 28, 1892.

The year 1870 also saw the completion of a little-heralded building by W.J. Branstetter which played an important role in the subsequent history of Roseville. Branstetter moved to Roseville after failing in the gold mines like many others before him. On land acquired adjacent to the railroad, he erected the Golden Eagle Saloon and Lodging House on the site of Van Treese’s original hotel building on Atlantic Street.

He later built a two-story building at the corner of Pacific and Washington Streets in 1873 with the bottom floor serving as a general merchandising business while the upper floor served as the town’s social center under the name of “Branstetter’s Hall”. The Golden Eagle Saloon and the Lodging House later passed into the hands of William Scott so Branstetter could focus on his Pacific Street business.

W.J. Branstetter

Along with Thomas and Pratt, Branstetter acted as buyer and shipper for neighboring ranchers, extended credit, lent money at reasonable interest rates when times were bad, and performed many services usually associated with banking institutions. Branstetter also operated a lumber and brick business adjacent to his hall as well as operating a 160-acre farm.

Branstetter left Roseville in 1893 for Dunsmuir in Northern California, which was suffering the same railroad growing pains similar to what Roseville experienced earlier. Slowly, he disposed his Roseville interests and spent the remaining years of his life in Dunsmuir until his death in 1925. Today, the only remainder of this pioneer merchant and businessman is a small street, Branstetter Street, between Dry Creek and Atlantic Street.


A new ticket and baggage office was established at the railroad station in 1874, replacing Cyrus Taylor’s original building. This edifice was built by John Louis Bulens, a native of Belgium, and a resident of Roseville since the mid-1860s.

Depot 1874

The story of how this depot came into being bears retelling. The fledgling Central Pacific Railroad was hard on funds to build the depot, yet freight passenger traffic was essential to the success of the railroad. Somehow new and improved depots had to be built. It was at this point that the Central Pacific came up with a unique solution. To anyone who would undertake construction of a depot building, permission would be granted to the builder to operate a business establishment on the premise.

Bulens stepped up and created a design requiring little funds; thus, he was granted the right to operate a restaurant and saloon in part of the building. The “Junction Saloon” served as a social meeting spot for many of the young men of Roseville. Bulens took a partner in running the saloon, Henry Barrett, after his wife died. When Bulens died, Barrett took over the saloon and continued to operate it until 1907 when the old building was replaced with a new one. Barrett took part of the saloon building and moved it to Atlantic Street and reopened it under the name “Old Depot Saloon” Current day Bulen Street is named after this pioneer resident.

Completion of the new depot did much to lessen the contempt some railroad employees had for Roseville or “Roseville Junction,” as they still called it. Brakemen, in particular, were not overly impressed with the small community and its small depot; in fact, they would enter “JUNK shun” in their train log books and would emphasize “JUNK” when calling out “Junction” upon arrival at the depot. The new depot did much to resolve this problem, along with explicit orders from San Francisco to cease this practice.

Woodruff Shoe Repair Shop

By 1875, it was generally recognized that Roseville was destined to become one of the most important towns in Placer County. The buildings at that time were still principally made of wood but it was believed that as the town grew older more substantial edifices of stone and brick would take their place.

Principal businesses in 1875 included: W.J. Branstetter, who besides operating a saloon and lodging house also dealt in lumber, sash, etc.; F. Horn, a stone and tinware store; D.S. Neff, proprietor of the Roseville Hotel; J.D. Pratt, dealer in general merchandise as well as being the local postmaster; Thomas & Son, general merchandise; J.R. Watson & Co., saloon and depot eating house; and Woodruff’s shoe shop. Roseville continued to grow and develop throughout the remaining years of the decade. During the winter of 1877-1878, another new manufactory was established.

Shortly thereafter, all building activity was temporarily brought to a halt by one of the severest storms in the town’s history. The rain was described as “falling in torrents,” and the wind as being “little less than a hurricane.” Tom McBride’s hay barn, near present day Antelope, was blown down. A house belonging to Robert Jones was carried off its foundation. The new harrow factory did not escape the storm and sustained massive damage.

The rains, which continued through spring, however proved to have extremely beneficial qualities for farmers of the region. Alexander Bell McRae, farming two miles east of town, reported obtaining a yield of 30 bushels of barley and 25 bushels of wheat to the acre, while Mr. Decay reported yields of 20 bushels of wheat to the acre. Under such favorable conditions, Roseville experienced an unprecedented building boom throughout the spring and summer of 1878.

During the month of April, 1878, Thomas & Son erected and put into operation a wagon, carriage and paint shop below their store on Atlantic Street. Earlier, Pratt had announced that he intended to build a “brick store” due to booming business. Four years later, construction began on Roseville’s first three-story brick building and it was completed in late 1878.

Completion of this historic structure marked the transition of the town from a small freight shipping station to the beginnings of a town of substance, a fact which did not go unnoticed in area newspapers. Auburn’s Placer Herald noted that completion of the edifice “shows a disposition on the part of those erecting it to stay and build a town,” while the Sacramento Union reflected that “our neighboring town of Roseville is branching out into the substantial in the matter of building – changing from wood to brick in their construction.”

A unique arrangement was made between Pratt and the I.O.O.F. regarding the building – Pratt would build and maintain the lower floor as a warehouse while the I.O.O.F. would retain the upper floors as a lodge hall. The dedication of the Odd Fellow’s Hall, as it came to be called, took place on January 16, 1879. The multi-story brick building was the first commercial brick structure in Roseville’s short history. Pratt would eventually sell out to William Sawtelle and P.V. Siggins in 1890.

The I.O.O.F. met continuously in this hall on Pacific Street until 1942 when it purchased the Women’s Improvement Club house on Main Street. Since that time, the old hall has been closed.  It was purchased by the Roseville Development Corporation in 2017 in hopes of renovating the city's oldest standing building.

April of 1878 also saw an announcement that W.J. Branstetter had recently constructed a building intended to be used as a dry goods store. Mark Neher came to occupy the Branstetter building where he operated a saloon. Later (1899), a Mrs. Caraven opened a bakery there as did June Sawtelle, who subsequently acquired the property.

From this time on, the edifice was generally referred to as the “Bakery Building.” Mrs. Sawtelle sold out to George Simi in October 1907 who continued the bakery business until Aug. 24, 1911 when a destructive fire wiped out most of the business establishments on Pacific Street.

J.B.R. Davis bought Daniel S. Neff’s original Roseville Hotel in 1878, reportedly for “two mules and a wagon”. The old structure was torn down and work commenced on a new two-story building near the Oregon track with the lower part of the new structure to be used as a saloon. The building was completed in August 1878 and opened for business under its former title – Roseville Hotel.

School house (1872)

Several other frame buildings were erected during the summer of 1878, but by the end of the year, brick had begun to replace frame construction. W.J. Branstetter reported burning over 400,000 bricks in his kilns during a twelve month period. Pratt & Dyer reported that by September of 1879, they had burned 500,000 bricks which afforded employment to between eight and ten laborers. Dudley operated still yet another kiln on Dry Creek. Building activity continued at an accelerated rate with no end in sight.

The rapidly growing community soon found that its little one-room school house, of which it had once been so proud, could no longer adequately meet the educational needs of the fast growing district. A new $2,000 brick building was subsequently built in 1879 to replace the original frame structure built in 1872. S.J. Pullens moved into the new brick building where he taught the upper grades.

Roseville’s lone physician was Dr. Taylor, the uncle of W.A. Thomas’ wife who persuaded him to move to Roseville and became the town’s first official practicing physician. After his death, it would be years before another physician replaced him. Only one serious shortcoming was noted; at this time, a pressing need for a flour mill. Although producing large amounts of wheat, over one half of the town’s flour supply had to be teamed in from Sacramento.

McIntosh home

Population kept pace with the increased building activity. Between January 1877 and January 1878, the population of Roseville had increased by 50. By 1880, the total number of people living in and around Roseville reached approximately 258. Many new homes were erected during the decade, including those of such prominent citizens as Charles Keehner, A.D. Neher, A.B. McRae and William McIntosh.

The old McIntosh home was erected in 1876 by Dan McBride. McIntosh came to Roseville with McRae in 1876, where McIntosh engaged in farming until his death in 1896. He married Alice Entwistle and in 1880, they purchased the family home at 205 Washington Street. Mrs. Hazel McIntosh Kuhlman, daughter of William McIntosh, recalls that when she was a small girl, a barn occupied part of the lot, along with the inevitable back yard pump, which until the establishment of a municipal water system in 1909, supplied the family with its water.

This pioneer residence was believed to have been one of the oldest residences in Roseville. Its site is now occupied by a convenience market.

As the decade rapidly drew to an end, Roseville was described as a “quiet, pleasant, unassuming little place,” and while making “no glamorous pretensions to greatness,” it was generally conceded that it had a promising future.

Roseville continued its “slow but sure” development throughout most of the 1880s. The opening year of the decade was significant in that on May 22, 1880, the community’s pioneer newspaper, The Roseville Farmer, was established under the editorship of Samuel J. Pullen. The Farmer must have been a short-lived paper for no further mention of it appeared in either the Placer Herald or Sacramento Union.

Near the end of the year, work was started on a brewery for the town and shortly thereafter, Mr. Scott began construction on a brick billiard hall on his lot on the corner of Atlantic and Lincoln Streets. W.J. Branstetter also completed a new store in July, 1881. Three months later, Tom Berry tore down his old building he built in 1870 and began construction of a fine, large billiard hall and saloon on its site.

A touch of civic pride was reflected in 1881 when the townspeople erected a flag pole, some 83 feet high, in front of the Golden Eagle Hotel, opposite the town square. The town square, or public park, was a favorite gathering place for many local inhabitants, particularly after 1881 when the “Sunday Law” prohibiting drinking on the Sabbath was strictly enforced.

Townsmen who usually met on Sunday at one of Roseville’s saloons now found the doors padlocked. Having nothing better to do, they would adjourn to the public park where some 30 or 40 of them would spend the day sitting on the fence surrounding the park, exchanging stories.

In spite of the hardships, real or fancied, brought about by the passage of the “Sunday Law,” Roseville residents still found time to go about the business of building a town.

Dr. Niles announced his intention in 1882 of constructing a building which reportedly was to be used as a drug store. A number of other new buildings also were reported to have been built in the surrounding area during the course of the year.

Roseville's original Presbyterian Church

The most noteworthy constructions were the First Methodist Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church.

Prior to 1882, Roseville had no church building of its own. Services were conducted regularly at the school house by various ministers. The Reverend H.L. Gregory, of the Methodist Church, was Roseville’s first resident minister.

When he arrived in Roseville in 1880, he found a congregation containing only six or seven members. By 1882, under the leadership of Rev. Gregory, plans were laid for a permanent church. Mrs. Anna F. Judah donated a lot on the corner of Washington and Church streets, and work soon began on Roseville’s pioneer church – the First Methodist Episcopal Church.

Bricks for the walls were made by J.D. Pratt in his brick yard. Much of the carpentry work and brick laying was donated. Dedication of the $2,500 Methodist Church took place in March of 1883. Local saloons closed down for the event, and Dr. Jewell had the saloon keepers subscribe donations against each other, raising $900 at the event. The foundation of Roseville’s second church, the Presbyterian Church, was laid in December of 1882.


Two new warehouses were constructed by A.B. McRae and Cassie Tomer Hill in 1883 to accommodate the ever increasing amounts of grain that were being hauled into town.

McRae had been a farmer in Roseville since 1876. Besides farming, he engaged in the breeding of fine horses – such as Morgan, Percheron, Clyde and English Coach – and participated in hay and grain wholesale business for which he built a brick warehouse on railroad property along Atlantic Street.

Cassie Tomer Hill

Hill arrived in Roseville in 1881 where her husband was appointed depot agent and telegrapher after the 1880 death of Cyrus Taylor. Her husband died in 1885 and in spite of many voicing their concern, Hill took over her husband’s job as telegrapher and station agent. She quickly erased any lingering doubt with her competent manner in running the station.

During her appointment, she resided and raised her family in the depot building until 1907 when a new depot was built. The affection Hill held for her home of so many years was reflected in a poem, “The Old Depot,” which she penned and published in the Roseville Register in March, 1907.


As far as we have been able to determine, Hill served as the only female agent along the vast Central Pacific Railroad system. On top of her station duties, she performed as a Wells Fargo agent for the next 22 years. She retired and lived in a two-story building on Lincoln Street with her residence situated above a space utilized over the years for different stores.

Jesse Blair, pioneer businessman of Roseville, was instrumental in the establishment of three new businesses in 1883. Blair moved to Roseville in 1879 and engaged in various business activities which included operating a saloon for a time. Then in 1883, in partnership with William LaDue, he opened the Rialto Livery Stable, Rialto Saloon and Rialto Meat Market.

In 1905, Blair and pioneer Roseville orchardist Lewis Leroy King Sr. opened what was perhaps the first formal real estate and insurance office in town. For a time, 1906-1907, he also served as assistant manager of the popular Western Hotel, but for the most part, the remaining years of his life were spent in the real estate business.

Meanwhile, the Rialto Livery Stable (1891) had been rented by James Way. Still later (1899), it was operated by George Ireland. Dietrich & Harris took over active management of the business in 1903 and operated it until 1906 when the property was purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

Blair and Rialto Saloon

 

At that time the livery stable and most other buildings on Atlantic Street were torn down or moved so that Atlantic Street could be moved back 100 feet to accommodate railroad expansion. One year after Blair & LaDue had opened their Rialto Saloon, Rialto Livery Stable and Rialto Meat Market, work was finally started on a flouring mill by Frey Bros. & Co., an industry which the town had long coveted.


Fire destroyed McRae’s barn in March, 1885 and the following year saw the destruction of the new Roseville Roller Flouring Mill at a loss estimated around $40,000.This was a serious blow to local industry, for the recently completed mill held much promise for increasing trade to Roseville which had formerly gone to Sacramento.

As serious as this loss was to local aspirations, the town still considered itself lucky to have escaped the destruction of fire which her neighboring communities of Rocklin, Lincoln, Sheridan and Auburn suffered during the latter part of the nineteenth century. During this period, when small towns were characterized by flimsy constructed frame and by little or no fire protection, the danger of fire was an ever-present threat. Yet, throughout this period, Roseville, without even the benefit of a volunteer fire brigade, almost totally escaped the ravage of fire, with but a few exceptions.

The explanation for this good fortune lies in the town’s size, rather than by any effectively preventive measures. Roseville was a small community, consisting almost entirely of private homes, spaced at convenient distances from one another. If a dwelling or business house caught on fire, there was little danger of the flame spreading. What few fires that did occur during this period were usually confined to one building and caused little damage to the town as a whole.

Although appreciably shaken by the destruction of their highly prized flour mill in 1886, local businessmen showed their faith in the permanence of the community by constructing several new business buildings during the remaining years of the decade.

Fitzgerald House

Such a businessman was J.M. Fitzgerald, who owned and operated a blacksmith shop on Pacific Street. On Nov. 20, 1886, Fitzgerald was granted permission by the I.O.O.F. Lodge and J.D. Pratt, proprietors of the top and ground floors of the Odd Fellows Hall building to use the west side of their walls for a brick edifice he intended to build adjacent to the Odd Fellows building.

Following completion of his two-story brick building, Fitzgerald constructed a new blacksmith shop on Pacific Street in 1887, presumably on the site of his old shop which dated back to 1878. Fitzgerald operated his blacksmith business until the fall of 1890 when he came to an untimely death. Utilized principally as a saloon, the brick building was purchased from Catherine Fitzgerald (widow of J.M. Fitzgerald) by John Herring in February 1899.

Herring, a farmer in the Roseville district since 1893, later became associated with William Sawtelle in the merchandising business. Following the removal of the railroad shop from Rocklin to Roseville between 1906 and 1908, John Herring entered the real estate business, a profession he followed until his death in 1935. The saloon, which occupied the ground floor of the two-story building, was operated, for the most part, by Herring’s brother P.E. Herring, first under the name Model Saloon and Café and later as the Up-to-Date Saloon. Like most other buildings on Pacific Street, the Up-to-Date Saloon was destroyed by fire in August, 1911.


The year 1887 saw the reopening of Morgan’s skating rink on Atlantic Street, a short distance below Tom Phillips’ saloon and livery stable. Tom Phillips, a native of England, arrived on the Pacific Coast in the early days and helped start the historic Saddle Rock restaurant in Sacramento which recently gave way to that city’s redevelopment. Phillips moved to Roseville in the 1880s where he operated the Bee Hive Saloon and Livery Stable on Atlantic Street. The traveling public could rest their horses in the shade of the canopied shelter in front of his saloon while they drank inside.

Phillip's Saloon

Phillip’s saloon and livery stable were among Roseville’s leading business establishments during the later decades of the nineteenth century. He continued to operate the Bee Hive until 1906 when the railroad expansion forced Atlantic Street to be moved back 100 feet. He sold the building to Joe Harris and opened a new livery business on Lincoln Street.

Phillips commenced construction on a new saloon on Vernon Street in 1907 but died days after its opening. Joe Harris moved the old Beehive Saloon to the corner of Vernon and Bulen Streets where, in April 1907, he reopened the establishment under the name of the Shady Corner Saloon. For many years the building was used as a secondhand store. In the 1930s, it was torn down however to make way for a service station.

The railroad industry continued to develop when the Southern Pacific Railroad absorbed the Central Pacific Railroad in 1887. Thomas & Son, J.D. Pratt and W.J. Branstetter continued as leading suppliers of Roseville’s mercantile needs. Several saloons, two hotels and three blacksmith shops, including the shop later known as the Ed Hammill Blacksmith Shop, comprised the town’s other leading business establishments.

Hammill blacksmith shop

Hammill, a native of Indiana, came to Roseville in 1880 where he worked at J.M. Fitzgerald’s blacksmith shop on Pacific Street. He bought the T.M. Brown properties and established his own blacksmith shop which he continually operated until 1907 when he sold it to A.B. McRae and John Hill and acquired a new, larger shop across the tracks.

Two or three years later Hammill sold this shop and built a new one at Main and Washington streets in 1909. He operated in this blacksmith until 1923 when he sold the structure to A.E. Zonneyville and turned over the blacksmith shop business to Mr. Zonneyville’s son-in-law Harry J. Schmeling. Hammill retired to his home where he sold and repaired farm implements from a small building on his property.


The population for Roseville and vicinity had increased to 500 people by 1888, representing an increase of 150 over 1883. The population of the town itself, however, still remained at about 250. The “slow but sure” development which had characterized Roseville from its earliest days had begun to wane.

Not a single new building of any importance was constructed in 1888, nor was there any major construction reported in the files of the Herald or Union for the following year. As the decade drew to an end, Roseville seemed to have reached the maximum growth necessary for its position as the distribution point for the surrounding agricultural region.

W.M. Sawtell store

By 1890, it had become clearly evident that if further growth and development were to take place in Roseville, the townspeople would have to develop the community’s industrial potential, which remained largely untouched.

Roseville “has a promising future,” wrote one farseeing individual in February 1890, “if she would only make use of her many natural advantages to secure the establishment of a box factory, winery, flouring mill and/or other such projects which would realize additional revenue for the town.

”This perceptive advice did not go unheeded, and between 1890 and 1905 several very important steps were taken, notably in the fields of agriculture, which did much to ensure the continuation of Roseville’s economic growth and development.

The opening months of the year 1890, however, gave little indication of the increased activity that was to come. During the long rainy season of 1889-1890, business activity was at a standstill. Whether this was one contributing factor in J.D. Pratt’s decision to sell his long established business is not known, but in any event, the pioneer merchant sold out to William Sawtell and P.V. Siggins that long, dreary winter.

As the ravages of winter continued, many townspeople came down with “La Grippe,” and the town’s two doctors, Ballou and Finney, had their hands full taking care of the sick. The rainy season finally began to abate in March, and the town gradually shook off the effects of the terrible winter.

Businesses soon began to pick up again after the terrible winter. J.M. Fitzgerald, Ed Hammill and a Mr. Edwards, who operated the town’s three blacksmith shops, all reported doing flourishing business as surrounding farmers began to flock into town.

However, hovering over this façade of a return to good times was a cloud of gloom. In March of 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, followed by the National Cordage Company. In May, a number of banks failed and the resulting shortage of credit led to many other business failures. Within a short time, some 20 percent of America’s labor force was unemployed, in what was to become the worst depression in our nation’s history at the time. The Panic affected farmers from all over the nation. Overproduction of wheat and other farm products, coupled with a nationwide depressed economy, resulted in farm prices falling below the cost of production.

