Residents mull what went wrong after fire destroys historic landmark

MERCED COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY BEFORE: The old County Library as it looked in this picture from 2003.

TIMES PHOTO BY JONATHAN WHITAKER AFTER: The destroyed historical building after the fire was extinguished on Monday.

MERCED COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Merced County’s first high school, built in 1897.

MERCED COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The beloved children’s section of the old County Library.

Bookshelves at the old County Library in 1927.

Longtime residents are shocked and deeply disappointed in the aftermath of a fire this week that destroyed a historic and beloved building on M Street in Merced.

Built in 1897, the three-story facility was originally Merced County’s first high school, and later housed the region’s main branch library. However, the structure had stood vacant for decades, ever since the library moved to a new location in the mid-1970s.

On Monday, at around 6:30 a.m., it all went up in flames.

Merced City Fire crews responded quickly and managed to contain the blaze, but the roof caved in and the interior was clearly charred with extensive damage. The cause of the fire is under investigation, and officials are urging the public to stay clear of the area while crews assess the structure’s stability.

Soon after the news broke, social media posts erupted with shock, sadness, and even outrage. Suspicions are running amok on the cause of the fire. Some have compared it to the morning fire that gutted the vacant furniture warehouse building at 16th and MLK just weeks ago. In that case, a few people described as transient or homeless were said to be occupying the interior space when the fire started. Others questioned the county’s responsibility in securing the landmark site, or brought up a perceived lack of effort over the years to restore and repurpose it, or simply bring it down in a dignified manner.

“This is so upsetting to me, I can’t even tell you,” said Kathleen Crookham, a former county supervisor when contacted by the Times. “When I was on the Board [in the late ’90s], this building was one of my projects. I put my heart and soul into it. We had a yearly fundraising dinner outside the old courthouse for a restoration effort. It was interesting because it had lots of support from the community. We were able to get a new roof put on. We were able to bring in a company to do a survey of the building to see what could be done with it. No one on the Board was more excited about it as I was. And then it was mothballed. We could only hope it would be spared until such time something could be done. I think it definitely had enough historical significance that people did not want to have it torn down, or see something horrible happen to it, but how would we ever know this fire would happen?”

The 13,182-square-foot building was designed in Richardson Romanesque-style by Architect Louis Stanwood Stone of Marysville. On June 17, 1898, the first graduating class with 23 students received their diplomas. The high school served the community’s educational needs until 1920, when it was moved to a larger campus on G Street. In 1921, the Merced County Library took over the building, remodeling it to house its growing collection. The principal’s office became the librarian’s office, and classroom barriers were removed to make way for book shelving and reading rooms. The Library occupied this building for four decades, often sharing it with other organizations like the California Highway Patrol.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, the library continued to be a popular education center and hangout for local young students. Former Sheriff Mark Pazin told the Times he used to ride his Schwinn Sting-Ray to the library as a grade-school kid. He said it was a place to meet up with friends, check out books and figure out homework assignments.
Former Merced College Librarian Susan Walsh remembers working at the old county library for many years as a teen staffer along with such workers as Twila Stout and Charlene Renteria, and under the mentorship of longtime Librarian Doris Cochran. She said the library had a relatively small, but very good collection dedicated to local history, life in the valley, and best-sellers that “responded to the needs of the community.” There was also a media room with 16mm films and music LPs, as well as a lovely children’s section.

“If you look at the comments on Facebook, most people my age remember how wonderful the children’s room was. You would go in the front, and go down a little staircase, and into a small little library. The librarian there was an African American woman named Inez Harris, and she loved children. She told the best stories and she always had a story time. And it was just something magical because it was a separate place just for kids. The parents would go upstairs and the little kids would be down there reading books in narrow corners, or sitting on the floor. It was a magical cave-like space, and you could look out all the large windows coming up from the basement and imagine all the stories that were happening outside. And then, when you were old enough and felt comfortable, you walked up the stairs to go to the main library. And that was really something.”

By 1976, the library had outgrown the space and relocated, leaving the building boarded up and vacant. In 1984, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing its architectural and historical significance. Around that time, the Board of Supervisors considered proposals to repurpose the landmark, including one to convert it to a youth hostel for wandering vacationers, and another idea to make it a Superior Court space. However, these ideas never left the planning stage.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Supervisor Crookham and others notable community members such as Sherrie Spendlove organized annual fundraising efforts to restore and repurpose the historical building.

“I spent seven years of my life, and thousands and thousands of hours focused on saving that landmark, and it is heartbreaking to lose it,” Spendlove told the Times this week. “Kathleen Crookham and I headed up three very profitable fundraisers to re-roof it and do other important work. There is a pot of money that Merced County has of proceeds that Kathleen and I raised, and I’m wondering where that will go?”

Some of the funds were originally used to maintain the structure, acquire a new roof and window awnings, and conduct an analysis on the building’s potential as a public facility — though restoration as such appeared to be an overly expensive endeavor.

The treasurer of the Merced County Historical Society, Grey Roberts, said the old schoolhouse, prior to the fire, was pretty much hollowed out, with no ornamentation, no modern ADA requirements, no elevator, no seismic standards, and no availability of useful parking. He pointed out that over the lifetime of the Merced Theatre renovation project, for example, the cost was about $14 million, and there was no question the theatre had a specific function for the community.

Grey added that about $120,000 was left from the original fundraising effort to maintain and restore the old high school building, and a portion of those funds are being redirected to the Courthouse Museum restoration effort that will break ground this coming Wednesday, Dec. 11.

The late Times Publisher John Derby was among those who advocated for the preservation of the old high school, and he wrote extensively about it over the years.

“Despite the fact that communities all up and down the valley have managed to save such buildings, take for instance Old Town Sacramento and Downtown Stockton, our city of Merced can not find the will or desire to save its own heritage,” Derby wrote in an editorial entitled “Save The Library” about two decades ago.
This week, similar thoughts turned to sadness and dismay.

Former Sheriff Pazin, whose family donated to the library effort over the years, along with many others, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in frustration.
“I don’t know why it wasn’t maintained,” he said. “I wished they would have had the gumption to do maybe a dignified building euthanasia, if you will. If they were not going to use it, well then it was time to quietly dismantle it, in a dignified manner. You know, maybe use the bricks for some other historical purpose. Maybe have a community ceremony. Take some pictures. … Do it the right way. … What happened this week was a building homicide.”

The president of the Merced County Historical Society said: “It is a tragic loss for the City and County of Merced. While growing up, many Merced residents had wonderful memories of the Library, especially the Children’s Library in the basement. Anytime, with the loss of such an important historical landmark, it saddens us all.”
Said former County Supervisor Crookham, “I thought the building was amazing, and the structure of it was beautiful. I loved it, and I’m really sad. I’m very, very sad.”