Write-up: Check

My computer crossed the last “T” and dotted the last “I”, and with that the write-up for the National Register Nomination is done. I want to formally thank Alicia – a Tenured Professor, no less – for helping with the editing and proofreading. I feel so much better about the whole thing after that.

Thank you, Alicia – if that is your real name.

The entire write-up has 4 parts to it. The first part is the basic application. This is the fundamental information about the location and ownership of the house, who prepared the nomination packet, and under what category it is being nominated. The hardest part about that was finding the houses Northing and Easting location. I’m not sure why they don’t just use longitude and latitude. I also must supply a USGS topographical map with the location of the property marked on it.

After that is the detailed description of the house. This is called the Descriptive Narrative and it is basically a detailed description of the property using excepted architectural terms. Then there is the Statement of Significance. This is where you plead your case about why the house deserves to be on the Register. I’m trying to add both my house and the 1926 Mission Revival garage structure to the Register. I’m basing my case on the high style of the architecture, and the significance of Thomas Petch to the early development of the city. The last section is the bibliography, which I finished today.

Next, I need to get the pictures squared away, and after that I can submit the application. If everything goes perfect, I can expect the process to take 6 months. If everything doesn’t go perfect, then who knows. I don’t expect things to go perfect.


In the mean time, here are a few more confirmed and suspected Mowry houses. Enjoy.



I feel good about this one. It is almost identical to a Mowry I street house. It is freshly painted. Very colorful. It is a little too wild for me, but some do like this type of paint job. At least it is being cared for.


This one has a lot of potential. The detail in the barge board, and other trim work is very similar to other confirmed Mowry houses.


This one has a front porch that is very similar to mine, and even closer to 739 K Street. It also has the sunbusts over the windows just like mine, and it has the gable decoration exactly like 739 K Street. I've always loved this house.


This one is next door to 739 K Street. They really don't have a lot in common, other than the general massing of the structures. This is another one of those that just smells like a Mowry house. Unfortunately this house has been horribly butchered. As with 739 K Street, the insides are gone, and they both have those hideous additions on the front.

They're Stick

After I wrote yesterday that I sometimes refer to the little cottages that Mowry built as "Eastlake Cottages" I started thinking more and more about what the proper term is for the style. Well, actually, I started to think about this earlier than that. It started when I was working on the write-up for the National Register. So yesterday as I was writing, I started to call the first house an "Eastlake Cottage" and I thought to myself, I’m pretty sure that's not right.

I wanted to reference some of Mowry's earlier houses and how they lead up to his finest creation and the pinnacle of his career: The Petch House. My working theory is that he was so thrilled with how The Petch House came out that he died of joy on the front lawn as soon as the last nail was driven in. That is why I couldn't find any Mowry houses in the Green Book after 1896. Like I said, it’s a working theory, and it may not make it in to the National Register write-up.



Several days before this, I posted a picture of one of Mowry's houses on a site and asked the simple question: What style is it. The first thing that came back was Italianate. The Italianate style was wildly popular from like 1840 through the 1870s. It was not a bad guess, but the house just didn't seem to really have all of the necessary parts to make it an Italianate. Because it was so popular, for so many years, I think the term “Italianate” has become this catch-all phrase for any house that is built before 1890, doesn't epitomize a particular style, and can still be considered a Victorian House.

A small brief debate ensued and finally it was decided the proper name for the style was “Stick Town House”. That sounds right to me. The term comes out of the definitive work on architecture in America: Virginia and Lee McAlester's “A Field Guide to American Houses”. If the name of the style is in that book it might as well have come from the mouth of God. That’s just the way it is.

I did a quick search on-line for “Stick Town House” and found a good newspaper article from Alameda. It’s brief and very well written, and has some nice pictures. If you don’t read it, I thought this one paragraph sort of vindicated me a bit, so naturally I had to post it. For once, I wasn’t completely wrong when I’m making stuff up.

Some refer to the Stick style as the Eastlake style. But other than lending his spindles, sunbursts, flowers, comets and other fanciful designs to both the Stick and Queen Anne styles, Eastlake had little to do with these architectural styles, however.

Ok, so I guess all that really does is confirm that I wasn't the only one who was wrong. Still, its something...

Mowry Spotting

Have you ever bought a new car, or at least a different car, and for the first month or so that you own it, you see “your car” being driven by other people all over town? That’s kind of what I’m going through with Mowry houses right now. It seems like ever since I searched out all of those other Mowry houses, new Mowry houses seem to be crawling out of the wood work.

I went out and snapped a few shots after work today. The light wasn’t the best, but the worst part is, the first house I went to shoot, the picture didn’t come out. It was a good one too. This was the first one I saw about a week ago when I had my first Mowry Moment. I walked by it and suddenly stopped, and said to myself, “Hey, look, its that Mowry house over on I street, but its here on Grant as well”. After that I started seeing them every where.

All of the houses that I reference here can bee see on Saturday’s post: Eugene Mowry: A Retrospective

As I said, the first house, which I didn’t get a picture of, is a nearly identical copy 1323 I Street – 1891. The Grant street version has been butchered a bit, but it is still a very cool house. You’ll just have to take my word for it.