The Panic had a disastrous effect upon Roseville’s economy, which largely depended on agriculture. In the absence of any bank, local merchants J.D. Pratt, W.A. Thomas and W.J. Branstetter acted as unofficial bankers, carrying farmers’ and ranchers’ accounts on the books until the harvest was in. However, since overproduction caused the panic, farmers could not meet their obligations, which had a profound effect on local merchants who subsequently could not meet their own loan and mortgage payments.

Pratt, who had seen bad times coming back in 1890, disposed of his business interests and left town. Branstetter, in deep financial trouble, sold out for whatever he could get and left for Dunsmuir. During these troubled times, many discouraged locals were giving up and leaving town, selling out for low prices and, in many instances, just walking away from bad situations.

Many people had fallen on hard times, but it seemed their luck began to change when news reached Roseville that Jesse Blair had discovered gold in paying quantities near town. Shortly thereafter, additional specimens of ore were reported to have been taken from a bed of gravel half a mile from the community. These, and similar reports, changed Roseville from a lethargic little village to a virtual beehive of activity. Speculators poured into town from the metropolitan areas to investigate the reports.


By 1894, the mounting interest in mining had reached “gold craze” proportions near Roseville. Mining interest continued on a high plane throughout 1897, but from that time on, little or no activity was reported. Whether the gold deposits were quickly exhausted, or the ore proved to be of such low grade as to make mining unprofitable, has not been determined, but in any event, Roseville’s mining boom ended as abruptly as it began. The only traces of Roseville’s short-lived mining industry still remaining are a few piles of overgrown tailings located along the Roseville Freeway, just north of town.


While Roseville was engaged in its brief but spectacular mining boom, a less spectacular but more permanent development was taking place in the field of agriculture. On Jan. 5, 1895, the Placer Herald revealed that Mr. F.W. Staunton of Orangevale had shipped the first commercial carload of fruit (oranges) from the Roseville depot. From this initial shipment, the fruit shipping business played an increasingly important role in the economy of Roseville, which, until then had almost solely been dependent upon surrounding grain and stock ranches for its existence.

The newly-organized fruit shipping business continued to expand throughout the summer of 1896. Three companies, the Co-op, Loomis Fruit Growers Union and the Porter Brothers, had representatives in town, and it was expected that a great deal of fruit would be shipped from Roseville that season. Fruit growing until 1899 was on a limited scale, mainly for home use, but the heavy harvest that season seemed to assure continued growth.

The Schnabel Brothers, who at that time were the sole shippers at Roseville, opened the season on May 8 with a shipment of cherries. Later, peaches, two thousand crates of prunes and an experimental shipment of plums left from the Roseville depot. W.A. Clark managed the Schnabel Brothers local packing house which was housed in the old Thomas wagon, carriage and paint shop on Atlantic Street.

S.S. King and his wife Annie

One of the first and most important commercial orchards in the vicinity of Roseville was established by Lewis Leroy King, Sr. in 1890. King moved to Roseville with wife Catherine Heller in 1890 and set up 11,000 fruit trees – cherries, peaches, apricots, plums, almonds and figs at his home (Elm Court) on the old Tassie ranch. King was responsible for establishing the first permanent real estate and insurance business in Roseville in 1890.

His role proved to be instrumental in the organization of the Roseville Telephone Company along with Gottlieb Hanisch and others later in 1910. King acquired a bell in 1890 from an abandoned church in Sacramento which he used to call the hired men in from the eighty acre orchard. In later years it became a town custom to ring this bell on New Year’s Eve, a practice that Mrs. King continued until her death in 1941.

When the railroad boom struck Roseville in 1906, King subdivided his orchard into what is now the Cherry Glen section of the community and gave his daughter Lelia the task of naming the streets.

Another early day orchard in Roseville was that of Willis Albert Clark, who erected a fine home on the corner of what is now Oak and Judah Streets in 1895. Clark had been successful in various lines of agriculture, and as a cattleman and a horseman before turning his attention to commercial activities in Roseville by 1908. Between that year and 1917, Clark engaged in a very successful livery business with Howard H. Stone, until the advent of the automobile.

After 1917, Clark remained active in agriculture and was the owner of three full-bearing vineyards which were operated by his sons. He was one of the organizers of the Railroad National Bank of Roseville (1921) and served as director. Clark later died on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1930. Today, his residence on Oak Street, is occupied by Lee Photography. His daughters, Mrs. Iva Knapp and Mrs. Elva Heller, lived in the old family residence until 1962.

The excitement generated by Roseville’s short gold rush, coupled with increased activities in the field of horticulture and viticulture precipitated an increased interest in the commercial and industrial development of the community which had remained static since 1888.

Ross Store

One of the first people to capitalize on the influx of people to Roseville following Jesse Blair’s discovery of gold, was Aaron Ross. According to his granddaughter, Mrs. Iva Maguire, Ross acquired J.B.R. Davis’ Roseville Hotel from a man named Payne in May, 1891 and reopened the old establishment under its new name – The Ross Hotel.

The Ross House, as it was more commonly called, served as one of Roseville’s major hostelries until it was consumed by flames in July, 1898. The Ross House was a popular gathering point for locals to socialize and where children could come and pet Ross’ two pet deer.

The Ross House burned in 1898 but construction of a new hotel began immediately and The Western Hotel opened in 1899 under the management of Ross’ son-in-law C.H. Barker. Ross retired to his home located on Lincoln Street until his wife’s death where he then moved to live with his son in Santa Cruz. Widely popular among residents, Ross played in integral role in the I.O.O.F. and the Farmer’s Grange.

Shortly after the construction of the Ross House, W.J. Branstetter installed Roseville’s first telephone in his place of business. Little commercial activity was reported between June 1891 and April 1893, but by the latter date the mounting gold craze, which drew hosts of newcomers to Roseville, had severely overtaxed the town’s limited facilities. As a result, Roseville’s long dormant building industry quickly revived.

The enterprising Branstetter opened a new lumber yard behind his hall on Pacific Street. Between the months of July and October, Branstetter disposed more than 40 carloads of lumber. The Towle Brothers bought out Branstetter in October 1893 and immediately announced their intention of building a fine office and residence for their local agent, E.A. Dickey.

Six years later (1899), the vast Towle Brothers lumbering firm purchased Royer, Siggins and Sawtelle’s brick industry. From the first of the year to September 1899, more than 600,000 bricks were manufactured at the Towle Brothers Roseville Plant.

Roseville’s industrial development continued when Jerry Gremore secured a contract in August 1893 for cutting and pitting peaches obtained from the Orangevale colony. A large force of girls reported to be working for Gremore at this time. Four months later Will Butler constructed a slaughter house on the hilltop site now occupied by the main building of Roseville High School.

The year 1894 opened on an air of prosperity for the continued growth of Roseville. Mounting interest in mining had reached “gold craze” proportions; the hotels were crowded; and the town was reportedly “full of strangers,” some of whom proposed to stay. Thomas, Roseville’s pioneer merchant and leading booster, spent many hours acting as a “one man Chamber of Commerce” speaking the praises of Roseville to any passerby who would listen.

Under this wave of optimism, Roseville continued to grow and flourish. Warren Bee opened a new store in March, 1894. Five months later Mrs. Berry reopened the Golden Eagle (Scott) Hotel, after first having made extensive repairs. N. Stevenson purchased Bee’s store in September and the following month Leonard & Ross opened a new butcher shop in the Berry building. William T. Butler also opened a meat market in 1894 near the corner of Lincoln and Vernon Streets.

Roseville’s pioneer merchant and most enthusiastic supporter, W.A. Thomas, died on March 26, 1895, but the firm of Thomas & Son continued to serve the mercantile needs of the community as before under the direction of his son L.D. Thomas.

On Jan. 14, 1896, the citizens of Roseville organized the “Roseville Board of Trade,” the forerunner of today’s Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of making known the advantages of the Roseville area throughout the state and nation. At a subsequent meeting in February, the Board decided to send H.M. Swazey, an experienced real estate man, to the east to extol the virtues of Roseville and its vicinity.

The mercantile firm of Sawtelle & Wearin commenced building a large brick warehouse in May of 1897, opposite the C.F.T. Icehouse. Then in July, a movement was initiated to bring another metropolitan wonder to Roseville – the telephone. E.A. Dickey was sent to Sacramento to complete arrangements with the Capital Telephone Company to extend their lines from Orangevale to Roseville, and shortly thereafter, work was started on extending the line between the two communities.

The C.F.T. Icehouse later burned down in November of that year. It was believed that a band of hobos had broken into the icehouse and while building a fire to keep warm, had accidentally burned the place down. Constant trouble from the “wanderers of the road” throughout the 1890s, coupled with the seemingly ineffectiveness of the local constable in handling the problem, led many citizens to consider the possibility of organizing a Vigilance Committee in 1897.

Evidently this procedure never became necessary, for no further mention of the formation for such a committee appeared in contemporary accounts. It is probable that the constable, under the constant prodding of townspeople, rose to the occasion and dispersed the hobos.

The year 1899 marked the opening of P.V. Siggins’ store on Atlantic Street. Siggins, who was born in Warner County, Pennsylvania in 1833, moved to the Roseville area in 1874 and worked for many years at the blacksmith trade, first in Antelope and then in Roseville. By 1892, he became associated in the general mercantile business with William Sawtelle in J.D. Pratt’s former store.

By 1893, Siggins and Sawtelle, along with Tom Royer, established a new brick yard near Dry Creek. Ill health caused Siggins to sell his interests to Mr. Wearin in 1898 and he remained idle for a year before opening a small mercantile business on Atlantic Street where a bulk of the trade was provided by dressmaking and millinery business conducted by his wife.

In 1906, the Siggins Atlantic Street property was sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad and the building was moved to the new Atlantic Street where it served as an ice cream parlor by J.J. Watson until it burned in 1907. Siggins died the following year.

Mrs. Caraven opened a bakery in May of 1899 in the old Neher saloon building next to Towle Brothers lumber yard on Pacific Street. Later that same year, William T. Butler opened a new butcher shop on the corner of Atlantic and Lincoln Streets.

William T. Butler and his butcher shop

William T. Butler, a native of Evansville, Indiana, came to California with his parents in 1852 and later moved to Roseville in 1878. In 1899, Butler opened a butcher shop at the corner of Atlantic and Lincoln streets. When the original Atlantic Street was pushed back to accommodate for the railroad expansion (1908), Butler sold his property to the railroad and commenced building a new shop on the corner of Lincoln and new Atlantic streets.

Butler used part of the building as a butcher shop while the other part served as a new post office. In 1909, Butler was elected to the town’s first Board of Trustees. He commissioned the building of a two-story concrete structure in 1914 – the bottom portion for his shop and the upper portion to be rented out as office space. Though extensively remodeled, the building still exists today and is used for offices of the Roseville Telephone Company.

The Depression, however, caused Butler to sell his Lincoln Street property. Determined to continue, he opened up his fourth and last butcher shop on Main Street in 1930 which he operated until shortly before his death in 1940.His partner – Glen Hardison – continued to operate the butcher shop until he retired in 1976.

Holt banking building

Since the town had no banking house of its own, the Holt brothers (local town capitalists) served as unofficial bankers, lending money to local businesses due to their previous success in gold mining. William, Henry and John Holt made Roseville their headquarters for their shipping business in 1864, but did not move to Roseville until 1883. The brothers owned a large brick warehouse located along the railroad tracks that served as storage for hay and grain purchased for shipment. In 1895, they bought 200 acres of land from W.J. Branstetter before he moved to Dunsmuir.

Times were “lively” in Roseville as the nineteenth century came to an end. The streets were reported to be crowded with fruit, hay and wheat wagons and the town’s three warehouses reported reaching full capacity and freight wagons were leaving daily loaded with lumber.

William Haman

Fruit shipping became an important factor in the economy of Roseville at the beginning of the twentieth century. Figures compiled by the Roseville Board of Trade for 1901 revealed that during the year alone, more than 781,000 pounds of fresh deciduous fruits had been shipped from Roseville, along with 3,000 boxes of oranges, 22,380 pounds of picked olives and 8,000 pounds of olive oil.

Hand in hand with the increased activity of shipping fruit was a great upsurge in viticulture with local crops estimated at $570,000. Carefully compiled statistics show that a total of 1,195,436 boxes of grapes were shipped from the Roseville depot in 1901.

Plans for the establishment of a winery in Roseville were announced in 1905. By October of the next year, over $75,000 had been expended in buildings and equipment for the Placer County Winery. William Haman, earlier employed at Leland Stanford’s vast wine producing estate at Vina, was hired as superintendent, and it was not long before the winery made its first run and soon rated second in importance, only behind the railroad.

Fire destroyed the winery in 1908, but it was rebuilt that same year. A second fire occurred in 1909, destroying all but the brick portion of the plant. Rebuilt once more, the winery operated successfully until the advent of prohibition. Later M.J. Royer operated the Roseville Ice and Beverage Company in the old brick building formerly housing the winery.

With the decline of the Winery, Haman became manager of the Southern Pacific stock corrals in Roseville and invested in several parcels of property in and around town. Active in politics, Haman was elected to Roseville’s first City Council in 1909 and did not retire from politics until 1931. The Haman residence – a two-story home located at the corner of Oak and Taylor Streets – was later used for the Roseville Arts Center.

By 1905, Roseville had changed from a mere railroad junction to a growing town which held high hopes for the future. But, the ambitious community was still largely a community of homes – small frame houses, spaced rather unevenly along narrow streets which transformed into dusty trails in summer and impassible quagmires of mud in winter. This is how Roseville appeared on the eve of the announcement that the Southern Pacific Company was contemplating moving its extensive railroad facilities from Rocklin.

Roseville does owe its birth and early development to its position as shipping and trading center for a rich farming and grazing section of southwestern Placer County. But not until the railroad switching yards moved to Roseville in 1906 did the town really grow, marking the beginning of a new era, an era which would almost overnight change Roseville from a little shipping station to the most important freight handling terminal on the Pacific Coast – the “St. Louis of the West”.

Throughout 1905 rumors persisted in Rocklin that the Southern Pacific intended to enlarge their freight yards. Railroad plans called for a yard 7,000 feet long and 800 feet wide. The Rocklin trustees hurriedly called a special election to levy a special tax for the purpose of raising the necessary money to buy the land needed by the railroad. Their plans were to no avail, for in December it was announced that the freight yards were to be moved and that Rocklin, because of insufficient room to permit enlarging the terminal to handle increasing business, was to be eliminated from any further consideration. Several places were mentioned for the site of the new railroad yards including Ben Ali, Loomis, and a place between Loomis and Rocklin.

Roseville was finally selected in the early part of 1906, partly because of the more favorable grade conditions, and partly because of its position at the junction of the north-bound and east-bound lines of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Train Depot (1907)

The formal announcement that Roseville had been selected for the site of the Southern Pacific yards brought a startling transformation for the little village. Instantly the town began to boom. The railroad company bought large blocks of land, with A.B. McRae, local realtor, handling most of the transactions. The unloading of rails, ties, lumber, construction machinery and tools commenced immediately.

Atlantic Street had to be moved back a hundred feet to accommodate miles of new track. Clouds of yellow choking dust hovered continually over the town as teams of mules and work horses worked from sunup to sundown seven days a week preparing the ground for the construction workers waiting patiently nearby in their temporary tent cities.

The first building was moved off that thoroughfare during the summer of 1906. While the tracks were laid, the new round house was reported to be rapidly taking shape. The first switch engine for the local yards arrived on Tuesday, Sept., 18, 1906.

Additional railroad construction in December necessitated the moving of the Western Hotel north about fifty feet. Preliminary work also began at that time on a new depot located below the railroad “Y” opposite Pacific Street. The new deport was completed in 1907 and the old deport of 1874 was dismantled. Part of it was moved by its owner, Henry Barrett, to 319 Atlantic Street, where after a bit of remodeling, he reopened it as “The Old Depot Saloon”.

However, by 1910 the new depot was moved back to the railroad “Y” where its predecessors, the depots of 1864 and 1874 had been located.

The great influx of railroad men to Roseville necessitated much new construction. One person who benefited from the increase was Elizabeth “Grandma” Morgan. Morgan moved to Roseville in 1894 after the death of her second husband. When the railroad craze commenced, she turned her home into a railroad boarding house – Morgan’s Boarding House – which became popular for many years.

In addition to running the boarding house, “Grandma” Morgan was extremely active in the Minerva Rebekah Lodge of Roseville up to the time of her death on Dec. 21, 1927. By the end of 1907 all vacant lots on Pacific Street had been filled with new business establishments and the old street was busy day and night. The building boom which enhanced Pacific Street’s already healthy business climate spread outward to nearby Church, Main and, most importantly, Lincoln Streets which as early as 1906 showed signs of one day effectively challenging Pacific Street’s economic dominance.

Lincoln Street c. 1908

Between 1906 and 1908, hurriedly constructed frame buildings sprang up on both sides of Lincoln Street north of the railroad tracks. Typical of this “hurry up” construction was the business block put up in 1906 which extended north from the old Pratt store building on the west side to the alley, followed by a similar block of buildings erected the following year by J.H. Herring. For several years Herring engaged in farming pursuits after he arrived in Roseville in 1895.

By 1906 Herring became associated with Sawtelle in the general merchandising business but retired in 1908 to engage in real estate development. For a time, commencing in 1909, Herring was associated with J.E. Munster in the firm of Munster and Herring but later operated a prosperous real estate business alone where he laid claim to holding the record for being in business continuously longer than any other local businessman.

Similar construction lined the east side of Lincoln Street, including Fred Forlow’s Mint Saloon building and the Linnell Brothers’ Hardware Store. When the railroad transferred from Rocklin to Roseville in 1906, Forlow was in the van guard of newcomers to accompany that move where he opened the Mint Saloon on Lincoln Street. By 1908, the entire block on both sides of the street had been filled in with new construction. J.H. Herring and C.H. Barker were the dominant forces in the development of the west and east sides of Lincoln Street during this period.

The McRae Building

While Lincoln Street rapidly emerged as an important business block in Roseville’s economic life, new construction was also taking place on Main and Church streets. Perhaps the most important figure in the development of Roseville’s north side in the period after 1906 was A.B. McRae. The McRae Building, one of Roseville’s first multi-storied buildings, was completed in October 1908. It contained a fine hall above and modern store and office space below.

It opened with great pomp and ceremony by some of the new lodge orders and was considered a triumphant step forward in the development of the community. For many years, the “McRae Opera House” was the cultural center of the town holding plays, pageants, concerts, traveling troupes and other activities. Between 1914 and 1924, the post office was housed in the ground floor of the McRae Building. McRae’s long and productive life came to an end on Friday, June 2, 1932 – two weeks shy of his 80th birthday.

Construction completed in 1908 on two additional business houses on Main Street west of the McRae Building. One was the small building opened by Harvey Richardson. Harvey A. Richardson arrived in Roseville in 1907 and for the next 41 years was proprietor of one of Roseville’s longest established and most popular men’s furnishings stores – “Richardson’s.” The original location for Richardson’s was on Main Street next to the McRae Building and in 1909, Richardson’s moved into the McRae Building.

Richardson’s moved to another location on Lincoln Street before reaching the Forlow Building on Vernon Street in 1930. Here Richardson’s would stay until 1978, but Richardson would not see that day due to his death in 1948. After the death of Richardson, his widow and daughter continued to operate the business with Paul Wagner serving as manager; later Wagner purchased the long-established firm.

In 1978, after 48 years at the Vernon Street location, the business was moved to the former Safeway building in Roseville Square. The original Richardson store building was later occupied by the U.S. Market, which was removed in 1909 to make way for a new two-story building erected by McRae and John A. Hill. For many years, Zeller’s Confectionary was housed in this building.

A.B. Broyer furniture store

Adjacent to the Richardson building was the A.B. Broyer & Son Furniture Store, also completed in 1908 after Broyer moved to Roseville with his father. In 1914, Broyer was elected County Assessor and Tax Collector of Placer County and subsequently sold his furniture and hardware business to M.B. Johnson. He was admitted to the bar in 1919 and worked with a couple of different partners before practicing law alone in 1924.

During the summer of 1924, Broyer partnered with C.P. Magner in the undertaking business and on July 1 of that year they bought out the Guy P. West Funeral Home in Roseville and worked there till Broyer’s death in September 1925. His son Elliot was elected to the position of County Coroner in 1930 and in 1936 he opened his own mortuary business on Lincoln Street, which he operated in conjunction with his brother Al. The Broyer Mortuary building now houses Cochrane’s Chapel of the Roses.

