Work Spaces
South County Historical Society
In touch with history
The Tribune
ARROYO GRANDE - Behind the Arroyo Grande Meat Co. meat locker's large hinged refrigerator door is more than 100 years of South County history.
The locker, originally built in 1897, has long since been unplugged and converted into a functional office for the South County Historical Society, but the sawdust-filled walls keep the silent room quite chilly. Space heaters surround working volunteers of the South County Historical Society who gather each day to carefully preserve the remaining treasures of years past.
"We get the most amazing things. It is the most surprising to me when somebody hands you something that they think is fabulous but the box itself if what is fabulous. It is the little surprises that people have lived with all of their lives," said Jan Scott, curator.
What you see: An 1895 black, beaded ladies top with lace cuffs sits on the upper torso of a mannequin. A pair of black button-hook shoes are placed on a large table, next to a 1940s women's dress hat. All of the items will soon be wrapped in acid-free paper and tucked away in labeled storage boxes.
Large shelves towering with gray boxes line the office walls, containing purses, gloves, dolls, hair accessories, top hats and jewelry.
Yellowed copies of the Arroyo Grande Herald, Pismo Times and The Recorder are meticulously organized in storage containers. The crumbling front page of one newspaper displays a 1904 court record for a county native thrown into jail for public drunkenness. His recommended sentence: get out of town before noon.
Larger items like typesetting equipment and a pump organ are displayed at the society's various museums such as the Heritage House and the Santa Manuela School House.
What the curator sees: Scott has worked to digitize the society's records, which were all typewritten until five years ago. She and other volunteers are also recording items with corresponding photos.
With gloved hands, she carefully removes items one by one from their storage boxes and takes their picture in a makeshift photo corner. Textiles, which slowly disintegrate if exposed to light and air, are handled as little as possible.
Occasionally an unidentified item is donated to the society -- posing a mystery for volunteers and sometimes museum visitors -- to solve with the help of a library of reference books. Recently, an old yolk thought to be used to help people carry milk from the barn to the house was correctly identified as a device used by planters to hang lanterns to light the dark fields until sunrise.
What she likes: "The workspace is secure from the elements. The collection feels safe in here and that feels wonderful," said Scott.
What she would change: "I would definitely want more space. The staff has learned to walk in single file," Scott said with a chuckle.
The South County Historical Society will move its collection to the Odd Fellows Hall, currently closed for retrofitting, on Bridge Street in the Village of Arroyo Grande in the near future.
AnnMarie Cornejo writes about business for The Tribune.