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HISTORY of SAN LUIS OBISPO
History of San Luis Obispo
Joseph A. Carotenuti
City Historian/Archivist
While we celebrate the coming of the New Year on January 1, our civic ancestors must have felt the summer of 1894
was not only a new year but a new era. With both the railroad arriving in town and the first library opening its d oors,
the future was indeed filled with great promise.
We had become the center of our own universe. With the twin pillars of progress: commerce and literacy, the
railroad (almost) connected us to the world and a library (potentially) connected us to all of mankind’s recorded
endeavors. In that most determinative year, the thinly populated County and County Seat of San Luis Obispo could
finally see the smoke and hear the bell of the future rumbling its way across the landscape. Any sense of entitlement
was further boosted as a quieter revolution to the civic landscape was inaugurated with a small collection of books
housed above yet another bank building in the community. PROGRESS – intentionally spelt with capital letters –
was inevitable.
What more, undoubtedly asked many, could possibly enhance the thriving, revitalized urban center? A few may have
remembered the mean years of lawlessness when the gun, not justice, determined the future of individuals rather than
self-determination and enterprise. The human flood of gold seekers to the north had transformed the somnolent State
to world-wide attention as the Goddess of Gold lured the ambitious, the unprepared and the unscrupulous to seek
their fortunes at the end of a shovel and pick-axe or by guile.
Who could forget the extreme measures of the Vigilance Committee and Walter Murray who unable to find
competent governance created their own? As if peace was to be denied, many recalled the national struggle for
survival in the bloody, unsettling epic of the Civil War. A national renaissance - the rails’ final link at Promontory
Point in 1869 - was more than a commercial venture but also a visual reminder that the Union was one…and now
physically linked in a celebrated technological miracle.
Yet, as seen last month, life was more than business. How was a community to nurture its spirit? The demand for a
more organized effort to promote literacy grew with the County’s population. The local Independent Order of Odd -
Fellows Hall emulated their San Francisco brothers in maintaining a library for members. Nonetheless, the desire to
have a separate facility to become a city library opening any collection to the public would – eventually - overcome
the lack of funds.
In the meanwhile, who would have guessed that both commerce and literacy would dwell together?
It was more than a shrewd business move by J. P. Andrews to build a brick bank. He was painfully aware of the
perils of wood when his huge investment – the eight-month old spectacular Andrew Hotel - burned to the ground a
few years earlier. His was not the only bank in town but his was the only one with a library on the second floor.
What convenience when you could transact business and browse the collection!
Contact: jacarotenuti@gmail.com
1/2016