Johnson, who bought Broyer’s hardware store, continued to operate it for the next 24 years. In 1933, failing health compelled him to turn over the reins to his son; Johnson died only two years later.

New commercial activity was also turning Church Street into a minor business block. As early as 1906, B.N. Scribner of Rocklin opened a store in the recently completed Decater building at the corner of Church and Main streets. Later, the Grouches Brothers located there followed by Andrews Market. Below Scribner’s, John Herring had put up a small frame building which housed various businesses before it burned down in 1924 and was replaced with the present brick edifice. A short distance down the street from the Herring building was the old two-story brick Doyle home which later for many years served as a private hospital under the direction of Dr. Fanning.

F. A. Lewis Drug store

Numerous real estate firms came into existence; subdivisions were laid out and miles of sidewalks and streets were put down. Up to October 1906, local realtors reported the sale of some five hundred lots in Roseville at an average price of $250 per lot. A serious water shortage was created by the tremendous influx of newcomers. The water demand could not be met by the back yard pumps that had provided Roseville’s citizenry with its water supply. Consequently, a water franchise was granted to Hemphill & Leahy, who earlier had been granted an electric light franchise. Starting operations in the fall of 1906, the Roseville Water Company, with two reservoirs – one of which held eight million gallons – commenced building mains and pipes in every direction.

Business growth kept pace with the ever increasing population. Among new businesses to be established in the latter half of 1906 was Frank Lewis’ drug store. Lewis had operated a successful drug store in Rocklin but moved along with the railroad to Roseville in 1906 where his drug store took up residence on Lincoln Street. As one of the original members of the Roseville Telephone Company (organized in 1910 as the Home Telephone Company), he served as its Vice President for many years. He operated his drug store until June 1932, when after 25 years of continual service, he sold out to the Allen Brothers and moved to a new location on Vernon Street where he continued until his retirement. Lewis died at his home on March 21, 1957.

Charles Decater was part of the mass exodus out of Rocklin to Roseville when the railroad transferred. During this move, Decater relocated six of his 14 homes. He was a major force in moving buildings on old Atlantic Street so that new miles of railroad tracks could be constructed. Many of the early post-1906 homes and business buildings owe their construction to Decater.

Besides his building, contracting and house-moving business, Decater operated one of Roseville’s many railroad workers’ boarding houses, operated a hog ranch at Rocklin and served as a member of the Roseville Volunteer Fire Department since its inception in 1907 with a turn as chief. According to family estimates, by 1929, Decater had built, traded for or purchased approximately 150 rental units at Roseville. Unfortunately the Depression took its toll on Decater who lost all of his extensive holdings and was $10,000 in debt by 1932. Even still, Decater continued the house-moving business until his death in 1940.

In October, Roseville’s first bank, the Roseville Banking Company, was organized with William Sawtell as its president. The location of this pioneer bank was on the first floor of the former Branstetter’s Hall building on Pacific Street. In 1907, Roseville’s pioneer financial institution purchased the corner of Lincoln and Church Streets (Bank Corner) and commenced construction of a fine, two-story building, making it the first substantial building to be erected on the block. The Roseville Banking Company provided financing for much of the new construction which took place after 1906. Before the year ended, a weekly newspaper, the Roseville Register, had been added to the rapidly growing community.

Of the large numbers of newcomers who flocked to the small community to take advantage of job opportunities, many were Greek and Italian immigrants newly arrived in America. Limited knowledge of the English language led to an informal appointment of a leader or “boss” who could speak, read and write some English – one who would handle relations between labor and management.

New Frisco House

A Greek immigrant, John Leles arrived in Roseville after fleeing the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco fire and earthquake. He bought the Harry Clark blacksmith shop property on Pacific Street and constructed on its site an impressive three-storied hotel which he named the New Frisco House. Business prospered until a fire in 1911 destroyed the hotel and the rest of the block.

Leles was able to rebuild, with the financial help of Gottlieb Hanisch, a small one-story brick building on the old site and opened the New Frisco Bar which he operated until 1916. At that time, Leles leased out the saloon and commenced operating a butcher shop in the back portion of the building which faced the alley between Pacific and Church streets.

In 1920, Leles removed the butcher shop to the Cassie Hill building on Lincoln Street where the Roseville Meat Market operated continually for the next thirty years. Leles eventually retired in 1953 while management of the Roseville Meat Market continued under his children until it closed out in 1960.

From 1906 to the present, Roseville’s considerable Greek and Immigrant populations have played important roles in the economic, political and social development of Roseville.

Nevada Carson Busby also moved to Roseville to become part of the booming business industry. After moving about the country, Busby eventually located in Roseville in 1907. There he purchased three Royer lots on Vernon Street and built the Busby Hotel, Superior Garage and all the real estate between the City Hall and the corner of Grant Street. Busby did not stay in Roseville long, however, before leaving for other ventures in 1924. His nephew, Nevada Carson Jr. was the only family member to stay behind in Roseville.

While Roseville’s business district was growing by leaps and bounds and its population increasing daily, the community still found time for entertainment. A baseball team was organized and games were held at the depot ball park in the railroad “Y,” and later, up in the Forest Oaks subdivision .

The town band was reorganized by the Schellhous brothers and concerts were held regularly at the bandstand in Depot Park. Summer picnics along the rose-bedecked banks of Dry Creek or out at Sylvan Grove continued to be popular, along with Sunday drives up the old country road to Rocklin. Dances at Branstetter Hall continued to provide entertainment for residents. Sometimes, when weather permitted, these social dances moved onto the outdoor platform in front of the Western Hotel.

Another popular business with residents was the famous “Roserie”, owned and operated by Henry L. Schmitt. Schmitt moved to Roseville with his wife Lucy in 1908 where they opened their own business on the corner of Vernon and Taylor streets. The Roserie combined a candy confectionary, a soda fountain and a tamale parlor all under one roof. Due to its overwhelming popularity, the Roserie had to move twice before settling in the Gordon Hall (now Eagles Hall) in 1913.

From the beginning, the Roserie was noted for its tempting array of home-made candies, ice cream and other soda delights, and became popular with young and old alike. Particularly tempting were Schmitt’s famed husk tamales, a huge caldron of which was always steaming in the back room kitchen. Schmitt continued supervising the Roserie until his death in 1938, with his eldest son Carlos assuming management. Shortages of sugar and other ingredients brought about by the advent of World War II forced the Roserie to close in 1942. It was never reopened.

Telephone line workers at Sawtell's store

The Roseville Chamber of Commerce was organized on Oct. 17, 1906 to serve as town council and to consider still more improvements for the rapidly progressing town. A pressing need for adequate drainage for Roseville’s streets, an electric light system, and a local telephone exchange prompted the Chamber of Commerce to immediate action. A communication was sent at once to the Southern Pacific authorities regarding a drainage system, and shortly thereafter, work was started by the railroad at Grant Street on a ditch which was to cut through to the creek.

Mr. Leahy, who had been given the electric light franchise, was contacted by the Committee on Public Improvements concerning the installation of electric lights. By the end of November a carload of poles had arrived and another was expected shortly. The Capital Telephone Company was contacted in December regarding the installation of a local exchange and informed the committee that if 12 or more subscribers could be obtained such an exchange would be possible. Mr. Linnell obtained 14 subscribers, and a 50-phone switchboard was soon installed.

Rapid and continued growth throughout 1906 and 1907 brought up the problem of adequate fire protection. At the instigation of the Chamber of Commerce, fire hose and hose carts were purchased and fire hydrants installed throughout the community.

By January 1908, Roseville was the proud possessor of two hose carts and two hundred feet of hose; two additional hose carts were added a year later. That same year, the Chamber of Commerce pointed out the need for the creation of a hose company for each cart. It was not until March, 1910 however, that a “Municipal Volunteer Fire Department” was organized. Twenty-one members attended the initial meeting at the city hall where G.M. Hanisch was named Fire Chief.

Roseville Volunteer Fire Department with hose cart

Other improvements to be considered by the chamber in 1907 and 1908 included improved mail service, better streets and roads, street sprinkling and law enforcement. Possibly the most serious problem to confront the hard working Chamber of Commerce during this period, though, was the one created by the lack of any kind of municipal sewage system and garbage disposal service.

A sanitation committee was appointed in February 1907 to investigate the matter, but not until 1910, when the city trustees passed a sewer bond election for approval of voters, was this problem effectively met.

Meanwhile, the problem of health and sanitation brought about by a lack of sewage and garbage disposal system resulted in a diphtheria epidemic in March of 1908. Complaints multiplied by the score, and Dr. Ashby, the health officer, tiring of criticism, resigned.

West House

Saloons accounted for the majority of business growth in 1907. At the time there were no fewer than 12 drinking emporiums listed in the advertising columns of the Register. By November 1909, this already imposing list peaked at 20 – three of which were so situated that railroad workers could reach them while going to and from work.

Because of the numerous saloons which sprang up along Pacific Street, that thoroughfare received the nickname “Whiskey Row.” The problem of alcoholism finally reached the point where Southern Pacific officials said that it could not trust its trains to men who appeared for duty intoxicated and demanded removal of objectionable saloons near the railroad yards.

By March, 1908, Roseville had increased in population from 400 to 2,000. Two million dollars had been spent on the railroad and “unprecedented activity in real estate transaction” was reported by the town’s six realty firms. Stores reported going up on all sides. Plans for a new hotel were drawn up by C.H. Barker of the Western Hotel in April.

Shortly thereafter, the West House, a popular eatery, was established on the corner of Atlantic and Washington streets. Another such local eatery was the Porter House. Between the years of 1907 and 1910, St. Rose – Roseville’s first Catholic Church – was constructed near Vernon and Grant streets.

Porter House

By July, Roseville’s second newspaper, the Roseville Tribune, published by Crome & Beecroft, put out its first issue. R.F. Brill & Son purchased the Tribune on March 1, 1920 and three years later (1923) acquired the Register from A.J. Hardin.

Shortly thereafter (May 28, 1923), the first issue of the Roseville Tribune and Register rolled off the presses. Brill sold out to Fred Green and Frank Bartholomew of the Roseville Press in 1942, and the old Tribune and Register was merged into a new publication name the Roseville Press Tribune, which still operates to this day.

The school census of 1908 showed 313 children attending class compared to 154 for the preceding year. By 1910, enrollment had increased to 695, of which 491 were between the ages of 6 and 17. The existing school facilities proved to be hopelessly inadequate and a bond issue was voted on April 20, 1910 for two new school houses – one in Roseville Heights (Main Street School), and another on Vernon Street (Oak Street School). The election carried 90 to 10 and by fall the two new school houses were completed.

These twin buildings served the educational needs of Roseville until 1925, when the Vernon Street School was completed. The Oak Street School gradually retired from use and it was eventually torn down. The Main Street School continued to be utilized by the school population on the north side of town until 1934, when the Woodbridge School was completed.

While Roseville was expanding outwardly in every direction, railroad construction continued at an accelerated pace. In January 1908 contracts were let for the newly organized Pacific Fruit Express Company’s refrigerator plants at Roseville, Colton and Las Vegas. The Roseville plant alone was to have an estimated storage capacity of some 11,000 tons of ice and a daily ice-making potential of 200 tons.

Work began in March, 1908 under the direction of Mr. Hyatt. By February 1909, the almost completed $250,000 ice-making and fruit cooling plant was in operation with an ice-making capacity of 300 tons per day, and a storage capacity of 17,000 tons. Officials of the Southern Pacific Company inspected the new facilities and shortly thereafter (March) announced that henceforth all fruit cars would be iced at Roseville rather than at Sacramento.

Work on a large pre-cooling building commenced in April, 1909, along with excavations for a number of PFE car shops plus the installation of additional miles of track necessary for the expanded operations. It was announced that all the PFE shops would be moved from Sacramento as soon as the shops and 15,000 feet of repair tracks were completed.

By July, 1909, stock yards had been completed and put into operation on the west side of the main line. For a distance of over a mile between Vernon Street and the main track, land was being leveled for six more lines of track. The first test of the new plant ran in October 1909.

PFE Ice Plant

Meanwhile, removal of the Rocklin roundhouse, force and machinery to Roseville was completed on Saturday, April 25, 1908, and Rocklin’s position as a railroad center came to an end. Amidst the transfer of the freight crews from Rocklin to Roseville, not one man lost his run. With the removal of the railroad facilities from Rocklin completed, much of that town’s population and many of its buildings moved to Roseville. The big move took more than two years (1906-1908) to complete. According to the Roseville Register of Oct. 28, 1909, some 43 residences had been moved to Roseville from Rocklin.

In the space of two years Roseville had developed into a bustling railroad center. Two of the largest round houses in the state had been constructed there, along with 45 miles of sidetracks to handle increased business. By January 1909, an additional 40 miles of tracks were added to the yard, which in addition to the round houses and machine shops also included a store, warehouse and office buildings, a hospital and railroad men’s clubhouse. The year 1909 also saw the arrival of the first two articulated Mallet compounds (Numbers 4000 and 4001).

Tremendous growth, coupled with its many problems, resulted in an increasingly strong sentiment for incorporation. Accordingly, the Chamber of Commerce met on Jan. 6, 1908, to take up the matter.

Strong opposition to such a move was voiced by the Southern Pacific, fearing it would lose control of its yards if the city incorporated. F.C. Hill of the Chamber of Commerce traveled to San Francisco to discuss the matter with J.H. Young, general superintendent of the Southern Pacific. After some discussion, it was suggested by Hill that any plan for incorporation exclude railroad property.

This was agreeable to Young, and plans went forward for the proposed incorporation. On Jan. 21, 1909, a “Petition to Incorporate the Town of Roseville” appeared in the Register. Three months later, on April 2, 1909, the people of Roseville went to the polls and of the 300 votes cast, 241 voted for incorporation while 59 voted in opposition. William Sawtelle, R.F. Theile, William Haman, Dr. Bradford Woodbridge and R.H. Wells were elected as the city’s first trustees.

The organizational meeting of the Board of Trustees, as the City Council was called then, was held on April 10 at the bank building. At that time, William Sawtelle was elected chairman of the Board of Trustees, which in effect gave him the distinction of being Roseville’s first mayor. Lack of space prompted the board at a subsequent meeting to change its meeting place from the bank building to McRae Hall. Still later (August), the hall over Johnson & Musson’s store (the old J.D. Pratt store), which until recently had housed the offices of the Roseville Register, was rented as a temporary meeting place for a monthly stipend of $12 including utilities.

Formation of a Board of Trustees and the selection of a mayor signified the end of Roseville, the peaceful little town and the beginning of Roseville, the modern city.

Original Board of Trustees

The newly formed Board of Trustees wasted little time in initiating legislation to provide badly needed municipal services for the rapidly expanding community. A municipal volunteer fire department was established in March, 1910. In June, the voters went to the polls and approved Board resolutions for a $78,000 sewer system, a $1,500 wooden bridge across Dry Creek at Lincoln Street, and a $10,000 appropriation for construction and installation of an electric power system.

Dr. Bradford Woodbridge

A short time later, a move to purchase the old Presbyterian Church building on Vernon Street for use as a permanent city hall was inaugurated. After much heated opposition, the Vernon Street site was selected over 12 other locations. The Board of Trustees – which had been meeting in the Barrett building on Atlantic Street – moved into their new location in May, 1912. Dr. Bradford Woodbridge, a member of the original Board, was sworn in as mayor at this time, a position he was to occupy almost continuously until his retirement from the Board of Trustees.

During his 23 years of service, his many accomplishments included the paving of several streets, organizing a modern fire department, establishment and maintaining of two parks, building a viaduct over the railroad tracks to Sierra Vista Tract, a modern concrete bridge across Dry Creek at Lincoln Street, the establishment of a city-owned electric light plant and improvements in the municipal sewage disposal system. Dr. Woodbridge died of a heart attack at his home on Main Street on Thursday, Aug. 17, 1933.

Shortly after his death, a Bradford Woodbridge Memorial Association was formed and Sierra Vista Park was renamed “Woodbridge Park”, along with a new elementary school (Woodbridge School) to perpetuate the memory of one of Roseville’s most outstanding public servants and humanitarians.

Ed Pitcher was appointed as Roseville’s first superintendent of streets in 1912 and work began on improving the city’s streets under his direction and that of his successor, William Keehner, who served as street superintendent from 1918 to1946.

William C. Keehner, like his father Charles Keehner, left an indelible imprint upon the growth and development of Roseville. William Keehner grew up in the family home on Vernon Street and attended the local school. In his early twenties, he and his brother Charles purchased 120 acres of land in the vicinity of the later day Carnival Market on Douglas Boulevard which was then on the outskirts of the town.

William Keehner

While Charles Keehner worked in Sacramento, William Keehner took care of their vineyard and hauled grapes by wagon team to the railroad. He lived with his wife Lelia (daughter of Lewis Leroy King) on a 60-acre portion of the land – now the site of the Lutheran Church. In 1918, William Keehner went to work for the City of Roseville where he was placed in charge of streets, parks, garbage and sewers. Today, these specialized functions are in separate departments, each of which is headed by a city superintendent.

In 1917, Councilmember Haman spearheaded a local movement petitioning for the acquisition of 17 acres of Tom Royer’s land along Dry Creek for use as a park. Another site was proposed by McRae and the Royer Park League was formed with Haman as its president to push for his proposed location. His efforts paid off and the City Trustees purchased the Dry Creek site.

When the Royer Park site was acquired from Tom Royer, Keehner was given the added responsibility of supervising site preparations by converting sand and brush into today’s beautiful Royer Park. William Keehner worked continually for the City of Roseville until 1946 when he retired. William Keehner died on Dec. 7, 1977.

His passing removed one of the few surviving living links with nineteenth century Roseville. The memory of Roseville’s oldest and genuinely loved and respected pioneer is perpetuated by a street named for the family (Keehner Avenue) and in beautiful Royer Park which was largely the product of his creation.

Board action was responsible for getting the new State Highway routed through Roseville in 1912. That portion of the artery which ran through Roseville, however, had to be paved at city expense. Paving contracts were subsequently let to J. Lawrence of Broderick for $15,000 commencing at the lower end of Riverside Avenue and connecting to the State Highway on the Lincoln Road. However, only the center portion of the streets was paved and property owners had to be contacted and signed up to pave the areas in front of their places of business.

Board action was also instrumental in persuading the County Board of Supervisors to erect a Placer County exhibit building in the center of the railroad park in 1915. Two years later (1917), the city fathers purchased the Royer property, a maze of overgrown creek bottomland, for $3,000. Work on improving it and the Sierra Vista Park (now Woodbridge Park) site was delayed by the advent of World War I. The war also delayed Board proposals to build a new bridge over the railroad tracks into Sierra Vista tract and the purchase of the local water company.

Roseville entered wholeheartedly into the World War I effort. Victor Dorin, who joined the navy in April 1917, was the first of a long line of local volunteers and draftees to enter the service from Roseville. The city formed a local Red Cross unit and numerous Liberty Bond issues were subscribed to. A side effect of the war was a severe influenza epidemic which hit Roseville in October 1918. The old Tanner Rooming House on Vernon Street was utilized as a hospital and the Women’s Improvement Club, along with the local Red Cross unit, worked day and night to care for the sick.

Alyn Butler

Alyn W. Butler was the only local boy killed in action. Butler moved to Roseville with his mother in 1906 and found employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad, initially in Rocklin and then (1908) in Roseville. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Butler enlisted in the service; he was two months shy of his 20th birthday. On June 1, 1918, he was shipped overseas as a member of Division 28 of Attachment M, 110th Infantry and three weeks after arriving in France, he was killed in action at the River Vesle on September 5, 1918. Two months later (Nov. 11, 1918), the Armistice was signed and the “war to end all wars” was over.

A memorial service was held for the only Roseville youth to lose his life in battle during the Great War at Fiddyment’s Hall on December 27, 1918. A local post of the American Legion was organized in the club room of the Roseville Public Library on Sept. 14, 1919 – 11 days short of what would have been Alyn W. Butler’s 21st birthday. Originally called “Roseville Post No. 169,” a grass roots movement developed to name the post after Roseville’s fallen hero.

And when the permanent charter was conferred on Aug. 19, 1921, it was under the name “Alyn W. Butler Post No. 169.”Alyn W. Butler Post No. 169 continued to meet in the club room of the Roseville Library until 1939 at which time it was removed to Park Drive. Alyn’s mother continued to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad until 1940 when she retired. Fourteen years later (1954) she died and was laid to rest beside her husband in Newcastle Cemetery. Her son still rests in a military cemetery in France.