The one above is definitely a Mowry house, no question. It is almost a carbon copy of 309 O Street - 1889. For some reason I started calling houses like this Eastlake Cottages. I think I may have made that term up, and have no idea how accurate it is. Probably not very.



This one is sort of a squished down version of 915 G Street – 1892. I’m fairly confident in calling this a Mowry House. This type of house, with the double front bays, is commonly referred to locally as a Bay Cottage. I know I didn't make that up. There must be more than 4 dozen of them in town. Some have square bays, like this, and others have the rounded bays. Who knows, maybe it was a Mowry Invention. Either way, it is Very nice.



This one I’m a little less certain of. It doesn’t really match any of his other houses, but it has some traits in common with The Vance House – 1892, along with other Mowry Houses. It just smells like a Mowry House.



None of the ones above are suspected Mowry houses, but it’s a cool shot. The one in the middle is an absolute Monster House, and one of my favorites in town. I tried desperately to buy the one at the far end. I made several offers to the owners and never heard a peep out of them. It was kind of irritating because if they had turned me down cold after the first offer I would have left them alone. As it was, I assumed their silence was an effort to get me to sweeten the deal. Maybe it was, and I just didn’t go high enough.

Alicia asked the other day, why I wanted to buy 915 G Street - 1892. I mentioned the other day that I tried to buy it as well. Before I bought The Petch House I had sold my last house and was living in a crappy apartment with most of my stuff in storage. After about 6 months of looking at dozens of hopelessly remuddled old homes that I didn’t want, I decided to get pro-active. I picked out houses I liked, and if they were rental units, I contacted the owners to see if they were interested in selling. Nothing ever came of it. Oh well, it worked out just fine in the end.

This Just In....

On an earlier post today I showed all of the homes and buildings that I could find locally that are attributed to Eugene Mowry, the man that I think built my house. Someone posted a comment about The Gingerbread Mansion in Ferndale, asking if it was another Mowry house. It does have some Mowry traits to it, so who knows. I Googled the Gingerbread Mansion, trying to find out, and I came up with squat on the builder/architect. It is now a popular Bed & Breakfast, and so there were a zillion hits for the house, but none mentioned the builder.

Weeks back, before I did the research, I speculated on some houses in town that I thought might be, or that I hoped would be, Eugene Mowry Houses. One of these was The Vance House. My main source for information is The Green Book, (aka "Eureka: An Architectural View") and either I read it wrong, or this is another of the errors in the book, but it did not say the house was a Mowry house.

Well, tonight as I was hopelessly Googling for The Gingerbread Mansion, another Mowry house popped up, and guess what, its The Vance (Simpson) House! The house is on The National Register of Historic Places and the NRHP site lists Architect, builder, or engineer: Mowry,E.C.

Take that, Green Book!

The Vance House Listing



Years ago, when I first wrote the draft for the nomination to the National Register I wrote about some of the more subtle similarities between The Vance House and The Petch House. The similarities are subtle at best, and I thought the connection was tenuous at best, so deleted it all. I think its time to get out the keyboard and do some updating.

And I thought I was done editing.

Eugene Mowry: A Retrospective

These are all of the local houses I could find that are in some way credited to the local builder and architect Eugene Mowry. He is the man I suspect built my house. You can click on most of the photos to bring up large format image.

All of these are relatively recent photos, except for The Grand Hotel, and all of the buildings still stand, except for The Grand Hotel {sniff!}. For any locals reading, The Grand originally stood across from The Eagle House and Chapalla Café, where that butt-ugly, low-rise warehouse complex now stands. What a loss. It was torn down in the 40s.

You can really watch as his style changes from the Eastlake cottages with the square bays, to the more elaborate Queen Anne style in his later work . My personal favorite is the second to the last house. I mean, its just absolute perfection. Why, I could go on and on about it.


The Grand Hotel - 1887


1025 J Street - 1887 (Mowry’s own house)


1035 J St - 1888 (The first Petch House)


1006 2nd Street – 1888 (Moved from 6th street. Second story lost in fire)


309 O Street 1889 (Moved from 3rd street)


1731 & 1739 Third Street - 1889


1807-19 California - 1889 (A pair of rare, early duplexes. Both the purple and the green homes are each a duplex.)


942 G Street - 1890


1323 I Street - 1891


915 G Street - 1892 (I tried desperately to buy this house. The owners wouldn't budge)


The Bell – 2nd & E Streets - 1892


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The Simpson-Vance House - 1892

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220 Hillsdale - 1893


216 Hillsdale - 1893


The Petch House - 1895


738 K Street - 1896



PS: Al, I can’t seem to get your email address. Are you still interested in helping. If so, email me at petchhouse at windswetpsoftware dot com.

A Little Mowry Detail Work

I guess he knew what he was doing.

The Plot Thickens

Google Books has the 1890 Humboldt County business directory on-line. What are the odds of that, right? Anyway, I was poking around in it and I discovered another close connection between the builder and architect, Mr. Eugene Mowry, whom I’m convinced built my house, and the young hot-shot electrician, Thomas Petch.

