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Standing at the southern corner of Miner and Oregon Streets is a wonderful brick building that you see in the photos. Originally the building had six arches across the brick front... the building has seen some changes during its life, but the general feel and appearance remain fairly true to its original design. In its service to the citizens of Yreka this building has hosted two different business suites nearly since the beginning!
Early in its life, the eastern half of the building was occupied by a tin shop according to Noonan's research publication of 1976, Yreka's West Miner Street Buildings, Blocks 200 - 300, 1851 - 1900. The west half of the building was known as the Winckler Building and the east half as the Witherill building. Adolph Winckler operated a grocery and general merchandise store here in the 1860s. In June of 1871 an advertisement appears in the Yreka Journal notifying that a "Brick Store is For Sale". The ad reads: "The large and centrally located brick store, on the south side of Miner Street, between Turnverein Hall and Winckler's store, will be sold at a bargain." [Referring to the Witherill building portion.] Another notice in the newspaper in 1877 speaks to the upgrading in the Witherill building and local builder E. Ranous was installing new shelves!
It was in 1883 the building became the location of the Yreka-Journal Weekly Newspaper. The older image above shows the Journal there when the image was taken around 1905. The newspaper served at this location until about 1915 when the Siskiyou News bought the building. The News utilized this space until 1941. Following that the building served many variety of businesses and even as a warehouse for a time.
Fortunately this building did not suffer much damage during the great 1871 fire that ravaged most of the business district, according to records the loss because of the fire was only $100.
The image with the Coca-Cola sign is a view of how the building appears today.
Copyright: Claudia East, 2008.
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