While Roseville was launching its new government and contributing its share to the war effort, the city continued to grow. In a two and a half year period (September 1911 – January 1914), more than 110 new buildings were erected. Population increased from 2,608 in 1910 to 4,477 in 1920. Atlantic and Pacific streets, the principal arteries before the “boom,” were now declining in favor of Lincoln Street.

Most Atlantic Street businesses had been moved or torn down in 1907 when the street was moved back 100 feet. Pacific Street, now known locally as “Whisky Row” because of the numerous saloons erected there after 1907, prospered for a while but suffered a severe blow on Aug. 24, 1911 when a fire broke. Before the flames could be controlled, all buildings between the old Branstetter’s Hall and the Odd Fellows building were leveled or gutted by the worst fire in Roseville’s history up to that time. Pacific Street never fully recovered and its period of ascendancy as Roseville’s commercial center ended.

Fire of 1911

The rapid decline of Pacific Street after the 1911 fire elevated Lincoln Street as Roseville’s leading business block. Between 1911 and 1920, Lincoln Street continued to reap the lion’s share of Roseville’s retail trade, but by the latter year signs of wear and tear began to show. Old buildings dating back to 1906 were becoming increasingly obsolete and north side merchants had become a little complacent, even in the face of increasing competition from ambitious Vernon Street entrepreneurs of Roseville’s south side.

Charles Henry Barker, the son-in-law of Aaron Ross, operated the newly constructed Western Hotel after the Ross House burned down. The old Western Hotel was moved back on Lincoln Street 200-300 feet and the site was sold to the railroad for track expansion, thus providing revenue for working plans on a new, modern two-story hotel. Construction began on the Barker Hotel in September of 1910 and the grand opening of Roseville’s newest and finest hotel took place on Saturday, June 8, 1911.

The Western building was subsequently used as an annex to the Barker Hotel but was destroyed by a fire in 1924. In addition to meeting the sleeping needs of the traveling public, the Barker Hotel boasted one of the finest restaurants (Barker Grill) in Northern California, along with a well-stocked bar. Barker continued to manage the hotel until 1918 when he leased it to Fred Forlow, proprietor of the nearby Mint Saloon. Still retaining the Barker name, the hotel then passed into the hands of Davis and Johnson in 1924.

Besides his hotel business, Barker was quite active in sports and sponsored some of the early Roseville baseball teams. Barker died quietly in his home on Lincoln Street on Sunday, Aug. 14, 1938.

The name of Fiddyment is closely associated with the City of Roseville and its growth and development. Walter Fiddyment arrived in the area with his widowed mother in 1856 and lived with her until the age of 29, at which time he purchased an 80-acre farm about seven miles west of Roseville. For years he served as a trustee and elder in the Presbyterian Church in Roseville from its inception and even taught Sunday school classes.

Women's Improvement Club

When the town began to spring up, Fiddyment acquired city lots and eventually owned considerable property within the town limits. He later donated some of his land to the Presbyterian and Catholic Churches for future sites.

Fiddyment went into business with G.W. Lohse in 1909 creating the firm then Lohse & Fiddyment. In February of 1910, Lohse & Fiddyment purchased the corner properties at Vernon and Lincoln Streets (site of the old Charles Keehner blacksmith shop) and erected a fine new concrete store building. Fiddyment later bought out Lohse and the firm since operated under the name of W.F. Fiddyment & Son. The store was remodeled in 1925 and has since been called the Fiddyment Block. In June of 1980, the Roseville Telephone Company announced that the Fiddyment Block would be torn down and replaced with a new, modern two-story telephone company facility.

While Roseville launched its government and expanded its business district, it continued to strengthen its cultural base. New schools and churches were built to keep pace with the march of progress; a library was established (1912); and numerous fraternal and civic organizations coalesced, the most notable of which was the Women’s Improvement Club. Organized in 1910, the Women’s Improvement Club, under the leadership of Cora Woodbridge, wife of Dr. Bradford Woodbridge, spearheaded efforts to plant trees and shrubs along Roseville’s dusty streets.

Carnegie Library

Another project included the establishment of a small reading room in the McRae building while ambitious plans formulated to establish a Roseville public library. After contacting the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, a $10,000 grant was obtained for the project. McRae donated two lots for the library and the City provided necessary sewer, electrical and plumbing connections. Brick and tile came from Lincoln, granite came from Rocklin, and lumber from Roseville.

With volunteer labor on hand, a fine City library was completed and opened for public use in October 1912. The Carnegie Library remained Roseville’s sole public library until 1979, when the present main library was completed on Taylor Street. In recent years, the still impressive structure has been restored to its 1912 elegance, and today houses the museum operated by the Roseville Historical Society.

Plays, musicals, and sporting events were frequently held at the McRae Opera House until 1915 with the establishment of Roseville’s first major theater building. The Rose Theater (constructed in 1915) remained Roseville’s leading cinema until the advent of the Roseville Theater in 1926.

Women’s Improvement Club efforts resulted in the establishment of Roseville Union High School in a renovated railroad workers’ rooming house on Vernon Street. Four years later, the high school moved to permanent quarters at the eastern edge of town. Two of the names affiliated with the growth of Roseville High School are Edwin C. Bedell and William Henry Masters – both men were essential to the development of Roseville’s educational system.

Bedell first came to Roseville in 1882 and took an active role in the development of the area, specifically within the farm community and social and cultural pursuits. During his years with the County Chamber, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Placer County Exhibit buildings, adjacent to the railroad depot, used as a showcase for Placer County’s agricultural products.

Later, the old Exhibit Building (now situated on Vernon Street) served as offices for the Roseville Area Chamber of Commerce until 1988. Bedell is most remembered, however, for his affiliation with Roseville High School. He was a member of the original committee that conceived the idea of establishing a local high school district, which came into existence in 1912. Elected to the first High School Board of Trustees, Bedell served continuously at that position for more than 20 years.

Roseville High School (c. 1912)

During those formative years, he saw Roseville High School develop from a handful of students meeting in abandoned hotel and theater buildings, into a highly reputable, fully accredited high school of several hundred students housed in a fine, modern building. This Roseville High School founding father died of a heart attack in April of 1939.

William Henry Masters came to Roseville in 1912 when he took the position of Roseville’s first high school principal. While little else is remembered of Masters, records show that in the six-year period between 1912 and 1917 he served as principal, Roseville High School got off to a smooth start, although plagued from the outset by inadequate facilities until the fine, modern brick high school was opened in 1916.

After guiding the new high school through its formative stages, Masters resigned in 1917 to accept a position with the U.S. Customs Office in San Francisco where he served between 1918 and 1935. On April 23, 1938, William Henry Masters died at his home in Alameda.

Railroad expansion, responsible for this phenomenal growth, continued at an accelerated pace. Particular emphasis was given to the Pacific Fruit Express icing plant, which, in 1913, spent $75,000 in doubling its cold storage capacity. With other improvements, this made the Roseville plant the largest ice plant in the world.

Edwin Barrett Huskinson quietly came to Roseville in 1916 after graduating from the University Of California College Of Pharmacy. He purchased the Charles Hesser Pharmacy on Vernon Street in 1924, which soon housed the Huskinson Gift Shop, adjacent to his pharmacy business – the Huskinson Drug Store. Over the ensuing years, Huskinson built up an unequaled reputation for friendly, courteous and efficient service.

H.T. Miller's store

In 1953, Huskinson opened a branch pharmacy in the Al-Mar Medical Center building (one of the first commercial buildings to be opened east of the then new Roseville Freeway) on Sunrise Avenue.E. Barrett Huskinson died in January of 1954 though his sons continued his business for the next 21 years.

Huskinson’s Drug Store on Vernon Street carried on as it had since 1916 until 1979, at which time the business closed after 63 years of dedicated service to the community.

Another treasured Vernon Street landmark was the store owned and operated by Holcomb-Tilden (H.T.) Miller. Miller first started with a grocery and feed store, which later flourished into Miller’s furniture and appliance store.

By 1942, the grocery portion of the store was separated from the furniture and appliance portion and after some revamping, Miller’s dropped grocery services altogether and primarily focused on furniture and appliances. Miller’s son (Elbee) took over the business until his death in 1991, while Elbee’s wife Wilma continued on until 1994. Miller’s was closed and the building sold.

With the end of World War I and the onset of the 1920s, California looked forward to a new era of prosperity. During the war years, the state’s agriculture had helped feed both United States and Allied armed forces. People expected this agricultural boom to continue in the post-war years.

It was about this time that many Mexican nationals began migrating to California to take advantage of expanded railroad and agricultural job opportunities. Many located in Roseville where they quickly found employment with either Southern Pacific or the Pacific Fruit Express. Their children and grandchildren comprise an important element in today’s multi-cultural population.

By mid-1921, the post-war good times ended abruptly with the reduction in war time government spending, coupled with adjustment problems to a peacetime economy and a decline in foreign markets. A serious business slump led to an acute but fortunately short-lived depression. The depression’s high water mark was a paralyzing railroad strike, which crippled the local economy. Many railroad employees found themselves out of work with little or no money to put food on the table or pay the rent.

While the railroad strike of 1922 was a relatively short-lived affair, it caused hardships for many out-of-work railroaders. Fortunately, the depression, which brought many hardships to strikers, ended quickly. By September, differences between labor and management were resolved and workers went back to their jobs, albeit at the same low salaries they had received before the strike.

By 1923, however, California’s agriculture began to expand dramatically. New specialty crops from the Imperial and Coachella valleys were particularly in demand in Eastern markets. California was being looked upon as a prime supplier of the nation’s food. On the local scene, this agricultural boom was manifested by Southern Pacific’s announcement of a massive enlargement program at the local yards.

Pacific Fruit Exchange (P.F.E.)

In April of 1924, work commenced on a $750,000 Pacific Fruit Express (P.F.E.) building program. Construction included a new $600,000 plant (Plant No. 2) with a daily ice making capacity of between 200-400 tons and a $150,000 remodeling and expansion program for existing facilities. The following month (May), Southern Pacific purchased 200 acres of land between Roseville and Antelope for relocation of PFE shops and construction of 77 miles of new tracks to be used by both Southern Pacific and PFE.

Work on the PFE enlargement program started in May, 1926 with grading and laying of 15 miles of side track between Roseville and Antelope. A short time later, work started on the $1.5 million car shops. Cement for the new PFE shops was poured on Oct. 21, 1926, and, by June, 1927, the new facilities were in operation. Roseville was now acknowledged throughout the land as the site of the world’s largest artificial ice plant.

Railroad expansion resulted in a corresponding increase in population which, by 1929, totaled 6,425 – an increase of 1,945 since 1920. Increasing population meant new schools were needed. Necessary bond issues were approved by voters and, in 1921, the Fisher (Atlantic Street) School opened, followed four years later by the Vernon Street School in 1925. New buildings were also erected at the high school facility.

Business growth kept pace with expanding population. Lincoln Street, which had survived two fires in February and May of 1924, actually benefited somewhat from them. Most of the flimsy wooden structures of earlier years were soon replaced by substantial brick buildings.

Included in the array of new businesses to rise up along Lincoln Street during the decade were the new telephone building (1922), T.A. Mealia’s TAM Garage (1924), the Wright Building (1924), the Barker Hotel Annex (1924), the Sawtell (Rex Hotel) Block (1925), the Herring Block (1925), the Bank of Italy (later Bank of America) building, Gordon Block (1922), Safeway (1929), the Masonic Temple (1926), the Forlow Block (1926), the Diamond Match Lumber Company (1926), and Fire House No. 1 (1927).

City Hall kept pace with changing conditions. In December of 1920, the city purchased the PG&E electric plant for $6,500.A $155,000 bond issue, which would have enabled the city to acquire the Roseville Water Company plant in March, 1922, failed to pass as did a 1924 proposal for a new city charter. Voters did however approve a $63,000 sewer bond issue in 1925.

Three years later (1928), voters went to the polls again to approve a $50,000 project to build badly needed bridges over Dry Creek at South Lincoln Street and across the railroad tracks into the Sierra Vista Tract. The new bridges replaced obsolete wooden ones erected in 1907 and 1910. Plans for a new city charter and acquisition of the water system were being revised in 1929. Both were leading topics of discussion about town when the stock market collapsed and its accompanying panic blotted out every thought except one – Depression.

The economic collapse that followed the stock market crash of October 1929 ushered in what historians have termed the “Great Depression. ”No part of the nation escaped the ever-widening cloud of gloom and despair. These were, as so many recounted, “Dark Days” of America.

By December of 1930, according to the Roseville Register, some 200 heads of families were out of work. As the community’s leading employer, Southern Pacific Railroad decreased its work force of 1,360 between June and October of 1930 to 1,128 employees. The monthly payroll of $251,452 reduced to $38,719. A year later (December 1931), Southern Pacific announced it was cutting wages by ten percent.

The City inaugurated emergency measures in hopes of alleviating hardships. Don L. Bass was elected chairman of a group of representatives from various local organizations to aid the unemployed. Part-time work, when available, was channeled through the Employment Relief Committee. Another committee – headed by Mrs. Mearl Bartley, chairman of the local Red Cross – was formed to coordinate all city charity efforts.

Shortly after establishment of the Employment Relief Committee, a charity store opened in a space donated by Fred L. Forlow. The Forlow Building charity store served as a clearinghouse for food and clothing donated to the less fortunate.

By March of 1931, some 30 needy families received regular assistance. Sacks of potatoes and onions were procured by the Chamber of Commerce; cash was raised by the local Lions Club; and other organizations and individuals donated food, clothing and money. William Haman, manager of the local stockyards, offered to furnish milk for the charity store when the opportunity presented itself.

Local automobile dealer Hanford Crockard offered to provide transportation to deliver it. Such an opportunity presented itself in April, 1931 when 90 milk cows were corralled at the local stockyards. Don Bass mustered a force of volunteer milkers, and pails were supplied by the M.B. Johnson hardware store. One hundred gallons of milk were added to the charity store’s offerings that day.

More than $1,500 in cash was raised to help take care of 100 needy families during the winter of 1930-31, far short of the estimated $5,000 needed to take care of some 200 families reported in dire straights.

With little cash on hand, local merchants like grocers H.T. Miller, Will Taylor and druggist E.B. Huskinson carried their customers and friends on the books. When the Depression finally ended, many merchants burned outstanding bills.

The City stretched its meager resources to the limit to provide additional assistance to the unemployed. In January 1931, the City Council appropriated $1,000 to be used for relief for the jobless. County Supervisor Jerry Shelley helped out by providing piece work on County projects. Instead of hiring one man for five days work, Shelley would hire five men for one day’s work helping each make monthly rent payments.

In November of 1932, local voters overwhelmingly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised America a “New Deal. ”In March of 1933, FDR was inaugurated as the thirty-second president of the United States. Within a relatively short time, extensive federal relief projects were introduced throughout the nation to aid the unemployment situation.

Federal Employment Office was established in Roseville in October 1934, and between May 1935-May 1936, some 2,036 people were put to work. Unskilled laborers were paid an hourly rate of 45 cents while skilled workers earned 60 cents an hour and supervisors and overseers were paid $1.10 per hour.

City Hall

During the next few years, Works Project Administration (WPA) and Public Works Administration (PWA) appropriations were used to pave miles of city streets and provide curbs, gutters, storm sewers and other municipal improvements. Roseville’s infrastructure today, are the City’s main post office (1935) and a two-story addition and remodeling of today’s City Hall Annex (1936). Public acceptance of New Deal policies resulted in sweeping local victories for FDR in the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections. Roseville would remain solidly in the Democratic camp until the 1960s.

The considerable building and commercial development, which characterized Roseville throughout the 1920s, was curbed drastically by the Great Depression. Building permits for 1929 totaling $175,799 were said to have been the lowest in years. But things would get worse before they got better. Building permits for 1930 plummeted to $49,085 and were only slightly better the following year when $58,634 was spent on new construction. A depression low of $16,059.45 was reached in 1933 but business began to recover somewhat in 1936.

Surprisingly, some important improvements were made during this period – most importantly the establishment of a new bank. With banks closing all over the nation, a group of local citizens headed by M.J. “Joe” Royer organized The Citizens Bank of Roseville in the Forlow Building store space recently vacated. Other additions to Roseville’s business district during the decade included the J.C. Penney Company (1930); Veterans Memorial Hall (1930); Sterling Lumber Company (1933); Broyer Mortuary (1934); Green Front Restaurant (1935); Onyx Café (1936); Sutter Apartments (1938); the Purity grocery store and the Lees building (1939).

Roseville's first uniformed police force

Municipal improvements continued to progress in spite of the Depression. The now uniformed Police Department reorganized and expanded in 1931 with Russell Carter, recently from Chico, appointed Chief. The following year (1932) the City took over the garbage system and provided service for 50 cents a month.

Then, after extensive negotiations with the Roseville Water Company, the privately-owned company sold out to the City in 1934 for $185,000.E.J. Riley was made foreman of the new City Water Department at a salary of $175 a month. The City’s $20,000 appropriation, together with a $19,700 WPA grant, funded a program to provide water system improvements such as new pipe installation and any other needed repairs.

Though Roseville had become a “city” in 1909, it was not until 1935 that voters, by a 443 to 194 count, permitted the community to become a “charter city” which gave residents the ability to change how their city is governed. The following year (1936), a two-story addition to City Hall was completed and incorporated the old building into the new facility.

In 1936, an already low city tax rate of $1.75 reduced to 75 cents per $100 assessed valuation, a figure that remained constant until the 1948 post-war building boom. During this 12-year period, Roseville was looked upon up and down the state as the epitome of city efficiency by virtue of its municipally-owned utilities. Today, in the midst of burgeoning population growth, Roseville is still noted for possessing one of the lowest tax structures in all California.

Raleigh Terry

In 1935, popular city clerk Frank Chilton, Sr. resigned and was succeeded by Raleigh Terry, who remained at that position until 1961. When Terry went to work for the city in 1935, there were but three employees at City Hall. The job at that time differed from what it is today. The city clerk then served as assessor and tax collector, police clerk and personnel officer in addition to his clerk duties.

During World War II, another duty was added – that of draft officer for the local Selective Service Board. The City then operated on a budget of about $30,000 a year. In 2000/2001, Roseville operated on an annual budget of $333 million.

Terry was affectionately referred to by his fellow City Hall employees as “Mr. Perpetual Motion” because of his tireless efforts on behalf of the City. He served as city clerk during that critical period when Roseville was evolving from a small town operation into a modern, well-organized Council-managed form of government.

Despite the constant challenge of making a living during those dark Depression days, Roseville’s citizens somehow found time for a bit of recreation. Movies were a popular Depression-era pastime where, for a brief hour or two, one could escape the problems of the day in air-conditioned comfort at the Roseville Theater. For 25 cents, (10 cents for the children), moviegoers could watch a double bill, a newsreel, a short feature and a cartoon plus a preview of coming attractions. On certain nights there were giveaways, such as Bank Night, Dish Night and Glass Night. Particularly popular was “Ten-O-Win” where free theater passes could be won.

In the days before television, radio proved to be a popular and free diversion. Favorite shows of the era included Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, Lum and Abner, the Kraft Music Hall with crooner Bing Crosby and an endless list of others ranging from kiddie shows to soap operas catering to all ages. Along with the radio, families and friends would get together to play Monopoly, current card games or work on jigsaw puzzles.

Local sports and picnics in the park provided other low-cost sources of entertainment for the community. Football and basketball games were played at the high school, and teams, such as Wolf & Royer, PFE, Redmen and Roseville Merchants played weekend baseball games in the old Placer-Nevada League. Southern Pacific and service clubs put on picnics at Royer Park for local residents.

In 1935 and 1936, the Chamber of Commerce and the City sponsored public street fairs. Vernon Street was blocked off to accommodate a wide array of food and game booths and the all-day event finished with a big street dance. In 1937, the popular street fairs were replaced by the first Placer County Fair on a 76-acre site at the northern edge of town. The Placer County Fair and the fairground have expanded greatly since then.

The fairground, once alive for only four or five days during summer, is now a year-round operation. The buildings and grounds are available for organizational events and meetings of every type and size throughout the year. While fairs statewide have changed significantly in recent years, the Placer County Fair, while adjusting to changing conditions, still remains dedicated to exhibiting county products in an entertaining and educational manner.

