History
Our Town: A city without a city hall
By CHARLENE PERRY Reprinted from January 1985 Editor’s Note: Due to the pressures of time, energy and upcoming knee surgery, this writer will return from time to time to reaching into the treasure chest of Charlene Perry’s well-researched columns from the 1980s and 90s. This piece, from 1985, will be the introduction to a forthcoming […]
Our Town: Celebrating Martinez’s movie fame
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor CARTER WILSON Martinez Historical Society Photographer Last week this writer thought she’d written the last story about Tucker: The Man and His Dream but then Carter Wilson, photographer of homes on the annual Martinez Historical Society Home Tour, brought over a handful of images of the Saturday’s film party […]
Our Town: Tucker movie true to creator’s past
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor The special screening of the restored Francis Ford Coppola film, “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” will be held Saturday, August 11 at the Shell Club House. Doors open at 6 for hearty hors d’ oeuvres and a silent auction and the screening will begin at 8 p.m. James […]
Our Town: Semple of Benicia, Smith of Martinez, Alike in many ways
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an article about Robert Semple of Kentucky, the founder of Benicia, who made it possible for another ambitious American from Georgia to found Martinez. Written some years ago for the MHS Newsletter by the late John Bonnell who, in retirement, used […]
Our Town Special Event: “Tucker: The Man and the Automobile” returns to town 30 years later to benefit MHS
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor Editor’s note: A showing of the recently restored Francis Ford Coppola film “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” is scheduled for Saturday, August 11, 2018 at the Shell Club House. The benefit for the Martinez Historical Society will take place starting at 6 p.m. A small portion of the […]
Our Town: Benicia’s Robert Semple set the stage for William Smith’s Martinez
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor Editor’s Note: Martinez residents and businesses tend to identify with Contra Costa County in many ways and have especially for the past 6o years since ferry service is no longer needed for us to reach Northern California and beyond. But Benicia is actually Martinez’s “big sister city” as our […]
Our Town: Reminiscences: One by John Sparacino in 1994, One of John Sparacino in 2018
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor Editor’s Note: Recently digging through Martinez Historical Society archives of newsletter articles, I found a 1994 column by then Society president John Sparacino, former Mayor of Martinez and one of the handful of local folks most responsible for the founding and success of the Society and its Museum. In […]
Don Ignacio Martinez: Rancho Culture
By HARRIETT BURT Martinez Gazette Contributor In the little more than 25 years that Mexico ruled over the southern and central coast and neighboring inland area of California, the mission system was replaced by the land grant rancho system where over 600 grants of vast land holdings were made from San Diego to Petaluma and […]
Our Town: Don Ignacio Martinez
There’s a lot more to know about him than we realize By HARRIETT BURT Martinez News-Gazette Contributor Editor’s Note: There are so many interesting topics for a column like this. But just when this writer thinks she has a manageable list, a new idea pops up that can’t wait for a few months. Such is […]
Underground Echoes: Found, hidden treasure update
By JOSEPH & JUDIE PALMER Special to the Gazette Since we last wrote about the potential finding of the lost African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church of Napa from 1867 – 1892, a lot of new information has come to light creating a number of unresolved questions regarding the building, its exact location, and wither it […]
