MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Although nearly all of the books from the Chauncey W. Gibson building, which for 83 years was the Middletown Public Library, were moved to the community's new and modern library, the book on the structure itself has not been closed.
Far from it. Thanks to the resourcefulness of a small but growing cadre of the south Lake County citizens, a plan to dedicate the Gibson building to a new purpose is moving ahead.
Indeed, its future as a place where the south county's past will be on display is virtually assured.
“Consideration is being given to making the old library the genealogical center of south Lake County,” said Voris Brumfield, who heads up the group.
As a link with the past, the dedication of the Gibson Museum and Cultural Center is tentatively set for the first weekend of May of next year to coincide with the initial opening in 1930.
The dedication was celebrated with a grand ball, a concert and a ceremony in the Middletown pavilion. Sonoma County sent a Salvation Army band to commemorate the occasion.
The planners for the 2014 reopening are seeking to replicate that event as much as possible, even to the extent of encouraging contemporary Middletown residents to turn out in the Hollywood- and French-influenced long and sleek look for women and straw-hatted, hound's-tooth attire for men of the 1930s.
The concept for reinventing the Gibson building grew from a meeting of 11 south county citizens who, since March, have met bimonthly.
“Our first meeting concerned how we were going to use this building. There were no thoughts of tearing it down,” said Brumfield, the pastor at Middletown's Methodist Community Church and a former Lake County Supervisor for District 1 who has been active in community affairs since moving to the county in 1975.
Making the building a museum and genealogical center was an idea that took hold partly because an earlier attempt to create a Middletown genealogical society, lacking a place to meet, has languished.
“The idea had been around a long time,” said Brumfield.
“We've pretty much determined that we're going to jump right into this,” asserted committee member and author Nina Bouska. “It's a very small building and we don't have room for a lot of artifacts, but the way museums are going now – with digital displays, such as Calpine, I think we can do that as well or better.”
To Bouska fell the task of locating artifacts, while John Parker is organizing and cataloging materials.
“We're still pretty much in the dark about what will go into the museum,” Bouska said. “Mostly I have promises.”
Said Brumfield: “We have people who have collected oral history, others who have collected photographs. Lillie Langtry wrote a letter to someone saying 'join me in paradise.' She had a house built for Freddie Gebhard, a paramour.”
Other illustrious early south county residents included Adolph Sutro, creator of the Sutro baths on the San Francisco shore at the turn of the 19th century; Judge S.C. Hastings, founder of Hastings Law College; Lawrence Gamble of Procter & Gamble; L.J. And Mary Skaggs, pioneers in the pharmaceutical industry; and Ralph Davies, benefactor of the San Francisco Symphony.
That Gibson Library has only 1,300 square feet of floor space versus the enormity of the new library – almost four times as large at 5,000 square feet.
But neither Bouska nor Brumfield see that as an obstacle. Like other modern museums, screens and computers, they say, the Gibson Museum and Cultural Center will provide accessibility to Middletown's past.
“I think we're going to try to get the high school kids to do the animated displays for us. So it's a great project for them,” said Bouska.
In the process of restoring south Lake County landmarks, this is not the first rodeo for either Brumfield or Bouska.
Brumfield played a major part in the restoration of the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum.
“That was a miracle. It was a god awful place, filled with bats and pigeons and all kinds of clutter,” she recalled. “I was the district representative on the Board of Supervisors at the time. The California Conservation Corps came in and cleaned it out. Other government organizations donated paint and other materials.”
Bouska is a member of the Stone House Historical Society and wrote a book about the history of this quaint structure, the oldest building in Lake County.
“Four years ago we were talking about fundraising for the house,” she said. “I started researching and found so much that was interesting that all of a sudden I put together a 150-page book.”
The next step for the conversion project is getting approval by the Lake County Historical Society and the Board of Supervisors for a memorandum of understanding. The MOU has been given to Lake County Public Services and the County Counsel's Office, and a go-ahead approval by the supervisors is all but assured.
“Once that memo is approved by the Board of Supervisors we'll be able to make the plan for the building,” said Brumfield. “That's what were waiting for right now.
“We have no idea of what (the conversion of the Gibson building) will cost, but we've had an architect come in and look at it,” she added. “We have no funds for the building, so we have to think what are the minimum things we can do to make it usable and available to the public.”
Work toward the May 2014 rededication of the Gibson building is scheduled to begin in August.
“That will allow us time to do fundraising for whatever we determine needs to be done,” said Brumfield.
An estimated $5,000 to $10,000 will be needed to open the center and $500 to $1,000 a month will be required to cover operational costs.
Bouska spoke of how the addition of how the Gibson Museum and Cultural Center will serve young people.
“I found just in working with the Stone House book that once you get the kids' attention they learn that history is not just space ... there are some stories there,” she said. “They can return to a time when things were so much different. When the Stone House was built (1853-4) the closest store was in Napa. You ran out of baking powder you had to make a five-day trip by oxcart. With the series of mountains they (early residents) were practically hemmed in.”
Although quicksilver mining was ratcheting up in south county by the mid 19th century, homesteading in the Middletown area was late getting started because probate for the area was not opened until 1870.
“So while Lower Lake, Lakeport, Kelseyville, Upper Lake – even Clearlake Oaks – were growing and growing nobody could buy property here,” said Bouska. “This has been an undeveloped area and started out that way.”
One advantage that will benefit the proponents for conversion of the Gibson building, Brumfield points out, is that they will not be required to go through a 501(c)3 process.
“A lot is in place,” she said. “We have successfully piggybacked on what is already done. We have the Courthouse Museum, the Schoolhouse Museum, the Ely Stage Stop and Agricultural Museum, and now we'll have the South County Gibson Museum.”
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