By 1939, the nation began to shake off the effects of the Depression and make plans for a renewed period of economic growth and development. An uneasy optimism prevailed, however, for the rattling of sabers in Germany, Italy and Japan could be heard throughout the world. As the Depression lessened, an uneasy world speculated whether the coming decade would bring war or peace.

The cloud of gloom which threatened the entire world in the late 1930s burst into flames in 1939 when Adolph Hitler’s Nazi war machine invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

Following Poland’s defeat by Hitler’s attack, the German army turned west and rolled over defenseless Holland and Belgium. Then the thought-to-be unstoppable French Maginot Line was breached. Nazi divisions poured through the gap and did not stop until they had reached the English Channel. Between May 26 and June 4, 1940 what was left of the allied forces was evacuated from Dunkirk to the British Isles.

By 1940, it became increasingly clear to Americans that Great Britain was fighting alone against the forces of aggression. This called for immediate action. At the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, Congress voted large sums of money to expand our armed forces, which were at frighteningly low levels. The Selective Service Act was enacted and, for the first time in its peacetime history, United States citizens between the ages of 21 and 35 were subject to military conscription – “The Draft.”

In October 1940, a notice appeared in the Roseville Tribune and Register stating that all men between the ages of 21 and 35 must register for military service with city clerk/draft board officer Raleigh Terry. Local bank clerk Joseph E. Morrish was the first Roseville man to be called up for service. Meanwhile, the City of Roseville geared up for the possibility of war.

City fathers announced in June, 1940 that city employees who were drafted would have their jobs waiting for them at war’s end and the railroads made extensive preparation for the ever-increasing movement of troops and munitions trains through the local rail yard. Then, in May of 1941, the local high school opened classes for those interested in national defense work.

The following month a USO campaign, under the chairmanship of Walter Kofeldt, raised $1,200. A local unit of the state guard was started and by August 1941, some 35 men had signed up, plus an additional 25 from nearby Lincoln.

News of the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent U.S. entry into the war spurred Roseville on to still greater efforts. In December 1941, the Roseville Civilian Defense Council was formed under the jurisdiction of the local police department; air raid alarms were installed at City Hall and bond drives were organized under the leadership of D. J. Gautier.

Still greater sacrifice was called for upon receiving news of Roseville’s first war casualty, Arthur Frederickson in the Philippines (March 1942). Another local son, Harvey Pace, was one of many Americans in the notorious Bataan Death March. The files of The Press Tribune for 1942 are filled with articles about bond, salvage and other drives to help the war effort.

Some 200 local boys signed up for the draft in June 1942 and many more left school early to join up. That same month, The Press Tribune published a letter from Mrs. Evelyn Scott, the first Roseville woman to join the newly formed Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC). Roseville sent 1,250 of its young men and women off to war. This represented about 20 percent of the community’s entire population of 6,653 – a figure thought to be one of the highest per capita ratios in the entire nation.

Like the Great Depression which preceded it, Pearl Harbor and entry of the U.S. into World War II struck the country with sudden and devastating effects. On one hand, it put the finishing touches on ending the Depression from which America had been slowly recovering. On the other hand, it put increasing demands on the railroads to meet special needs, such as transporting perishable commodities, troops and armaments from one part of the county to the other.

Problems caused by the war’s increasing demands were compounded by an acute labor shortage. The Pacific Fruit Express lost approximately 25 percent of its labor force of over 700 men due to military duty. To fill the void, both PFE and Southern Pacific turned to retirees, high school students, women, Native Americans and Mexican nationals (braceros). For a time in 1942, the railroad would send trucks into Sacramento to pick up anyone who wanted to work. Old boxcars were modified to provide barracks of sorts for the “Second Street Gang” as they were sometimes called and inexpensive meals were provided at cost.

By 1943, the railroad abandoned the practice of “rounding up” transient workers in favor of Federal Government agreements with Native American groups and Mexican nationals. About 100 Navajo Indians from Arizona were brought in, many with experience working at the ice plant in Yuma, Arizona. They worked at Roseville’s PFE ice plant from 1942 through the summer of 1946.

Agreement with the Mexican government went into effect on April 29, 1943 adding 200 or more to the war year’s 700 man work force. The agreement between the Mexican government and the railroads proved beneficial to all parties concerned; American dollars earned here helped them obtain farms and businesses when they returned home after the war.

Women at work during World War II

Women and high school students also filled gaps in the labor shortage, both at local Southern Pacific and PFE facilities and at nearby McClellan Field. Roseville High School offered classes in defense-related occupations and allowed students to leave 6th period classes 15 minutes early to catch the local Gibson bus to nearby McClellan Field where they worked the 4 p.m. to midnight swing shift.

Other teenagers preferred to work closer to home for either Southern Pacific or PFE. Employees worked round-the-clock shifts with plenty of overtime available for those who wanted it. Day shifts ran from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; swing shifts from 4 p.m. to midnight; and graveyard shifts from midnight to 8 a.m. During periods of great need, many worked seven days a week.

Between 1941 and 1945, the number of refrigerator loadings nationwide rose 34.5 percent. The work force at the local Pacific Fruit Express was pointed to with pride by PFE Vice President K.V. Plummer: “Despite fewer cars, fewer skilled workers, longer hours, scarce parts and newly integrated labor resources, they were able to keep up with demand and boost the car line’s potential beyond its pre-war capacity.”

During the US’ four-year involvement in World War II, the people of Roseville, in addition to sending so many of their sons and daughters off to war, subscribed to eight victory loan drives totaling $478,267.25. The local rail yards, which had undergone several expansion and renovation programs to accommodate the tremendous number of troops and tons of war materials, handled as many as 7,055 freight cars in a single day.

Tower Theater

Building activity severely curtailed in Roseville during the war. A Seaside Oil Company service station had opened in February 1940 at the corner of Vernon and Bulen streets and a new Standard Station replaced an older one at the corner of Vernon and Lincoln streets in June. The most notable construction of 1940, however, was the Tower Theater, which was completed in November.

Between 1941 and 1942, no major building activity was reported in the columns of The Press Tribune. By the latter date, however, approximately 1,000 new residents had moved into Roseville, most of who worked in nearby defense installations or for the railroad. Housing problems soon became acute. As a result, in March of 1942, ground broke for a $68,000 housing project with 20 homes opposite Woodbridge School. Shortly thereafter (September 1943), work started on 32 homes for war workers in the Forest Oaks and Sierra Vista tracts.

By mid-1942, the tides of war had turned in favor of the allies. In August, American marines landed at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, reached North Africa by November and by May, 1943 liberated that continent. Invasion of Europe began in July, 1943 with landings in Sicily, followed in quick succession by its surrender, the invasion and unconditional surrender of Italy, and finally the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. VE Day (May 8, 1945) was observed with a special edition of The Press Tribune published on May 9, 1945.

With victory assured in Europe, the full weight of allied power was turned against Japan. Iwo Jima was seized in February of 1945 and in July the last major campaign in the Pacific ended on Okinawa. Plans for the invasion of Japan were being readied in August when an American B-29, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; two days later a second even more destructive bomb leveled the city of Nagasaki. Faced with invasion and total destruction of their homeland, Japan surrendered on August 14. The war was over.

As the fortunes of war turned in favor of the allies, the government started preparing for the return of millions of soldiers to civilian life by passing the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944. Better known as the “GI Bill of Rights,” the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act was designed to help returning service personnel by providing (1) education and training at government expense; (2) government guaranteed low interest loans for homes, farms and small businesses; and (3) job counseling and placement. The GI program was administered by the Veterans Administration (VA) with help from appropriate state agencies.

More than 2,200,000 World War II veterans were able to attend colleges and universities under the GI Bill. Many returning Roseville vets found higher education would provide other avenues of employment besides working for the railroad. Most of the veterans attended Placer College (now Sierra College), then located in Auburn, for their first two years before transferring to newly-established Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento).

As the government was preparing for the return of service personnel, wartime building restrictions were gradually lifted. A new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was built in 1945 along with drawing up plans for a new Press Tribune building at 530 Vernon Street. By 1946, a steady if unspectacular post-war building boom was well underway, much of it along Riverside Avenue and Vernon Street. A great deal of it centered around the automobile industry.

With wartime restrictions on automobile production lifted, America was more than eager to resume its love affair with the automobile. Riverside Avenue and Vernon Street along the direct route of Highways 40 and 99 stood in particularly good locations to take advantage of the tremendous demand for automobiles and automotive products.

Between January 1946 and December 1947, several automobile-related businesses opened up or expanded. A new Chrysler-Plymouth sales and service facility in the 600 block of Vernon Street and a Buick agency building on Judah Street opened in January of 1946. Crockard Chevrolet moved into expanded quarters in December followed by W.L. Braden’s new Pontiac garage.

John Macario, long-time Riverside Avenue automotive dealer, opened a completely remodeled and expanded Oldsmobile garage in December of 1946. He would soon be rivaled by Weiler’s & Rodiger’s Packard and Clarke Turner’s Buick agencies. Construction ended along Roseville’s “Automobile Row” with completion of Macario’s garage and Fred Garbolino’s service station and store on Atlantic and Vernon streets in 1947.

Several other new businesses were started or renovated during the decade such as Roseville’s Frozen Food Bank (1945) located on Atlantic Street operated by W.F Myers and A.F. Newell. The Food Bank eventually began to operate under the firm name of Roseville Meat Company. Another business was the opening of Dunbar Airfield (1946) located at Atkinson and Main Streets to serve as a private airfield at Roseville. Though the project started out enthusiastically, it proved to be a financial failure and closed in January of 1950.

However, the most important business operated by far was Denio’s Roseville Farmers Market and Auction. Started in 1947 as a sideline to a stock auction business, Denio’s has evolved over the years into a nearly 70-acre complex containing hundreds of concession stands, booths, shops and eateries which cater to thousands of visitors each weekend. With the possible exception of the railroad, Denio’s was the one entity most closely identified with Roseville during this period.

While the City of Roseville was primarily concerned with winning the war during the first half of the decade, farsighted City fathers laid the groundwork for peace and resolving municipal problems put on hold during the war.

As early as May, 1944, the City Planning Commission laid out an impressive wish list of post-war projects to be tackled. The list included improvement of the entire municipal electric system; improvement of the city reservoir; establishment of new sewers in the Elm Court District; purchase of new fire trucks and other firefighting equipment; completion of curb, gutter and storm drains throughout the city; grading and resurfacing of Douglas, Vernon and Church streets; construction of a new vehicular bridge at Folsom Road and Dry Creek; construction of a railroad underpass to connect the North and South sides of town; and acquisition of property along Dry Creek from Riverside Avenue to 300 feet above Folsom Road for a future city beautification project. The Planning Commission’s ambitious recommendations were submitted to the City Council in December 1946 and action began on many of them.

Meanwhile, in February of 1945, three benefit dances were held to raise money for a long-desired municipal hospital. In October 1947, ground broke for another long wanted project—a railroad underpass to eliminate long, exasperating delays at the Lincoln Street crossing. Another project long delayed by the war and now taken up with renewed vigor included negotiations with the United States Department of Reclamation for sale of Shasta Dam power to the city.

An agreement was finally reached and, by December of 1947, the last of the Shasta Dam links to the city was completed. While negotiations were going on over Shasta Dam power, the City also looked into the possibility of obtaining Folsom Dam water. The busy Council next turned its attention to a study of long-needed modernization for all municipal departments, particularly the Fire Department, and establishment of a city recreation department.

In 1947, the local volunteer fire department, a fixture since 1910, was replaced by a Municipal Fire Department with Peter Badovinac as Fire Chief. Badovinac, a native of Klein, Montana, had lived in Roseville since 1929 where he served the City as a police officer, building inspector and fire chief for a total of 22 years. He earned his nickname of “Superman” in 1947 when he assumed the position of Fire Chief, health officer and building, plumbing and electrical inspector. He would round out his job description in 1950 when he was appointed as the City’s Assistant Civil Defense Director.

During his 22 years as Fire Chief, Badovinac oversaw growth of the department from three trucks and a small group of employees and volunteers to a well-trained staff of 24 employees assisted by 25 volunteers and six trainees. Volunteers would remain an important adjunct to the department for many years.

During his tenure, Badovinac's crews were required to learn rescue and resuscitation techniques, a standard practice for all of today’s modern firefighters. Badovinac retired in 1969.

Construction of Washington Blvd. underpass

During the Depression years, a WPA recreation project of sorts providing a bare minimum of recreational activities was established at Royer Park by the federal government. With the advent of World War II, this program was discontinued.

In 1948 a City Recreation Department was established under the supervision of Parks Superintendent Willard Dietrich and Gene Watson, Roseville’s first permanent recreation director. The early staff consisted of the director, three part-time playground and after-school supervisors and a part-time secretary, Elsie Clarkston. The first year’s budget for this program was $5,000.

As the 1940s drew to a close, the town’s population had increased from 6,653 in 1940 to 8,723 in 1950 with four new subdivisions added—Elm Court, Hillcrest No. 2, McNeil and Bonnie Knoll. Voters also approved a $250,000 sewer bond issue. In addition, ambitious plans were underway to establish a modern city manager form of government, acquire Folsom Dam water, complete the Washington Boulevard underpass and establish a municipal hospital. City leaders hoped these and other equally ambitious civic projects would be completed in the decade ahead.

Harold T. "Bizz" Johnson

Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson, whose list of accomplishments reach the local, state and national levels, inaugurated a political career that spanned 38 years.

In 1942 he was elected to the City Council, serving on that body during the critical World War II years and the equally critical post-war period. During those years, he played a key role in obtaining Central Valley Water Project electricity and water for Roseville.

Johnson is also credited with helping establish Roseville Community Hospital and the City Recreation Department as well as making major improvements in the city’s water treatment system.

Johnson resigned from the City Council in 1948 to take a seat in the California State Senate. In November of 1958, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives where he served 11 consecutive terms.

Following a surprise defeat to Republican Gene Chappie in November of 1980, Mr. Johnson announced he was retiring from public office and would henceforth limit his activities to public service in and about his hometown of Roseville. This popular public servant who did much in terms of transforming Roseville into a modern city died in 1988.

Dedication of the Seawell Underpass

The boom following the end of World War II continued throughout the 1950s at an accelerated but still manageable rate. There seemed to be a change in the air, for a number of significant developments during the decade would appreciably alter traditional patterns for Roseville residents.

Completion of the Seawell (Washington Boulevard) Underpass in 1950 and the subsequent closing of the Lincoln Street Railroad crossing to vehicular traffic ended exasperating delays at the Lincoln Street railroad crossing, which hindered both local and through traffic for long periods of time due to Southern Pacific switching operations.

Closing of the Lincoln Street crossing had a profound effect, leading to a period of gradual decline for Roseville’s business district north of the tracks.

The 1950s would also see the greatest expansion in Roseville’s railroad facilities since the Big Move of 1906-1908. In April of 1951, Southern Pacific undertook modernization and expansion of its Roseville operations. By June 2, 1952, Southern Pacific had completed the vast undertaking, making Roseville the largest and most up-to-date rail terminal west of Chicago.

The facility, named Jennings Yard in honor of then superintendent Merle Jennings, trimmed train times substantially. Cars from incoming trains were now sorted and rerouted by push button controls. On an average day, Southern Pacific could handle about 8,200 freight cars in Jennings Yard.

On especially busy days, traffic exceeded 9,000 cars. The Jennings Yard also incorporated many new innovations including special inspection of cars moving toward the hump; paging and talk back speakers for quick communication throughout the yards; radio communication between switch engines, the yardmaster’s office and the control tower; and new improved track scales and repair facilities.

At the start of this revolutionary decade, only seven diesel units operated out of Roseville but by decade’s end, over 400 main line diesel locomotives were in service. Roseville was now one of the more important diesel centers in the country. The giant articulated mallet locomotives, familiar sights in Roseville since 1909, were gradually scrapped or sold. The twin brick roundhouses, a common sight for so long, were no longer needed. The age of steam in Roseville was over.

With the introduction of diesel-powered locomotives in the 1950s, however, these awesome mallets were gradually phased out and replaced by more efficient but less glamorous diesels. The last steam-powered locomotive run over the Sierra Nevada Mountains was made in 1958.

Roseville’s PFE Ice Plant, the world’s largest artificial ice-making plant, underwent revolutionary changes during this period. The plant mechanized in 1953 to incorporate features that doubled the speed of operations. Mobile one-man icing machines, designed especially for PFE to ice refrigerator cars, could each handle five tons per minute. Other PFE facilities placed in operation included new light repair facilities and a mechanical refrigeration and maintenance center.

New self-contained refrigerator cars also began to make their appearance in increasing numbers at the local yards during the 1950s. Introduction of “Piggy Back” operations during this period had an important effect on the local ice plant. Large refrigerated truck trailers could now be loaded in the fields and orchards, then driven to the railroad where they would be loaded on flat cars for shipment to distant markets.

Piggy Back operations coupled with introduction of self-contained refrigerator cars led to a steadily decreasing need for ice from the local PFE Ice Plant. By decade’s end, Roseville had become one of the most modern computerized railroad operations in the entire nation. This change, however, was not all good for local railroad employees.

Interstate 80 through Roseville

Completion of Roseville Community Hospital in 1952 followed by the Folsom Dam in 1955 and the Roseville Freeway (Interstate 80) the following year gradually shifted the population from downtown Roseville to what would soon become known as “East Roseville.

Vernon Street would retain its long-time position as Roseville’s business center but, bit by bit, once-thriving businesses would be diverted to modern shopping centers springing up along Douglas Boulevard, Harding Boulevard and Sunrise Avenue.

Sierra View Country Club, a popular gathering place for both members and the general public opened in April 1953 on lands once part of the vast Kaseberg ranch.

Since then it has been remodeled and enlarged several times and has become an important part of Roseville’s social scene being utilized by club meetings, class reunions, retirement parties and a host of other private and public gatherings.

The City government also underwent a major change during this period. In 1955, voters approved a change in the city charter, which provided for a city manager-council form of government. Under the change, the council, presided over by an elected mayor, would establish city policies. The city manager, appointed by and responsible to the council, would oversee daily operations of the various municipal departments. David Koester was subsequently appointed Roseville’s first City Manager.

Vernon Street c.1950

A growing population led to an expanding crime rate, most of which centered around traffic violations and juvenile petty thefts. Roseville’s small but growing police department, which by 1958 numbered 16 officers and two police clerks, was hard pressed to keep up with public demands.

To supplement the harried, overworked police department an “auxiliary” police force (later changed to “police reserves”) was established in 1956. Reserve officers, who paid for their own uniforms and arms, attended monthly training sessions in the basement of City Hall.

For more than 37 years, Roseville native Jim Hall was a member of the Roseville Police Department. He joined the force in 1951 and quickly moved up through the ranks where in 1969, at the age of 40, he was named Chief of the 33-officer police force.

Chief Hall ran the growing department for 19 years and, with full support of the City Council, turned the Roseville Police Department into one of the top law enforcement agencies in Northern California.

Hall retired from the City in 1988 but remained active in law enforcement as a private investigator, serving as president of Golden State Investigating, Inc. When Jim Hall died in 1993, hundreds of friends and law enforcement officers from all over Northern California attended his funeral.

Paul Lunardi

During the 1950s, one name stands out above all others on a list of exceptionally competent council members. That name is Paul J. Lunardi who served on the Council between 1950 and 1959, including two terms (1954 and 1958) as mayor.

During his tenure, Lunardi succeeded Johnson as a leader in movements to establish a community hospital, develop a municipal fire department, establish a city manager form of government, establish an updated street lighting system, obtain Central Valley Project power and expand sewage, water and electric distribution systems.

His outstanding record of achievement earned Lunardi a highly coveted “Outstanding Young Men of California” award presented by the State Junior Chamber of Commerce on Jan. 8, 1955.

Lunardi later moved on to the State Legislature where he served in the Assembly from 1959 to 1963 and in the State Senate from 1963 to 1966 before retiring to accept a position as Legislative Advocate with the Wine Institute of California.

As another decade fast approached its end, an often-heard question around town was “When will all this growth end?”

The population boom, which hit Southern California with sudden swiftness in the late 1940s and spread quickly to Northern California in the following decades, focused on Southwestern Placer County after 1960. Roseville felt the full brunt of this latest population surge because it presented numerous opportunities for developers, who were looking for broad expanses of cheap open land with easy transportation access.

Located just 18 short miles from the State Capital, Roseville sat at the junction of Southern Pacific’s northbound and eastbound railroad lines as well as the crossroads of two major highways. A hint of the growth to come had taken place in the preceding decade when population rose moderately from 8,723 in 1950 to 13,421 by 1960. Growth would continue unchecked through the next two decades.