A few weeks back there was an article in the paper about the house that the Petch Family first lived in prior to moving in to the real Petch House. It said that the house was built by Mr. Mowry, and in fact, he owned it and lived next door. So that establishes that Mr. Petch and Mr. Mowery were neighbors and Mr. Mowry was Mr. Petch’s landlord.

I’ve always assumed Mr. Mowry built The Petch House because there is an 1893 house, 2 years before The Petch House, built by Mr. Mowry on Hillsdale, that has an almost identical front window. Of course, everyone knows this, because I’ve been over it before.

Anyway, in the article a few weeks ago it said that in the 1880s Mr. Mowry’s mill was in Old Town at 3rd & B Streets (Sort of where the new Co-op is today, for any locals reading this). Well, either that was wrong, or it was right and he had offices at The Foot of H Street as well. That’s what it said in the 1890 Business Directory. The exact line is….

Mowry, E. C.; architect and builder, foot of H st.

This sounded a little too familiar. I knew that prior to running The Eureka Lighting Company in 1898, Thomas Petch was the Superintendent of The Gas Works in town. The gas works was as coal gas plant. Before electric lights came along most homes in the country were lit with coal gas. When you sort of cook coal and it gives of a flammable gas. Before coal gas it was mostly whale oil (Eeeeew!).

So where do you think the Coal Gas Plant was in town? That’s right, The Foot of H Street. In the 1890 Business Directory it lists…

Eureka Gas Co.; Foot of H st.

In the 1893 City Directory it lists…

Petch, Thos. D., superintendent Eureka Gas Works, 117 H St, res 1025 J St.

1025 J Street is the other Petch House. Mr. Mowry lived at 1035 J St, right next door. So as it turns out, not only were they neighbors, and Mr. Mowry was his landlord, but they worked right next door to each other at the foot of H st. Hell, they probably road the trolley together on the way to work.

So here is the conversation I imagine took place one day on the trolley ride home.

Mowry: You know, Thomas, this new electric thing is going to be big, Really Big. You know your stuff when it comes to gas, but the time has come for you to learn electrical. It is the wave of the future.

Petch: You know, you’re right. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. In fact, I’ve doing a lot of reading about it. Its not that hard. I just need to get some practice with it.

Mowry: Well listen to this. I’m starting a new house next week over on California St and the gentleman has told me he wants those new gasoliers with the electric lights down stairs in the parlor. I know you can run the pipe for gas, and if you think you’re up to it, I’m willing to let you run the wiring for the electrical as well. You’ve done some nice work for me over the years and I know you can do it. Besides, if you screw up, I can always evict you!

{Hearty laugh from Mowery and a nervous chuckle from Petch}

Petch: Al right! I do it!

Mowry: Excellent! And in a few years, when you’re making a fortune on this new electric thing, I’ll build you a fine house for your family.

Petch: That’s sounds great! You know, this electrical thing is really going to take off. Its going to be bigger than the internet.

Mowry: The internet? Oh, you mean how the fisherman interconnect their nets to catch more fish in one haul.

Petch: Yea, the internet just really changed their whole world.

Mowry: Yes, the internet….

Both men grow quite as they gaze out the window of the trolley car and think about the future

Mowery Was A Busy Little Boy

I went and did a little more research tonight. Some of my dates were fuzzy, and I needed to find out if Mowery built the house over on K Street that I talked about the other day. Unfortunately that house is also unaccredited in The Green Book, at least I think it is. Now that I think about it, I know it didn’t say Mowery, but I don’t recall if it said anything else. I may need to go back. Oh, and I had the address wrong.

The Green Book (a.k.a. Eureka: An Architectural View) was compiled back in the 70s. It is basically an inventory of many of the cities historic homes and buildings. At best, you get one or two short lines describing the house, the year it was built, and in many cases, the first owner, builder, and architect.

The question I really came away with was, were did they get the information about builders and architects for the book. I know you can go through property tax records and get owner information, but where did they get the builders and architects. Not every house is listed with a builder and architect, but many are. It might be the building department. I’ve seen my file and it doesn’t list anything.

My house does not have a builder/architect listed, but as I said the other day, I am fairly sure it was Mr. Eugene Mowery. Mr. Mowery was a fairly prolific builder in the 1880s and 1890s. Aside from a few prominent commercial buildings he built, I found no less 14 houses he built between 1887 and 1893.

All of these homes are still standing, and some are quite nice. You can bet pictures will be following. He did not build The Vance House. I was really hoping for that, and I can’t directly credit him with my house or the K street house, although I didn’t see any homes with his name in 1895, the year my house was built. To be fair, I didn’t go through the whole book.

He did seem to build homes in clusters, though. He built 2 on J Street in 1887 right next door to each other. He built 2 on Hillsdale in 1893, right next door to each other. In two instances, in 1889, he built two sets of pairs on California Street. In 1890 he built 3 on Third Street, all on the same block. The one on K Street is only 3 blocks from me. If that one was built in 1895 like mine, that would be in keeping with his pattern.

The one on G Street is just 2 houses down from The Vance House and the owner was a Vance. I just about craped when I saw that. Because the addresses were almost the same, I thought I was reading that Mowery built The Vance House. No such luck.