Smith & Rosenburg / Morrison & Lash Building

Photos Copyright Claudia East, 2008

Located on West Miner Street at 219, 221, and 223 resides this wonderful building that has been a landmark since the second story was added in 1896. Orignally there were other buildings in this location and the first were damaged in a 1862 fire, and later rebuilt only to be almost totalled in the big fire of 1871. Once again they were rebuilt in 1875. The buildings hosted a number of businesses during this time serving as a dry goods store, a commercial hotel, as well as a fruit, nut, vegetable and candy store. Looking at old fire maps one can determine that from 1885 up through 1890 one of the sections of these buildings was home to a General Store, the store on the west side of the building had a variety of businesses during that time with a tailor, a "lunch" store, and a real estate office.

It was in 1896 that Morrison and Lash purchased this building (which was actually two seperate buildings with a shared wall) and added the upper story to both sections. In Archie Noonan's book (thesis) self-published in 1976 titled, Yreka's West Miner Street he explains that in October 1896 the newspaper, the Yreka Journal described this new addition as having "two sets of offices built especially for lawyers and doctors." The building was reported to have "two handsome bay windows extending three feet over the sidewalk."

A local billiard parlor, "Con Brown's" resided on the lower floor in this building for many years, sometimes one can still hear local folks refer to Con Brown's Place. Currently "The Book Store" (Trans Book Company) has been in this location since 1974 and Lalo's Restaurant has been in this location for almost as long.

Copyright Claudia East, 2008.