The railroad, long the economic backbone of Roseville, experienced startling changes both at its Southern Pacific and Pacific Fruit Express facilities. The business district, long concentrated along downtown Vernon Street, started to shift eastward in increasing numbers to fast growing East Roseville. Government also increased to keep pace with population growth. The need to add municipal services, ease traffic congestion, deal with increased crime and overcrowded schools, and expand park and recreation services were but a few of the many problems facing City leaders during this transitional period. How to cope with these and other growth issues would be a constant challenge for everyone from the City Council to the men and women on the street.

There was no scarcity of jobs in Roseville in 1960, particularly on the railroad which was enjoying increased business supplying the basic needs of California’s burgeoning population. Southern Pacific, Roseville’s traditional leading employer, had 1,900 workers on its payroll here. On an average midsummer day, some 8,000 freight cars or more would pass through the highly automated Jennings Yard. By 1961, finishing touches were being put on still another Southern Pacific expansion. A $4 million remodeling of its diesel repair facilities nicknamed “Cape Canaveral” enabled large diesel locomotives to be cleaned, lubricated, greased and repaired.

In cooperation with Southern Pacific’s expansion operations was an increase in the amount of fruits and vegetables being iced or re-iced at Roseville’s huge Pacific Fruit Express ice plant. In mid-summer of 1963, as many as 900 railroad cars a day loaded with California fruits and vegetables would roll up before one of PFE’s icing platforms and receive fresh supplies of ice before heading out for distant destinations.

The largest number of produce cars passing through Roseville occurred between July and late September where as much as 2,700 tons of ice left storage room for their destinations. By the mid-1960s, the giant PFE ice plant regularly produced 925 tons of ice a day and 138,000 tons a year.

Behind this façade of prosperity, however, lurked serious problems for the railroad’s future. A steady decline in railroad passenger traffic due to increasing competition from automobiles, buses and new jet airplane travel ended Roseville’s role as a railroad passenger terminal. The familiar old depot at the railroad “Y” was closed in 1972 and demolished in February 1973. Pacific Fruit Express, widely known as the world’s largest artificial ice plant, also experienced difficulties.

Introduced in the 1950s, automated icing machines, which enabled one man to do the work formerly done by several, were responsible for a drastic reduction of the summer labor force from about 400 to 150. Self-refrigerating refrigerators introduced in the 1950s, seriously reduced the need for icing operations. By the summer of 1965, some 8,217 of these super mechanical refrigerator cars were in operation out of a total fleet of 21,000 cars.

Roseville Square shopping center

The single most important addition to Roseville’s expanding business district since the mid-1920s was Roseville Square Shopping Center which commenced construction in early 1961.

This modern shopping center, the first of many to follow in ensuing years, spurred additional development for the Harding Boulevard area, much like Roseville Community Hospital did for Sunrise Avenue.

By 1969, downtown merchants, increasingly concerned about steadily declining business, hired consultants to design and implement a “downtown revitalization study”.

Steadily increasing population resulted in a rash of new subdivisions and annexations, most located east of the freeway. By 1968, nearly 29 percent of Roseville’s entire housing total was located in new subdivisions like Sierra Gardens, Oakmont and Champion Oaks. By that date, additional annexations had tripled the city’s total area to 27.7 square miles.

Bob Hutchison

When Bob Hutchison took over the job of City Manager on Nov. 1, 1968, Roseville’s population was about 18,000 and growing fast. During the next 20 years, Hutchison orchestrated many municipal improvements including construction of a water treatment plant, sewage treatment plant, electric receiving station, public safety building and main library. He worked tirelessly to bring Olean Tile Company and other industries to the city’s northern industrial area.

In October 1988, the City finished its biggest public works project, the $15 million Foothills Boulevard extension for which much of the credit goes to Hutchison. Roseville changed significantly during his 20 years of service. The city was no longer just a railroad town or only a bedroom community for Sacramento. Roseville had become an independent, largely self-sufficient City, fully in control of its future.

In 1964, Roseville was selected as one of Look Magazine’s “All America Cities.”Roseville’s selection was primarily based on its use of revenue bonds to finance community projects and establishment of a Little League Ball Park, Little Theater, community recreation building, community swimming pool and new fire station. The timing was perfect because 1964 also marked Roseville’s 100th birthday, celebrated by a year-long series of festivities.

By the mid-1960s, additional space for hard pressed municipal departments had reached the critical point. The old City Hall on Vernon Street, remodeled and altered several times over the years, was no longer adequate to meet the City’s ever-growing needs. By 1966, the City had 186 full-time employees working to improve the quality of life in Roseville.

Douglas Boulevard

As Roseville’s rural setting changed into a more urbanized one, so did the nature of community problems, especially traffic congestion. Nowhere was this more apparent than on Rocky Ridge Road – once a quiet country lane but now an extension of already busy Douglas Boulevard. City limits pushed ever eastward toward Folsom Lake.

Increased growth and traffic congestion along this busy thoroughfare finally led Chief of Police Leslie Howard in 1966 to proclaim that target shooting, hunting and reckless motorcycle riding would no longer be permitted in the area.

Later, as the city expanded westward, sportsmen who hunted for dove, quail and pheasants on Baseline Road, found their favorite hunting grounds were being slowly converted to ranchettes and housing developments.

To cope with additional problems brought about by increased congestion, the local police force was increased to 30 employees with a departmental budget of $300,000.

Business and commercial development along the Douglas Boulevard corridor was delayed several years because a lava cap from the geologic past covered much of the area, making development virtually impossible.

Several potential developers tried to develop the area but gave up when the City halted blasting operations. Bill Strauch solved the problem when he ripped and dozed the site with an HD-41 Allis Chalmers diesel tractor to level the rock. The 80-ton rig, capable of moving up to 32 yards of material at a time, was the largest made at that time. Strauch’s efforts encouraged others to follow and today’s busy Douglas Boulevard is the result of his ingenuity.

Economic growth kept pace with commercial, residential and municipal developments in the 1960s. Rapid expansion at nearby McClellan Field, brought about by the Korean War in 1950 and the Vietnam Conflict in the 1960s, meant still more job opportunities and increased payrolls. Aerojet General which commenced operations at its Nimbus facilities in 1951 also contributed to the local economy.

By 1960, its total work force increased to 8,000 and many took up homes in Roseville. Closer to home, and of tremendous benefit to the local economy, was the establishment of a vast industrial area, initially called the Sunset Industrial District. The area greatly expanded in 1965 when a $15 million Formica plant was established to serve 11 western states. By the end of the 1970s, the Sunset Industrial District included Alcan Cable Corporation, Olean Tile Company, Western Electric Company and Reynolds Metals.

Projects such as expansion of state and federal facilities in Sacramento and rapid development of construction and recreation industries meant still additional sources of employment for Roseville’s growing population. This eased somewhat local concerns about the railroad’s future, still Roseville’s chief source of employment despite the declining number of employees.

George Buljan

George Buljan served as mayor during this period of rapid growth and great change. Buljan, arguably the most popular of the mayors who served Roseville between 1909 and the present, served on the City Council longer than any other person in the Council’s 91-year history.

His 24-year term exceeded the previous record of Dr. Bradford Woodbridge (1909-1932) by one year and three months. Buljan was elected to the Council on April 15, 1958 and assumed the mayor’s position after Paul Lunardi was elected to the State Assembly.

Re-elected to five more terms, Buljan returned as mayor by popular vote in 1966, 1972 and 1978. Roseville experienced the greatest period of growth in its history at that time and Buljan was an important force in seeing that orderly growth took place.

The high point of George Buljan’s long political career came on his 60th birthday, Oct. 21, 1980, when he succeeded Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley as president of the League of California Cities.

To many Roseville residents, however, George Buljan will be best remembered for heading up “Buljan’s Cooking Crew.” Over a 20-year period, the crew fed more than 200,000 people at dinners, banquets and various fund-raisers for service clubs and civic, church and private organizations, all the while raising more than $1.5 million for community and youth groups.

His efforts to make Roseville an ideal community were recognized by a grateful city, which named a school, baseball diamond and street (Buljan Drive) after him. Upon his death in September of 1994, the editor of The Press-Tribune summed up his life of achievement simply but accurately by saying he “. . . left a legacy of civic achievement that will never be surpassed.”

The population boom of the 1960s continued throughout the 1970s, forcing Roseville to expand.

At the time, Roseville was truly a city in transition. By 1973, all of Southern Pacific’s 21,000-car fleet was self-refrigerating. The need for the world’s largest ice plant was no more, and this most impressive of all local railroad landmarks was torn down in the spring of 1974. The future of the railroad and its Roseville employees remained a constant matter of concern for years to come.

Expansion throughout Roseville proved to be troublesome for the once thriving business centered downtown. Additional threats to the downtown area’s future included completion of the first units of another shopping center for Payless Super Drugs Store in November 1974 and Albertson’s Supermarket in 1975. For a time, Vernon Street and Riverside Avenue kept pace with fast growing East Roseville, but by 1970, a good deal of the once bustling business shifted eastward.

Gradually, long-time downtown businesses like Huskinson’s Drug Store, dating from 1916; Taylor’s Red & White Grocery, 1926; Wolf & Royer Hardware, 1926; J.C. Penney, 1930 and others quietly closed their doors and retired or moved to new locations.

The City of Roseville came up with a unique plan for financing the increasing demands for expanding municipal services. Revenue (income producing) bonds, an innovative first for both Roseville and the State of California, were subscribed for additions to Roseville Hospital, establishment and expansion of sewage disposal facilities, development of a municipal golf course (Diamond Oaks) and construction of a $5 million water treatment plant and water distribution system.

An additional $1.7 million revenue bond issue was passed to provide the City’s share of an $8.1 million sewage treatment facility. The regional facility, completed in 1973, served Roseville and the Rocklin-Loomis Municipal District.

Train munitions explosion

Thousands of munitions shipments passed through Roseville during World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars and Desert Storm without a single mishap.

An exception to the rule, however, occurred on the morning of April 28, 1973 when a wooden floor on a munitions boxcar caught fire from brake shoe sparks.

The fire resulted in a series of earth-shattering explosions causing $5.6 million worth of damage in Roseville and neighboring communities of Citrus Heights, Antelope and North Highlands.

Miraculously no lives were lost but over 100 people were treated for assorted cuts and bruises caused by broken glass and flying debris. Since that fateful day, corrective actions have been taken, and it is unlikely that such an explosion will ever occur again.

Throughout this period of steady growth, however, physical facilities for City departments remained static. After a bond issue for building a new Police and Fire Department facility was voted down in 1967, a unique city-county plan, using cigarette tax monies, was developed.

The “Placer County-Roseville Civic Center Improvement Authority” project housed the Roseville Police and Fire departments as well as a Roseville Juvenile Court and Constable’s Office. Work on the Public Safety Building and the adjacent court facility began on July 12, 1971 and completed in February 1973.

Remodeling of the former Police and Fire Department facilities at City Hall began upon completion of the Public Safety Building. In September 1974, the city clerk, public works and engineering offices occupied these areas. Other alterations were subsequently made to provide additional space for municipal offices. The need for more space, however, remained critical. Acquisition of streambed lands for both flood control and bicycle/hiking trails and of park acreage while open lands were still available continued to be pressing matters of interest.

Downtown Roseville Library

High on the priority list was a new main library. The still serviceable but overcrowded Carnegie-endowed building dating from 1912 could no longer meet the needs of the growing community.

Through the efforts of Congressman Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson, a $1.4 million federal grant for partial construction of a $2.1 million library was obtained from the 1976 Public Works Act. The City raised the additional funds needed through revenue bond sharing.

Ground breaking for the 30,000-square-foot building at the Taylor and Royer street site took place on Dec. 12, 1978.

The building was occupied on Sept. 4, 1979 and officially dedicated on Nov. 10. Additional branch libraries were maintained at 129 Coloma Way and at the original library at 557 Lincoln Street.

June Wanish

Roseville’s first female councilmember was June Wanish, who continued many years of dedicated community service when she was elected by an overwhelming majority to the City Council in 1978.

She subsequently became the first female mayor in Roseville’s history as an incorporated city dating back to 1909. Wanish was re-elected to the Council in 1980 and 1982 along with Martha Riley who was also elected to the Council that year.

Since then several other women, including Pauline Roccucci, Claudia Gamar, Gina Garbolino, Carol Garcia and Susan Rohan have been elected to that governing body and served as mayor.

If the period between 1960 and 1979 was characterized as being a transition period, the City reached full maturity the following two decades.

Roseville had transformed itself from a railroad-oriented community to a city of growing economic diversity. Nor would it be characterized anymore as just a “bedroom community” for local residents commuting to jobs in the greater Sacramento area. During this period of continual growth, Roseville emerged as one of the ten fastest growing cities in Northern California.  Roseville's population grew from 24,347 in 1980 to almost 75,000 in 2000.

The rapidly growing customer base attracted many of the country’s top corporations, which located here in the 1980s and 1990s. A good deal of new economic development centered on “high-tech” industries, including such high profile companies as Hewlett-Packard and NEC.

The 500-acre Hewlett-Packard site, established in 1979, manufactured and marketed a wide variety of the company’s computer and networking products. Since then, the company has expanded its Roseville operations beyond the main Foothills Boulevard campus to include facilities at Blue Oaks Boulevard and Industrial Avenue. NEC Electronics, which has worldwide sales in excess of $43 billion, moved into Roseville in 1983 with an initial investment of $100 million. Construction began that year and production started in 1984.

Besides the technology boom, Roseville saw the development of an expanded health care system beginning in the 1980s. Charter Behavioral Health Systems opened its inpatient facility on Cirby Way in 1988 to provide mental health services to both adolescents and adults. The facility was licensed for 80 beds and handled over 20,000 outpatient visits per year along with offering a variety of seminars to area professionals and residents until it closed in early 2000. Charter was unique because it served both paying and indigent patients and was the only psychiatric hospital in Placer County to serve the latter population.

Of the many new industrial developments that located in the Roseville area in recent years, one of the most warmly received has been Pride Industries. Pride is a multi-faceted organization providing job opportunities for people with mental or physical disabilities. Founded in 1966 in an Auburn church basement, Pride has continually expanded and by 1999 employed about 1,100 workers, making it the fourth largest manufacturing and service industry in the Roseville area.

In 1983, 90 percent of Pride’s funding came from government and public agencies with only 10 percent coming from sales of products and services. By 1999, sales of products and services provided 99.9 percent of its funding.

While demand for both skilled and professional positions remains high and continues to be very competitive, the greatest number of Roseville area jobs remains in the service and retail sectors. Countless signs recruiting fast food, retail sales and construction workers are highly visible all over town. Competition for employees has resulted in higher pay and better benefits for these traditionally low paying jobs; however, the demand still far exceeds the supply.

Roseville’s year 2000 labor shortage reflects the strong national and state economies with 30-year unemployment lows, healthy job growth and rising wages.

Douglas Boulevard

Douglas Boulevard, perhaps more than any other sector in East Roseville, reflects the extent of that area’s rapid growth over the past 30 years. During that period, it has grown from a dusty two-lane country road, called Rocky Ridge Road, into a vital link in Roseville’s business, commercial and everyday life.

Surrounded by new office buildings, ongoing construction and constant traffic, the areas surrounding Douglas Boulevard now surpass the traditional city core originally clustered around the railroad.

Douglas Boulevard is the connecting link between Downtown Roseville and miles of new homes and business developments in the eastern part of the city and extends beyond Roseville to Granite Bay and Folsom Lake.

Douglas Boulevard had to expand to six lanes in order to accommodate the astounding growth along this area.

Much of today’s busy Douglas Boulevard was once part of the vast Johnson sheep ranch. William Johnson, born in the former Mormon Island mining camp now deep under the waters of Folsom Lake, purchased his first piece of Roseville area property in 1905 on which he raised sheep, and by 1918, Johnson Ranch had grown to 2,000 acres. Additional land was purchased in 1927 and the final parcel, the former Brown Ranch, was purchased in 1941.

Each year in late October and early November until 1961, Johnson would drive the sheep along Rocky Ridge Road (now Douglas Boulevard) through town and on to the Natomas Basin in Sacramento County for grazing. Johnson continued to raise sheep on his vast ranch until his death when son Clifton assumed full control of the family operation.

The family still holds an agreement granted by the City of Roseville to run livestock through the city although they no longer raise sheep. Today, modern office buildings occupy pastures where Johnson’s sheep once grazed. Their last 40 acres were sold in the mid-1980s and today, Johnson Ranch housing developments occupy land once owned by this early day ranching family.

Another success story of the East Roseville area has been development of the Roseville Automall on North Sunrise Avenue. Claimed to be the nation’s largest development of its type, Roseville Automall dealerships began opening for business in late 1989 with eight major dealers and 12 vehicle franchises.

While Roseville expanded rapidly along the Douglas Boulevard corridor and adjacent areas, the 1987 sale of 1,600 acres in Northwest Roseville’s Pleasant Grove District marked the beginning of “West Roseville.”

To accommodate expected growth in the northwest area, ground broke in 1986 for construction of a $14 million extension of Foothills Boulevard over the railroad tracks. The new road, which included a bridge more than 30 feet above the railroad tracks, opened in October 1988.Widening of Baseline Road from Foothills Boulevard to Fiddyment Road began that same year.

Other road construction included the completion of the Bizz Johnson Bypass connecting Interstate 80 with State Highway 65 in 1987 to relieve traffic through downtown Roseville.

City Hall (1987)

The City of Roseville kept pace with the non-stop growth of the 1980s by constantly updating its infrastructure to meet increased demands.

In 1985, the City Council approved purchase of the former Bank of America building on Vernon Street to redesign and enlarge in order to house offices for the City Manager, City Attorney, City Clerk, Finance and Human Resources departments. Council chambers are located on the first floor of the two-story building.

Following completion of the new City Hall in 1987, the old City Hall building directly across the street was remodeled to accommodate the Planning and Public Works departments for the time. The former City Hall is now known as the “City Hall Annex.”

Outstanding among Roseville’s many public parks is the 152-acre Maidu Regional Park in East Roseville. Dedicated on Sept. 22, 1987, Maidu Park has since developed into one of Northern California’s outstanding regional parks. The park includes the well-appointed Maidu Community Center, which serves all ages from preschool to senior citizens, the Maidu Branch Library, sports courts, ball fields, children’s playground and the Maidu Indian Village, where a Maidu Interpretive Center opened in early 2001.

While the economy was booming and job opportunities increased in many local business sectors, the railroad – long the dominant force in Roseville’s economy – experienced a period of decline before rising to new heights in the late 1990s. The general public first became aware of local rail operations’ ongoing decline back in 1972 when passenger traffic was discontinued and the venerable old depot was demolished.

Further shock set in the following year when the PFE Ice Plant closed and was torn down. Over the next ten years, intense competition with the trucking industry and mergers of several smaller railroads further threatened Southern Pacific’s viability.

In 1983, Southern Pacific embarked on an economic move to merge with the Santa Fe Railway. Some operations merged and a holding company for the two railroads was created, pending approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The ICC delayed its decision until 1986, only to then reject the merger claiming it would create a monopoly. The holding company was ordered to sell one of the railroads. During those three years of limbo, when the ICC deliberated, Southern Pacific did little to modernize its equipment and operations.

At the same time, operating costs were spiraling, profits were decreasing, and employee morale was sagging. Railroading became a less attractive career as financially strapped Southern Pacific implemented belt tightening measures. The local work force declined from about 6,000 during Roseville’s peak railroading years in the 1940s and 1950s to about 1,300 in the 1980s.

For years it had been almost tradition for many high school youth to work summer vacations at either Southern Pacific or PFE and, upon graduation, begin full-time railroad careers as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them. Now, with the future of local railroad operations in doubt and increased job opportunities offered by new industries locating in Roseville, many turned away from the railroad.

Passenger train service, which declined throughout the nation for many years, received a boost in 1970 when Amtrak, a quasi-governmental organization, was established. Various efforts to secure a passenger stop in Roseville culminated in April of 1987 when Mayor Phil Ozenick hand-carried a 12-page report to Amtrak officials in Washington, D.C. which included carefully prepared passenger and freight traffic estimates and a petition signed by over 12,000 area residents requesting a passenger stop in Roseville.

