Mark your calendar as Saturday, March 14, will be Sacred Heart Church’s 98th annual St. Patrick’s Dinner at Monsignor Moran Hall. Did you know that it is Susanville’s oldest continuous annual event? If you were wondering what the second is, it is the Lassen County Fair established in 1922. Continue reading St. Patrick’s Dinner
In June 1926, my grandfather and my name sake, Ira I. Purdy drove up from Sacramento to Susanville in search of employment. He was a mechanic by trade, a master one at that, which I may have inherited his name but not his mechanic skills. He found employment at Doyle & Hunsinger’s, operators of the local Ford car dealership. Once settled in he moved his wife, Margaret and young son, James, to Susanville. My father, Leroy, was born the following year on March 7, 1927 at Riverside Hospital.
Like so many others Ira yearned to have his own operation. In 1939 he left Doyle Motor Company, (Hunsinger had moved to Reno), to establish his own service station. He purchased several lots on the north side of Main Street, between Sacramento and Spring Streets and established Purdy’s Garage. It remained in operation until the mid-1950s, when health conditions forced him to retire. The property, that was Purdy’s Garage, would later become the home of the Lassen Advocate and that building sits vacant.
Of note, in 1989 Caltrans did a major reconstruction of Main Street. Caltrans consulted me as gas tanks were. It should be noted that by 1960 there were some 17 plus service (gas) stations on Main Street. Caltrans removed some, though Purdy’s Garage gas tank was actually located underneath Main Street, Caltrans even aware of that fact, did not remove it. Will it become a future sink hole?
It is only fitting to begin the daily post with some current and past history combined. In mid-February saw the demolition of one of Susanville’s notable landmarks, the Roosevelt Pool. It is part of the effort to build a new swimming pool adjacent to it. The pool it should be noted had set idle for nearly a decade when it was condemned in December 2004.
How the pool came to be is an interesting one. In 1912, the Lassen Weekly Mail announced that Lassen County had purchased some property near the proposed railroad depot site for a new hospital and cemetery. However, that was not the case. Yet, the county realized it had to seek a new location for its hospital and cemetery.