GUEST COMMENTARY
Planning grant vital to museum
Published: Wednesday, Oct 31, 2007
By VALERIE WILLIAMS REISINGER AND KATHERINE RINEHART
Few cities in all of California can rival Petaluma’s rich history. We have come from being one of the state’s largest cities in the 1860s, to the World’s Egg Basket in the early 1900s, to home of the World Wristwrestling Championships. Our beautiful Victorian downtown was left nearly untouched by the 1906 earthquake, making our city a unique time capsule in California’s historical landscape.
No other structure in Petaluma embodies our heritage like the wonderful 101-year-old Carnegie Library that now serves as our Historical Library and Museum. The library is an enduring symbol of pride in our town, serving as the backdrop for our annual Butter and Egg Days Parade and evoking our past in an expressive and beautiful manner. The acoustics in the facility have earned it the reputation as Petaluma’s own “Carnegie Hall.” It was listed as a city landmark in 1976 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The cornerstone for the stately Carnegie Library was laid in 1904. Designed by local architect Brainerd Jones and built from locally quarried stone, the building features the largest free-standing leaded glass dome in Northern California. It was crafted in the neo-classical style, featuring original fan-glass windows, round leaded-glass windows and original interior wood paneling and columns. It now houses Petaluma poultry, dairy, and Miwok Indian history exhibits from the 1850s, along with an excellent research library.
It is our responsibility to ensure that this historic treasure is cared for in a manner that maintains its integrity. To achieve this goal, the Petaluma Museum Assoc-iation recently applied for a grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment. The CCHE was established in 2004 to fund projects that tell the stories of California as a unified society and celebrate the many groups of people that together comprise the historic and modern California. CCHE is funded through Proposition 40 voter-approved bonds. The Petaluma Museum was one of 184 applicants to seek funding from the endowment.
With the strong support of Sen. Carole Migden’s office, our application was approved and we were awarded a $15,000 grant. This grant will help underwrite the cost of an Existing Conditions Assess-ment Report and Maintenance Manual. While that may sound a bit prosaic, these documents are invaluable planning tools that will allow the Petaluma Museum Assoc-iation and the city of Petaluma to plan for the building’s future while maintaining its historical character.
Many thanks are in order to Senator Migden for her efforts to help us obtain this grant. We applaud her vision and determination. Maintaining the Petaluma Museum’s splendor is vitally important to the Petaluma Museum Association and the community at large, as well as to our many visitors who come to experience Petaluma’s rich heritage in a historically and architecturally authentic setting.
(Valerie Williams Reisinger is corresponding secretary for the Petaluma Museum and Katherine Rinehart is an historian for the museum.)