Amtrak granted permission to reinstate a depot in Roseville if Southern Pacific would lease a depot site and the community would assume the cost of building the necessary depot facilities. Under the leadership of the Roseville Historical Society, an area-wide community fund-raising project was undertaken. As a result, two 1,000-foot-long passenger and freight loading platforms, required by Amtrak before service could begin, were completed on October, 1987. Later that month the California Zephyr, which provided east-west service, stopped in Roseville. This represented Roseville’s first passenger stop in over 17 years.

During the four-year period between reinstitution of passenger traffic and completion of a depot, the Roseville Historical Society continued its leadership role. In the absence of a depot or station agent, Society volunteers met each train to provide information, help with baggage, and assist the traveling public. The Society provided this service for seven years until a joint venture between the Historical Society and the City of Roseville resulted in construction and opening of a new intermodal depot facility in March of 1994.

The depot also houses a Greyhound bus station and a privately operated travel office. The depot, the fourth in Roseville’s 130-year history, was located in Old Town at the end of Pacific Street on the old Southern Pacific Clubhouse site. Patterned after turn-of-the-century depots similar to those at Lincoln and Folsom, the Roseville depot had all the modern amenities demanded by today’s traveling public. Passenger traffic was popular from the start and increased appreciably each year.

Much of Roseville’s expansion and growth came under the direction and leadership of City Manager Allen (Al) Johnson who assumed the position following Bob Hutchison. Johnson’s career with the City began in 1983 when Hutchison hired him as Roseville’s personnel director. By 1988, the City Council named Johnson the new City Manager and during his 15 years in that position, Roseville experienced vast growth.

A list of achievements accomplished during his tenure include formation of public-private partnerships for the construction of the Roseville Automall and Galleria at Roseville, expansion in business developments (creation of 35,000 jobs, continuous investment by NEC, and addition of millions of square footage of commercial, industry and business-professional space), City infrastructure (cities-county Highway 65 Joint Powers Authority financing, South Placer Wastewater Authority, Corporation Yard, Civic Center, three fire stations, the police station, and the Pleasant Grove Water Treatment Plant), and numerous recreational and educational opportunities (construction of 32 parks, the Roseville Aquatics Center, Maidu Community Center, Maidu Interpretive Center, Maidu Branch Library, and the Woodcreek Golf Course).

While the City of Roseville began down a path towards full maturity in the 1980s, the fruits of its labor were fully realized in the 1990s.

NEC

Roseville experienced a technology boom when companies such as Hewlett-Packard and NEC opened up venues within the city.

Continued growth in the industry throughout the 1990s pushed Roseville towards the new millennium. By 1999, Hewlett-Packard employed over 4,400 workers at its North Roseville locations making it the number one employer in Roseville and Placer County.

By 1992, NEC’s Roseville investment had grown to $1.2 billion. First proposed in 1998, a 600,000-square-foot $1.4 billion expansion brought NEC’s total investment here to more than $2.6 billion, adding approximately 700 new jobs when it was completed in 2002. Other new industries followed and contributed to diversifying Roseville’s economy.

With the opening of new hospitals and medical centers, the demand for skilled nurses, medical technicians and other related occupations became highly competitive. Sutter Roseville Medical Center opened in June of 1997 and Kaiser Permanente’s hospital opened in 1998. University of California Davis satellite primary care clinics and a host of other clinics, convalescent hospitals, regional medical centers and retirement homes also joined the Roseville health services community.

The $108 million Sutter Roseville Medical Center, successor to Roseville Community Hospital, opened its 315,000 square-foot facility in June 1997. Among its specialties is the Family Birth Center, which allows a woman and her family to remain in one room throughout labor, delivery and post-partum. The hospital also provides a 24-hour emergency department and is the only Level II Trauma Center between Roseville and Reno.

Kaiser Permanente Hospital

Kaiser Permanente commenced construction of its 255,000 square-foot hospital on Eureka Road in 1992.

Although completed in 1995, the $109 million facility did not accept inpatients until 1998 after re-evaluation of all Kaiser Hospitals was completed.

During its first full year of operation (October 1998 - October 1999), the 116-bed hospital admitted 7,600 patients and has treated more than 29,000 in its emergency facility.

UC Davis Medical Group, one of the most highly rated teaching hospitals in the state, opened a satellite primary care clinic in Roseville in 1998.

Roseville has attracted highly specialized medical services including the Northern California Fertility Center, which specializes in in-vitro fertilization and serves all of Northern California from Roseville to Reno and to the Oregon border.

In addition to high-tech and medical service employers, many professional office development support groups sprang up along Douglas Boulevard and surrounding areas.

Demand for skilled workers continues to exceed supply for the foreseeable future. As a result, industry turned to recruiting skilled workers and management personnel from outside the area. In addition, many workers are hired at entry levels, then allowed to attend classes to acquire skills needed for advancement.

Nearby colleges and universities offering professional development, certificate and degree programs include Sierra and American River Community Colleges; California State University, Sacramento (CSUS); University of California, Davis; Golden Gate University; Heald College; University of Phoenix and the University of San Francisco. Recognizing the need for education and training for Roseville area employees, several educational facilities expanded or established new facilities in Roseville.

A notable example is Roseville Gateway, which took over the former Roseville Community Hospital facility on Sunrise Avenue and converted the former hospital into an education and technical skills development center. Sierra College leased part of the facility to provide vital job skills needed for today’s labor market. On July 30, 1999, Heald College opened its Roseville School of Business and Technology on Harding Boulevard and later in the fall, the University of Phoenix opened a branch campus along Douglas Boulevard.

In spite of these efforts, demand still exceeds supply in the local skilled labor market. Each day an estimated 19,800 non-residents drive into Roseville to work. That number approximates the City’s entire 1975 population of 20,050. Roseville today is a net importer of jobs, meaning the number of available jobs far exceeds the number of working-age Roseville residents. During this period, an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent marked its lowest figure in the past 12 years.

Growth in West Roseville reached a high point in 1997 when nearly half (47 percent) of all housing started in Placer County during that year took place in Roseville. The large Del Webb Sun City Roseville project alone accounted for 25 percent of this growth.

On Dec. 15, 1993, the City of Roseville granted approval for a Del Webb retirement community on 1,200 acres of the historic Fiddyment Ranch, making it the first Del Webb retirement community to be undertaken outside of traditional locales like Arizona and Palm Springs. Groundbreaking for the 3,500-unit project took place on February 14, 1994 and sales commenced the following May. By Feb. 10, 1999, the sales office closed due to all units being sold, five years ahead of its most optimistic projections. New shopping centers at Foothills Boulevard and Baseline Road, and at Foothills and Junction boulevards were completed to serve this fast growing area of Roseville.

While construction continues at a frenzied pace on both sides of the city, attention focused on the North Central corridor along Harding Boulevard up to the Rocklin city limits. Pioneered by the giant Costco discount store in 1996, Stanford Ranch Crossing was the first major shopping center in this area. An unprecedented wave of new construction, including Roseville’s second Home Depot, Galleria at Roseville and Creekside Town Center, began.

Leading the way was the 1.1-million-square-foot Galleria at Roseville, located at Harding Boulevard between Highway 65 and Roseville Parkway. Ground breaking for the “super mall” which is anchored by Macy’s, Nordstrom, Sears and J.C. Penney, took place on Sept. 2, 1998. Galleria was officially opened to the public on Aug. 25, 2000.

Galleria at Roseville provides parking for 4,700 vehicles. The mall, which attracts new shoppers and other businesses to Roseville, is expected to boost Roseville and Placer County tax revenues by $100 million during its first 21 years. Construction of the mall created approximately 1,200 jobs and the Galleria employs close to 2,400 people.

The Creekside Town Center, a 1.3-million-square-foot mixed use complex with office, commercial and hotel facilities directly across Harding Boulevard nicely compliments the Galleria. In anticipation of increased traffic when the Galleria opened, a $14 million project to extend Roseville Parkway from Taylor Road to Harding Boulevard began in July, 1999. The project, which includes a six-lane bridge spanning Interstate 80, the railroad tracks and Antelope Creek, opened in time for the Galleria’s grand opening on Aug. 25, 2000.

Infrastructural development remained an important component of sustaining Roseville’s growth. In August 1993, more than 200 city employees moved from 11 different work sites to the corporation yard complex located at PFE Road and Hilltop Circle. Four buildings totaling 144,000 square feet provide shop and office space for the city’s water, sewer and refuse utilities; sign shop, purchasing, print shop and vehicle maintenance operations; and parks, streets and building maintenance. Five years later (1998), the Roseville Police Department’s 135 employees moved into a new $12 million highly advanced structure at Washington and Junction boulevards. This 78,442 square-foot facility is designed to meet department needs until the year 2020.


The central point for Roseville’s “building for the future” approach to updating city government offices was a $14 million civic center project. City leaders began talking about a downtown civic center as early as 1988 when projections indicated that City Hall, completed in 1987, would not meet the needs of the growing city much beyond 1992. It would not be until 1996, however, before the City began planning in earnest for a civic center which was to be the centerpiece of an overall Central Roseville revitalization.

Phase I construction, completed in spring 2000, included removal of structures at Oak and Grant Streets, conversion of that land to parking spaces and construction of a new parking lot along Dry Creek at Lincoln Street. Civic Center construction began in August, 2000 after City Hall employees relocated to the corporation yard. When employees returned to their offices in the new Civic Center in 2002, City Hall Annex employees joined them in the new facility. Even before plans were finalized for the Civic Center and other municipal projects, City leaders established an interest-bearing fund to provide money for repairs and future additions.

A major concern facing every City Council during the past 30 years has been how to maintain the small town neighborliness, which has made Roseville such an envied place to live. Particularly attractive to many young families moving into the area is Roseville’s excellent school system, which has more than kept up with dynamic growth patterns. In the past 20 years, the number of children enrolled in Roseville’s K - 8 schools reflect the growth of the entire region.

In 1979, the Roseville City School District had just six schools, Cirby, Crestmont, Kaseberg, Sierra Gardens and Woodbridge elementary schools and Warren T. Eich Intermediate School and served a total of 2,772 students at the time. By October 1999, Roseville City School District housed 5,811 students at 12 campuses, including Brown, Sargeant, Spanger and Gates elementary schools, Buljan Intermediate School and Robert C. Cooley Middle School with the district preparing for three additional schools within the following 10 years.

In 1979, the Dry Creek District, located in today’s West Roseville, had but one school, the Dry Creek Elementary School with its 135 students. When the vast NEC and Hewlett-Packard industrial complexes developed, the area’s population grew rapidly, and more schools were needed. As of October 1999, the Dry Creek District enrolled 5,148 students at Dry Creek, Heritage Oak, Quail Glen, Antelope Meadows and Olive Grove elementary schools and Antelope Crossing and Silverado middle schools.

Located in the East Roseville and Granite Bay areas, the Eureka Union School District also experienced tremendous growth. In 1979, the district had 1,091 students attending Greenhill, Oakhills and Maidu elementary schools, Eureka, Ridgeview and Excelsior middle schools and Cavitt and Olympus junior high schools. As new housing developments in Johnson Ranch and Olympus Pointe completed, the Eureka Union School District built its first schools outside the Granite Bay area: Olympus junior high and Excelsior elementary schools. As of October 1999, nearly 3,918 students attended Eureka’s eight schools.

Serving Roseville’s three elementary school districts, the Roseville Joing Union High School District (RJUHSD) expanded greatly to meet increasing needs. In 1979, the district had but two high schools, Roseville Joint Union High School and Oakmont High School. By October 2000, RJUHSD had grown to include four comprehensive high schools (Woodcreek and Granite Bay were added in the 1990s), one independent study high school program and two alternative high schools.

The district combines the latest technology, college preparation and high academic standards to create one of the most progressive districts in California and in May, 1996, RJUHSD was one of 71 districts nationwide to be awarded the title “Model School District” by the International Center for Leadership in Education.

Private Schools are another option for many parents. Choices include three Merryhill Country Schools (K - 5,) La Petite Academy (six weeks to 12 years) and the American Montessori Academy (2-6 years old.) Schools with religious affiliations include St. Rose Catholic Church School, St. John’s Christian School, St. Albans Country Day School and Cornerstone Christian School.

Several higher education opportunities are available in and around Roseville. University of Phoenix and University of San Francisco courses are now available in Roseville through their offices along the Douglas Boulevard corridor. California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), Golden Gate University and National University are a short 20 miles from Roseville. A few miles farther west is the University of California, Davis campus. Closer to home are Sierra and American River Community Colleges, both fully accredited two-year schools where students can earn Associate of Arts degrees or transfer to four-year colleges for upper division and graduate level course work.

Recognizing how quickly open space in South Placer County is disappearing, the City followed an aggressive policy to develop a wide variety of neighborhood parks and playgrounds as well as miles of bicycle and hiking trails along streambed greenbelt areas. The City mandated that there must be nine acres of parks for every 1,000 residents, twice the amount required for other cities of comparable size in California.

A remarkable accomplishment under any condition is made even more remarkable by remembering Roseville had but three parks, Royer, Woodbridge and Weber, when Gene Watson was hired as the City’s first Recreation Director under Parks Superintendent Williard Dietrich in 1948. The anemic Recreation Department then consisted of a director (Watson), a part-time secretary (Elsie Clarkston Schimpf) and three part-time playground supervisors with a budget of $5,000.

It is hard to believe that Roseville, which saw its population grow to over 70,000, still maintained one-third of its total surface area in park land and open space. For nearly 30 years, Ed Mahany served as Roseville’s Parks and Recreation Director. The list of accomplishments during his tenure is impressive.

From a small group of 12 full-time employees in 1964 when he took over, the Roseville Parks and Recreation Department evolved into one of the most envied in all of Northern California. Under Mahany’s aggressive leadership, Roseville’s nine park acres per 1,000 people is one of the highest standards in the state. Other accomplishments include development of Saugstad, Maidu and Kaseberg parks, the outstanding Maidu Community Center, Diamond Oaks Golf Course, miles of creek bed clearing and development, and bicycle trails.

These accomplishments can be attributed in part to the efforts of Mahany along with City Manager Bob Hutchison and a progressive City Council. Ed Mahany retired in December 1992 and Mahany Regional Park in northwest Roseville is named for this dedicated public servant.

The private sector also plays an important role in the recreation/entertainment field of Roseville. In recent years two multi-screen theater complexes (Century and United Artists), an ice skating rink (Skatetown) and Golfland/Sunsplash have been completed. Dining out has become an important feature of the good life in Roseville. Dozens of eateries ranging from fast food operations to exclusive and expensive gourmet restaurants opened during the late 1990s.

Throughout this challenging period of unprecedented growth, the City has worked closely with all segments of the community, including groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, neighborhood associations and community organizations. Together they plan for the future using a “working together works” philosophy. Perhaps the most innovative example of city-community cooperation has been the establishment of the $14.8 million interest-bearing Citizens’ Benefit Fund, from the sale of the old Roseville Community Hospital facility, which allows community non-profit organizations to apply for grants for worthwhile community projects.

Applications are reviewed by the seven-member Roseville Grants Advisory Commission and make funding recommendations for final approval by the City Council. Since the first grant cycle in 1994, the Citizen’s Benefit Fund has awarded more than $10.3 million. Only interest from the fund is used, thus ensuring the longevity of the program.

Roseville Telephone Foundation, the non-profit arm of Roseville Communications Co. (RCC), is one of many local organizations devoted to community enhancement. Established in 1992 as a vision of the late RCC chairman Bob Doyle, the foundation has, by the end of 1999, contributed nearly $800,000 to help children, families and the elderly in the Roseville, Antelope, Granite Bay and Citrus Heights areas.

For its efforts, the Roseville Telephone Foundation was awarded the 1999 “Beyond the Call” Community Service Award by the United States Telecom Association. Other long-time service clubs like the Lions and Rotary clubs, Soroptimist International and the Women’s Improvement Club have a long-established tradition of contributing to the betterment of the community.

While local interests were fighting to restore passenger service via Amtrak, Southern Pacific was sold to Phillip Anschutz and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1988 for $1 billion. Edward L. Meyers was assigned the responsibility of resurrecting Southern Pacific in 1993.Under his leadership, operating costs were slashed and funds raised through sale of Southern Pacific lands.

Improved earnings were used to upgrade Southern Pacific’s decrepit fleet of 2,000 locomotives which served 14,500 miles of track in 15 states. Bit by bit, Southern Pacific began to rebound for the first time in years. Meyers retired in 1995 due to ill health and was succeeded by Jerry Davis, a 38-year railroading veteran. Davis’ primary goal was to make Southern Pacific trains run on time. He kept this promise and, within a few months, Southern Pacific trains were keeping on close-to-posted schedules. Shippers’ confidence was gradually restored and business began to increase. Under Meyers’ and Davis’ leadership, Southern Pacific began to slowly turn around.

The company, which lost a total of $292 million between 1991 and 1993, reported earnings of $242 million in 1994. Despite the California floods in 1995, Southern Pacific earned $16.5 million in the first three months of that year. Southern Pacific continued to run its trains on time and kept them in operating condition at its cavernous repair facility in Denver, Colorado. During this restructuring period, Southern Pacific raised hundreds of millions of dollars through stock and land sales, slashed its long-term debt by 22 percent and transformed its negative net worth of $77 million in 1992 to over $1.1 billion in 1994.

Just as Southern Pacific seemed to be turning things around, it was announced the company had been sold to Union Pacific. The sale signaled the end of the Southern Pacific name, an American fixture since 1865. Union Pacific would now have 31,000 miles of track operating in 25 states, Canada and Mexico. The company would have combined revenues of $49.54 billion making it the largest railroad in the United States. The $5.4 billion deal was expected to save Union Pacific more than $750 million a year, much of which came from elimination of nearly 3,400 jobs nationwide including more than 1,200 positions in San Francisco.

Roseville, with its future as an important railroad center threatened only a few short years ago, would be one of the biggest winners from the merger. The public soon learned Roseville was earmarked to become the major Northern California hub for the largest railroad in North America. The merger of Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads under the Union Pacific banner was officially approved in 1996. Work began the following year on the largest expansion in Roseville’s history.

The expansion was directed by Jerry Davis, a key member of the team responsible for developing the Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger while president of Southern Pacific in 1995-96. More than 120 old buildings were demolished to make way for three new buildings, a hump crest building, a yard office and a one-stop repair facility. Four new bridges were built, signals were upgraded, utility and electrical lines were put into place, and endless miles of pipe and fiber optic cable lines were installed.

Other improvements were made and 50 miles of track were constructed to reduce bulk and intermodal traffic in the Roseville yards by one-third. The completely rebuilt 780-acre Roseville yard can depart 20 trains daily to Portland, West Colton and Chicago. Dedication of the state-of-the-art facility (named after Jerry Davis) on May 27, 1999 reflected Union Pacific’s commitment to its customers to provide world class transportation services. For local residents it was a joyous occasion for it signaled that once again Roseville was the most important railroad center west of the Mississippi River.

As the twentieth century wound down, Roseville found itself in the midst of the greatest economic boom in its 135-year history. Its economy was strong and growing stronger every day with ample job opportunities. With the new Galleria at Roseville serving as the catalyst, demand for office and retail space multiplied many times over.

By the end of 1998, Roseville and nearby Rocklin had a combined total of 1.4 million square feet of office space. Roseville’s total alone in 1999 added up to more than 2 million square feet. New subdivisions, including affordable housing for low income families and senior citizens, were added along with executive-style homes and hotels catering to the business and traveling public. Olympus Pointe continues to be the center of impressive office buildings with several new additions under construction as the decade nears its end.

While new construction continues at an uninterrupted pace and attracts a lot of attention, Central Roseville, the focus of the community’s economic life for so many years, was not ignored. In September of 1999, the City revealed its latest revitalization plans for Central Roseville. Four months in the making, the report identified and prioritized 19 proposed projects and programs at an estimated cost of $20 million. Included in the report were plans for the $14 million Civic Center expansion; the $1.1 million Vernon Streetscape Project; a $2.4 million pedestrian bridge across the railroad tracks between Downtown and Old Town Roseville; completion of the $1.6 million Royer Park master plan and creek improvements; and $1 million central city parking improvements.

About the same time (Sept. 13, 1999), the $7 million Atlantic Street widening project was completed. A 10,000-pound granite locomotive monument, reflecting Roseville’s railroad heritage, anchors the entrance to the four-lane, tree-lined corridor leading into the Central Roseville area. Motorists leaving Interstate 80 at Atlantic Street are greeted by the 23-foot solid granite locomotive monument, carved by Roseville sculptor Gene Chapman with the inscription, “Welcome to Central Roseville.”City leaders envisioned the Civic Center as the focal point in a revitalized central business district featuring a wide variety of shops and offices, restaurants, cafes, parks and landscaped plazas, street fairs and performing arts mixed in with local government.

