Nostalgia & History > Heres one for BarstowRick..... Hollister California in

Aerial photo of Hollister California back in the fifties. Depot is near the lower left corner. Notice the four empty gondolas.

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nwptrains and all,

That is a real treat. A real flash back.

Before, I take you on a verbal picture, past to present. Let me put a compass point, on the picture. You are actually looking southwest. To simplify it you are looking west, north being to the right and south to the left.

The house I lived in is also in the picutre. If you count the streets left to right, the streets running east to west, the second street in the picture, is 7th street and I lived on the southside of the street. This is where I grew-up as a kid. Just off of the main drag thru town, San Benito Street. What a place to cruise.

The State Theater, Veterans Building, 76 Union Station and Black and Cooper Funrniture store all occupied a corner of the intersection.

As you can tell from the picture Hollister was a quiet little town surrounded by truck farming. We had orchards with pears, apricots (the best ever) fields with tomatoes, ogra, garlic, pumpkins, corn, lettuce and anything else you can think of.

The orchards you see in the picture which are off of 4th and McCray street, on the east side of the tracks. The orchards are gone. A huge store complex with Radio Shack, Bivo's, Jack In The Box, Albertsons, True Value, Muliple houseing projects, a Storage facility and Car wash occupy the areas where you see orchards.

I did note the gondolas. Not sure what they were there for unless it was track ballast.

In the picture you can see a number of dead end spurs that run off into the orchards, to packing sheds. These are all gone. You can see a number of run around tracks which make up the yard limits. On the west side of the tracks is the Hollister Canning Company. They used to can for DelMonte and other brand names. Out of the picture to the south is the San Benito Canning Company. The Hollister Canning Company left town and the San Benito Canning Company, is the only one remaining.

Thank-you for sharing this. This brings back a lot of good memories.

RickH

Edited Portion: If you look to the upper top left hand side of the picture you will see an open area. These fields (truck farming) have been replaced with new homes. Sadly, an excellent area to farm and grow crops is becoming a bedroom community.

Thanks again!

I hope this doesn't seem like to much blah, blah, blah.

I got to put my two cents in here. As you look at the railroad infrastructure that is present. Can you see potential for industrial spurs with areas for manufacturing companies? Had the city and county mama and papa's looked at this picture with an eye to the future. I can't help but wonder what they would have seen. I remeber the city father's discussing Hollister's future at Whalens, several donut shops and Baywood's. Blinders on and tunnel vision.

Most of us that grew-up in Hollister, left town to seek education and work opportunities, elsewhere. Those of us who left did so reluctantly.

The thinking of the time, by the local's, was to preserve Hollister, as is. Today, that is pretty much a thing of the past. All of the downtown businesses, moved to the outskirts of town. Parking was a premium and traffic congestion in town was a problem, back when I was a kid.

Anyway, thanks for the flash back. Thanks for posting the picture.

RickH

I have to ask. NwpTrains, how is it you came by this photo? Did you used to live in Hollister? I can think of some guys I grew-up with, whose dads flew in and out of the Hollister airport, and did some photo work for an unspecified project. Wondering if you are one of these Hollisterites?

RickH

My dad was more or less from Hollister. He graduated High school there. His name was Al Charlberg. I got this photo after my granmother died.

My grandparents used to live on Hillcrest road not to far from the Hillcrest Market? At one time they were the third house on the left from Fairview Rd if you were heading into town.

At one time my grandfather was the Western Union telegrapher at the depot.

If you would like a High-Res copy of the picture email with your address and I'll burn a copy to cd and mail it to you.


One thing that I miss was the New China Cafe. Granparents usede to take me there. Went down after the 1989 earthquake.






BarstowRick Wrote:
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> I have to ask. NwpTrains, how is it you came by
> this photo? Did you used to live in Hollister?
> I can think of some guys I grew-up with, whose
> dads flew in and out of the Hollister airport, and
> did some photo work for an unspecified project.
> Wondering if you are one of these Hollisterites?
>
> RickH

NwpTrains:

E-mail is on it's way.

RickH