Lodi Lake: An Open-Air History Museum
© Alane K. Dashner
It’s easy to appreciate Lodi Lake for its natural beauty. But do you ever stop to wonder what that big old bell and those chunks of petrified wood are about, or why we have a spectacular redwood grove in the Nature Area?
America the beautiful
In 1976 Keith Jacinto was a brand-new teacher at the Woodbridge School a few blocks west of Lodi Lake. Fresh from his years working for the California State Park System, Keith hoped to instill a love for nature in his 6th grade students. America’s excitement over its 200-year birthday was infectious, and Keith wondered how he could best involve his students in the year-long Bicentennial celebration.
The Redwood Brigade marches in
“My great-uncle, Paul Corda, was a manager at American Forest Products in Stockton, and he always had tree seedlings on hand because when they cut down mature lumber in the Sierras, they had to replant,” remembers Keith. “I decided that for Arbor Day our class would plant the biggest trees of all, California’s giant redwoods!”
Retired teacher Keith Jacinto remembers when his students planted the redwood seedlings.
Keith’s great-uncle gladly donated 62 redwood seedlings. Keith approached Lodi’s Parks & Recreation Department and received permission to plant where today we call the Nature Area. “Of course, it was very different then,” says Keith. “Nobody called it a Nature Area yet and there was no fence or amphitheater. It was just an undeveloped area near the Lake.”
On planting day, Keith marched with his 31 students – each carrying an 8-inch seedling and a bag lunch – across Lower Sacramento Road to today’s Nature Area. They planted their seedlings and enjoyed the beautiful natural environment. “At the end of the school day, each student had a second seedling to take home to plant in their own neighborhood,” says Keith.
Fourteen of the Nature Area’s original 31 redwoods still stand tall, circling the amphitheater. Keith remembers that day in 1976 fondly. “I hope it inspired the students to conserve and appreciate our environment for their whole lives,” he says, smiling.
Lodi’s 1883 school bell
Today when you drive by the intersection of Lodi Avenue and South Stockton Street, you see the Smart & Final grocery store. No sign remains there of Lodi’s 1883 pride, the Salem School. To remember the Salem School, you must go to Lodi Lake.
Even before there was a Lodi, this area was designated the Salem School District. Local families knew education was important, and the first schoolhouse was built by the farmers and ranchers themselves in 1859. After an inauspicious start with Lodi’s first teacher – he was in the habit of going into the one-room schoolhouse late at night and lecturing by candlelight to empty seats on the subject of annexing Canada to the United States – locals thereafter did their best for Lodi’s children.
In the early 1880s, Lodi was “feeling its oats.” A new east-west rail line was being built, from Brack’s Landing out west in the delta, through Woodbridge and Lodi, all the way up to Valley Springs. Our grain and watermelon production was high. So we built a new schoolhouse worthy of our audacious new town.
The 1883 Salem School was impressive: Its footprint was 64 by 66 feet with the tower rising 104 feet from the ground. The flagpole was 133 feet tall.
But once we’d built it and students took their seats, we still needed to buy a clock and bell for the school’s tower.
School bell envy
We really, really wanted a bell.
Woodbridge had a bell. And Lodi was definitely better than Woodbridge.
Lodi’s residents took up a collection to purchase a bell for the top of the school’s tower, just under where the clock would be installed. Local businesses including the Lodi Sentinel pitched in. Soon we proudly ordered an 800-pound bell from H. McShane and Co. of Baltimore, Maryland.
After the heavy bell was hauled up the school’s tower and installed, its powerful ringing could be heard twelve miles away. Residents rejoiced that it would out-ring the Woodbridge bell and wake the people of Lockeford, Clements, and beyond.
The bell brought us together
The effect bells have on organizing local communities can’t be overstated. A bell’s ringing is the natural time for people to gather. Even families who didn’t have school-aged children fell into the rhythm of getting certain chores done before the morning bell or heading back out to the fields with the afternoon bell.
This was so true in Lodi that when in 1902 the bell-ringer pulled an April Fool’s prank by not ringing the school bell as expected, people rode into town to see what was the matter.
In 1912 the City of Lodi was trying to make its “new-fangled” fire-alarm gong be worth the money we’d paid for it. Early one morning, a few minutes after officials tested the gong yet again – with muffled results – Lodi’s mighty school bell pealed its 8:00 a.m. CLANG-CLANG-CLANG. Everyone understood that in comparison, more work was needed on the darned fire-alarm gong.
The aging Salem School was torn down in 1938 and its bell moved temporarily to inside a newer school. In 1942 our City Engineer was tasked with preparing plans for a bell tower at Lodi Lake so the Salem School bell could start ringing again, but as we see today, the bell was installed in a fixed position near the park entrance.
Silly: While we Lodians succeeded in buying the bell, it’s said that we never managed to buy the clock. Instead, we painted a clock face up on the Salem School tower, with the time forever showing as 12:46.
Petrified wood is not wood!
It’s stone.
It’s many millions of years old.
And there’s an amazing display of it near the entrance of Lodi Lake Park.
The rock-collecting stories of J.P. Gilbeau – he owned a stable on N Sacramento Street – and of early Lodi Lake Park superintendent William Hurrle will have to wait for another article.
In the meantime, Christina Jaromay of Lodi Parks, Recreation, and Culture invites residents young and old to play (carefully!) on these sturdy treasures.
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Family Fun at Lodi Lake: Aunt Estella Spills the Beans
June 13 10:00am
Join costumed docent Alane Dashner as she brings the historic character of Estella Smith to life. Estella managed her ranch at “Smith’s Lake” (now called Lodi Lake) for 35 years, 1902-1937. This 12-minute re-enactment will start promptly at 10am in the Nature Area amphitheater and will be followed by a guided tour of the Nature Area “through the eyes of a pioneer.” Park just outside the Nature Area or by the Lodi Lake playground. All ages welcome. Sorry, no dogs in the Nature Area. Free admission; parking fees apply. This event is part of the new monthly “Second Saturdays at Lodi Lake” program. Find more about the Friends of Lodi Lake at www.friendsoflodilake.org/