To many, the crowning achievement for 1999 was completion of Union Pacific’s $145 million rail yard reconstruction. The dedication ceremony on May 21, 1999 signified Roseville was once again the most important rail center west of the Mississippi River. Restoration of the railroad to its former lofty position, along with a booming economy, has led many observers to comment that “1999 has been the best year for Roseville that anyone can remember.” Optimism remained high that the good times would continue well into the next decade.

These fears were reinforced by a September 1999 study prepared by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments which estimates that Placer County’s population will double between January 1997 and July 1, 2022. More than half of this growth is expected to occur in Roseville which, if projections are correct, will grow by 50,347 new residents by year 2022, an increase of 76.6 percent.

Local residents are well aware of the many and varied benefits growth has brought to the community and they enjoy these benefits. People are less comfortable, however, about potential problems accompanying this growth. Where will these newcomers live? Where will they shop? How will the region develop? Will the development be unchecked? These are but a few of many challenging questions waiting to be answered. Decisions that are made will affect the quality of life in Roseville for generations to come.

Roseville’s citizenry were divided on how to address these problems along “slow growth” and “managed growth” lines. Slow growth advocates speak out for a “slow but sure” approach to ensure that growth does not outstrip the City’s ability to provide services to its growing population. At least five slow growth or no growth initiatives have been turned down by voters in the greater Sacramento area in recent years. Initiatives were defeated in Folsom and Davis in 1989; Lincoln, 1990; Sutter County, 1991; and Placer County in 1994.

A petition to reduce the number of future homes by one-half was submitted to Roseville voters in 1996 but it also failed to get the required number of votes. Efforts to create a series of “new towns” (satellite towns) have likewise failed to win voter approval. Slow growth support, however, remains strong, especially among older segments of the community longing for the return of the good old days when Roseville moved at a much slower, less hectic pace.

Harry Crabb

Former Mayor Harry Crabb is one of many opposing the slow growth petitions claiming they would do more harm than good. Crabb articulates the City’s position that the best way to resolve problems associated with growth is by careful, long-range planning called managed growth. As he explains, managed or smart growth will not only provide for orderly growth but will also provide the means, through sales and property tax increases, to accommodate that growth.

With five terms on Roseville’s City Council, four as mayor, Harry Crabb served on the governing body longer than any other with the exception of Dr. Bradford Woodbridge and George Buljan. This Roseville native’s lengthy public service career, spanning parts of four decades, commenced in 1964 when friend and neighbor George Buljan appointed him to serve on a newly organized Environmental Impact Committee. This marked the beginning of his more than 26-year career in public service.

In 1980, Crabb was elected to the local city council where he served almost continuously on that governing body during the dynamic growth period of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1995, Crabb seriously considered stepping down from public service but was persuaded to run again by his many friends and supporters. Garnering more votes that any other candidate, he was chosen to serve as mayor for the fourth time. He had held that position previously in 1980-82, 1984-85, and 1995-96.

During his long years of service on the city council, Crabb was a strong advocate of managed growth. Harry Crabb stepped down from office in November 2000. During Crabb’s long tenure, he helped guide Roseville through the most dynamic growth in the City’s 136-year history. He was succeeded as mayor by Claudia Gamar.

Widespread popular support for the managed growth position is due in part to the city’s orderly growth pattern and to increased revenues generated from that growth. These monies, averaging about $450 per resident, have enabled the City to provide and maintain a wide range of services enjoyed by local residents and envied by surrounding communities.

Ironically, both slow growth and managed growth advocates, in spite of much rhetoric, are in agreement on most basic points. Both agree that growth is here to stay whether we like it or not, and that growth will continue uninterrupted well into the next century. Both also agree, regardless of whether it’s called slow growth or managed growth, that careful, long-range planning is critical if Roseville continues to enjoy the good life and avoids becoming another Silicon Valley with its history of mismanaged growth policies.

Roseville ushered in the year 2001 on an optimistic note. Its population, which had shown a steady increase from 24,346 in 1980 to 83,002 in 2001, showed no signs of slackening. Estimates predicted that, by 2015, Roseville’s population would swell to 145,331, an increase of 75 percent.

By 2008, City development departments were processing proposed annexations to the west and north to accommodate expected growth patterns.

All of the areas in the four proposed expansion areas comprised a total of 7,341 acres or approximately 11.5 square miles. Added to the city’s then-existing 36 square miles, the city was forecast to grow to a total of 47.5 square miles with an estimated population of 190,000 people at buildout.

The city’s continued growth could be attributed to the foresight of past leaders who laid the groundwork for what Roseville has become today. They crafted a managed growth policy that not only turned the city into a retail hub but also helped establish the strongest office market in the region, earning Roseville recognition as one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Additionally, by owning its own power, water, sewer, and solid waste facilities, the City was able to provide businesses with low utility rates and reliable service, reducing overall operating costs and fostering further growth. 

Building Up Instead of Building Out

Business, commercial and industrial development continued to flourish throughout the opening decade of the 21^st century. NEC, the Japanese-owned global electronics company, began a $168 million expansion program at its headquarters in Roseville. Others followed, including multi-million-dollar, multi-storied expansions by healthcare giants Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Roseville Medical Center. These facilities enhanced Roseville’s existing reputation as a prominent northern California location for health care service.

The railroad, which made a striking recovery after its takeover by Union Pacific in 1996, continued to expand operations. By 2004, its work force numbered 1,294. By 2007, it had grown to 1,500—surpassed in number of employees by only electronics giant Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Roseville Medical Center.  The railroad once again was a major player in the local economy.

Roseville also continued to attract corporate office construction, but change was in the air. As Roseville’s population soared, accompanied by an ongoing building boom, open space became scarcer and, therefore, more expensive. Developers began to build up instead of building out.

Stone Point, a 30,000-square-foot corporate headquarters complex, typified this change. The $185 million project included two six-story Class I office buildings and three five-story structures on 129 acres at the North Sunrise/Eureka Road intersection.  Class 1 buildings of this type are generally occupied by law firms, professional service companies and other high-profile businesses.

High-rise projects like Stone Point called for modified building and development strategies, and affected the way Roseville grew.

Major additions to the Westfield Galleria shopping mall at Roseville, as well as construction of adjoining shopping areas and nearby office complexes expanded retail, dining and business opportunities. Completion of the upscale Fountains shopping center in June 2008 made the Roseville Parkway and Galleria Boulevard area a regional retail destination.

Roseville also emerged as the sports center of southwestern Placer County. Approximately 160 sporting events a year added another $36 million to Roseville’s increasingly diversified economy. Placer Valley Tourism led efforts to recruit amateur sporting events to Roseville. Examples included national softball championships, swimming, synchronized swimming and water polo events, BMX bike racing and golf tournaments. The events were supported by a surge in the number of hotel rooms that were built in Roseville. Hotel room numbers doubled from 1,332 in 2008 to more than 2,200 by the end of 2009.

On a less grand but nevertheless significant boost to the local economy, numerous neighborhood shopping centers and business and professional office complexes sprang up to serve residents in new housing developments. These neighborhood developments provided convenience and additional job opportunities and added revenues for the city.

Retail sales tax generated by the healthy business climate boosted Roseville’s economy. For example, in the third quarter of 2007, Roseville’s per-capita sales tax revenue was $362, while the state’s average was $139. Sales tax revenues, reflected then-Mayor Jim Gray, were “a crucial factor in protecting the lifestyles and integrity of our city.”

Emergence as a Northern California Job Center

Roseville’s ideal location, low-cost, reliable utilities and quality of life continued to attract business investment and expansion.  By 2015, according to then-City Manager Craig Robinson, “Roseville may very well surpass downtown Sacramento in the number of jobs created.”

Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Today

Roseville’s job market remained robust through 2007 with an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent; however, the economic downturn in 2008 resulted in an unemployment rate of more than 6 percent. In an increasingly competitive economy, most higher paying positions in the high-tech business and industrial labor market required advanced education or technical skills. Roseville’s elementary and secondary schools had kept pace with demands of an increasing population. The need for local colleges and universities was now beginning to be addressed.

Two sites for institutions of higher education—one a private university and the other a branch of California State University, Sacramento (CSUS)—were identified, and planners began taking preliminary steps to locate them in Roseville.

In November 2008, the Placer County Board of Supervisors approved conceptual plans for Drexel University, the 16^th largest private university in the nation, to establish a major four-year university on a 600-acre site to be donated by the Tskapoulos family and partners. The agreement included an additional 536 acres west of the then-city limits to be developed to help finance the university.

Planning began for a Roseville branch of California State University, Sacramento (Sacramento State) in a 280-acre site in the Placer Ranch subdivision north of the existing city limits. Placer Ranch master plans envisioned that, upon completion, the Roseville campus would only be 20 acres smaller than the existing Sacramento State main campus.

Completion of the Drexel University and CSUS campuses was expected to add $1 billion to the local economy in addition to a wealth of educational and cultural benefits for the community.

In March 2015, Drexel University announced it was closing its downtown Sacramento campus and refocusing on its original campus in Philadelphia. While Drexel’s Placer County campus was never developed, planning for a Sacramento State satellite campus in the Roseville area continued. Roseville, formerly known as the railroad city, aspired to someday become Roseville, the college and university city.

Visioning Downtown Roseville

During the previous decade, while Roseville broadened its economic base and expanded its boundaries, city planners were working on plans to revitalize downtown Roseville. The leading business district in the city’s earlier history, downtown Roseville had been largely bypassed by the march of progress.

The first phase of a projected revitalization program began in 1999 with funding for various downtown construction projects, including:

• Widening and landscaping the Atlantic Street corridor leading into downtown Roseville
• Beautifying downtown’s Vernon Street
• Renovating the venerable Roseville and Tower Theatres
• Constructing an impressive new $17 million civic center

In 2000, city leaders approved the Downtown Roseville Visioning Project and invited the community to participate in a series of public meetings, seminars and workshops to develop this area’s new vision.  Downtown Roseville would be transformed into a vibrant gathering place with public plazas, creek side walkways and a bustling mix of shops, restaurants and homes. Having a specific plan in place would allow the city to better shape development in the downtown area.

In January 2006, City Council voted approval of the Downtown Specific Plan—a blueprint for redeveloping and revitalizing the 160 acres encompassing the downtown Vernon Street and Historic Old Town areas.

On December 23, 2006, work crews poured the final concrete on the fourth floor of the City Plaza Project. Roseville’s first public parking garage built by the City, opened on October 30, 2007. The 5,000-square foot Blue Line Art Gallery, located on the ground floor of the $13 million structure, opened to the public on February 2, 2008. An adjoining privately owned four-story office building was constructed as well.

Meanwhile, in May 2006, a successful bid for the Historic Old Town Improvement Project was accepted. Work began on October 5, 2007, marking the start of a complex effort to transform the area into a vibrant, economically viable area for new investments, new businesses and community events. The Historic District Improvement Project was completed in May of 2008.

The Riverside Gateway Specific Plan and Streetscape Project, after years of public outreach, planning and coordination, finally shifted into high gear when development concepts and standards were established. At buildout, the project was expected to add 220,000 square feet of new commercial development and 110 new dwelling units. The project design included entry features at each end of Riverside Avenue, colorful trees and plants, decorative street furniture and significant upgrades to utility infrastructure.

Going West

As more residents sought job opportunities in northern California and the region’s population increased, so did demands for new housing. The City of Roseville planned for its share of the region’s growth by annexing properties to the west. The West Roseville Specific Plan’s West Park and Fiddyment Farms developments totaled 3,163 acres.  Zoned for 8,400 residential units, 19 parks and 70 acres of commercial development including a village center, west Roseville would be well on its way to becoming a city within a city.

Managing the Impacts of Growth

As Roseville welcomed thousands of new residents and hundreds of businesses, city leaders relied on its managed growth policy, created in the mid-1980s, to ensure well-planned new development. Under the policy, vacant land within the city’s jurisdiction was divided into specific plans for which detailed development guidelines were negotiated by city planners, landowners and developers before a single spadeful of dirt was turned over. Most specific plan infrastructure costs were paid by developers through development fees and assessment districts that were funded for a fixed number of years through property taxes.

Roseville city councils steadfastly insisted that developers preserve parks and open space to ensure residents could enjoy Roseville’s natural beauty. The plans for Fiddyment Farms, for example, required that 340 acres remain as undeveloped open space along with 210 acres of parks designed to preserve the natural feel of the landscape.

Preserving Open Space

In 2007, the City hired an open space manager and an urban forester to manage Roseville’s open space preserves and to educate residents about this tremendous resource. One of their first major assignments was to oversee the planting of some 6,250 valley oaks ranging in size from small acorns and seedlings to young trees in seven open space areas throughout the city. By 2008, Roseville had 5,460 acres of parks and open space ranging from small neighborhood patches of greenery to expansive multi-use regional parks like Maidu and Mahany. According to Mike Shellito, the community services director and assistant city manager at the time, that averaged about one acre of land for every 20 residents, one of the highest park-acre ratios in California.

The dedication of Aldo Pineschi Sr. Park on July 5, 2008, followed by Paul J. Lunardi Park dedicated on August 9, 2008, marked the opening of Roseville’s 57^th and 58^th parks. More than 40 additional parks in various stages of planning or development were on the drawing board at that time. The City continued its tradition of naming local parks for distinguished residents, honoring most of these accomplished citizens when they were still members of the community and able to enjoy the recognition.

Roseville continued its commitment not only the development of parks and playgrounds but also to the development of community-gathering and –learning facilities. This included opening the Martha J. Riley Library on January 27, 2008, in a complex that also housed the community-access television studio, the emergency-operations center, and the Utility Exploration Center, a state-of-the-art centerpiece for Roseville’s commitment to becoming an environmentally sound and conservation-minded community. The center offered a wide range of exciting, informative, hands-on environmental and conservation programs to residents ranging from preschoolers to senior citizens. Exhibits and activities helped people learn about their environment and their roles in protecting and enhancing that environment. The UEC hosted more than 23,000 visitors in its first year and a half of operation.

Protecting open space and streambed corridors remained a top priority as well. Preserving their natural function ensured they can continue to enrich the lives of generations to come. The prize jewel in Roseville’s parks and open space program was the planned Reason Farms Environmental Project, a 1,700-acre nature preserve purchased in 2006. When fully developed, the preserve would be twice the size of New York City’s Central Park. Planning for the project included the preservation of vernal pools and wetlands, as well as hiking and biking trails, outdoor camping sites, an equestrian center, a model airplane field and a man-made lake for kayaking and other non-motorized water activities. Educational programs were planned to focus on environmental and conservation projects.

Planners predicted that when the city buildout was completed, 25 percent of all land within the city limits would be devoted to parks, open space and streambed uses.

 Managing Growth: A Regional Approach

As Roseville continued its tradition of planning for a sustainable city well into the future, managed growth took a regional approach as area urban centers grew ever closer together. Roseville was an active member of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), which worked together to solve common problems. SACOG, a six-county, 22-city organization, developed a managed growth blueprint for the entire fast-growing region.

Making Housing Affordable

Roseville’s managed growth policy had successfully established well-planned neighborhood communities with a wide range of amenities, including neatly manicured parks and broad vistas of open space and streambed corridors. Over the previous decade, Roseville’s homes had been priced above the region’s median home price, due to the desirability of the homes and lower inventories of available lots. After the housing market correction in 2008, Roseville’s median home price was around $340,000, down significantly from a high of $470,000 in 2005. Housing was then more affordable to more people who worked in Roseville. Roseville’s newly built housing included some solar-powered communities, which were attractive to Roseville home buyers.

City leaders were well aware of the need to have housing available at a variety of price points, and took steps to make the process easier and more accessible. In 1988, Roseville’s city council had adopted a 10 percent affordable housing goal.  Developers were required to set aside 10 percent of their housing product for rentals and affordable purchased housing. From 1988 through 2009, more than 2,400 affordable units were built in Roseville. Developers were also encouraged to build smaller houses on smaller lots, and to emphasize mixed housing styles, including townhouses, condominiums, row houses and cottages along with larger residences.

Low- or no-interest loans helped first-time homebuyers finance down payments. Low-interest loans were also available for rehabilitating older homes in long-established neighborhoods.

The City facilitated rental assistance for low-income families and used federal grants for public works projects like sidewalks, curbs, gutters and street repair in older neighborhoods.

Keeping Roseville Moving

Keeping Roseville’s traffic moving as the city grew became a high priority, along with providing affordable housing. Placer County’s population was projected to grow from 304,000 in 2007 to 546,000 by 2020, an 80 percent increase. Much of the new growth would occur in southwestern Placer County, where Roseville was already experiencing increased traffic, particularly on the 18-mile section of Interstate 80 between Roseville and downtown Sacramento.

Discussions were underway to expand the Capitol Corridor Amtrak commuter train route between Auburn and Sacramento from two trains a day to as many as sixteen. Mitigation of Placer County’s transportation problems between 2007 and 2030 was estimated to cost $3.3 billion—a shortfall of between $1.2 and $2 billion. Various options were suggested, including a statewide bond issue, local and regional transportation sales taxes, and toll roads for major connecting links.

While transportation planning at the regional level progressed through the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, Roseville moved forward with local transportation projects. In fiscal year 2006-2007, the City added two lanes to westbound Eureka Road connecting to eastbound Interstate 80 improvements. By the completion of the first phase, peak travel times dropped by ten to fifteen minutes.  In the summer of 2008, workers started the second phase of widening Interstate 80 where it narrowed from five lanes to three lanes entering Placer County. They also made improvements in the Cirby Road/Roseville Road area. Work continued to widen Interstate 80 just beyond the Highway 65 interchange.

In the 2006-2007 fiscal year, City public works staff coordinated the improvement of more than 200 traffic signals to expedite traffic at major intersections like Douglas/Sunrise and Cirby/Riverside. Perhaps the single most important improvement was the 2006 redesign of the Douglas/Sunrise interchange. The redesign, which included the construction of Harry Crabb tunnel from northbound Sunrise Avenue to eastbound Interstate 80 and Larry Pagel Pass, a flyover that diverted traffic from eastbound Douglas Boulevard onto southbound Sunrise Avenue, reduced daily traffic flow through the formerly congested Sunrise/Douglas intersection by about 15,000 vehicles. Transportation, however, would remain a critical issue for years to come.

Keeping Water Flowing and In Its Place

Water, California’s “white gold,” received special attention during this period through various conservation programs. Roseville’s Environmental Utilities Department developed a unique ground water injection project, diverting thousands of acre feet of surplus water during winter months into underground aquifers. On December 14, 2006, Roseville began a pilot project, the first of its kind in the greater Sacramento area, to send about two million gallons of drinking water each day into a 400-foot well. The well, located in Leonard “Duke” Davis Park, transfers water to an underground aquifer for storage until needed. The project was then expanded to other aquifers. Studies of the twelve area aquifers showed that as much as 250,000 to 350,000 acre-feet of water (100 billion gallons) could be stored in local aquifers.

During high water winter months, this water injection storage project is expected to dramatically reduce periodic winter flooding, enhance salmon and steelhead spawning programs, improve wildlife habitat and provide additional year-round recreational benefits.

Completion of the $120 million Pleasant Grove Wastewater Treatment Plant in October 2004 increased wastewater recycling capacities by 50 percent. Recycled water was used to irrigate city parks, golf courses and other municipal facilities, conserving 400 million gallons of water each year.

Nationally Recognized Flood Control

After the 1995 flood, city leaders began an aggressive plan to prevent future flooding, which had plagued Roseville from its earliest days. Completion of a major flood control project along Cirby, Linda and Dry creeks in 2000 took nearly 500 homes out of the floodplain. Then, in October 2007, the Miners Ravine detention basin began storing stream water during winter months for release during dry summer months.

Roseville received nationwide recognition for its flood control efforts in 2006 when it became the first and only city in the nation to receive the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Class 1 Community Rating through the National Flood Insurance Program.

A Green and More Energy-Independent Future

Energy conservation became of upmost concern in 2000 when rolling blackouts and high energy prices plagued California. To minimize such problems in the future, the City built and now operates its own energy generation facility. The Roseville Energy Park, completed in October 2007, had the capacity to generate up to 40 percent of the city’s electricity needs, reducing dependence on the larger and often volatile energy market.

Roseville Electric continued to develop access to renewal energy sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal, as well as biomass, to increase efficiency and decrease dependence on unpredictable foreign oil.