Charles A. Larison Home 1890

Located on the corner of North and North Oregon Streets in Yreka sits the Charles A. Larison Home that was originally built in 1890. Charles A. Larison was a dentist and had his practice here in Yreka. At the turn of the century his offices were located in the upstairs of the Siskiyou County Bank Building (also known as the Guilbert Building) located at 216 Miner Street. Dr. Larison was born about 1859 in California and in 1883 married Dora Peters in Yreka. It is mentioned in the 1976 Siskiyou Pioneer [a publication of the Siskiyou County Historical Society] on page 55 that Charles A. Larison was also a local photographer in the 1890's. He was in his early 50's when he died and left his widow and at least two children at home.

This house has changed only a little during its nearly 120 year life... maps that show the "footprint" of the home the year it was built shows a nearly flat front and some porches on the back of the home not visible in the image above. By 1897 the house changed to the appearance as seen in the image above. The front south corner of the house was angled off and additional space was created by making rooms out of the old porches in the back and additing additional porch space. Sometime between 1908 and 1927 bay windows were added on the south side of the home.

Today this fine structure serves as apartment dwellings. The image seen above was taken from a magazine article written in 1897 and the Larison home was one of Yreka's "showcase" structures.
Copyright: Claudia A. East, 2008.

DeWitt and Peters Building 1897-98

Currently standing on the corner of Miner and North Oregon Streets, The DeWitt and Peters Building broke ground in the fall of 1897 and the building was completed in 1898 at a cost less than $7,000. Prior to this building being constructed a portion of the lot was vacant and the east half of the lot was occupied by the old Yreka Brewery owned by G. H. Peters. In the 1850s the original Yreka Bakery stood on the west half of this lot on Miner and Oregon Streets according to research conducted by Robert Noonan in 1976 in his publication Yreka's West Miner Street Buildings, Blocks 200 - 300, 1851 - 1900.

The Yreka Journal on September 24, 1897 ran an article on this "new" building designed by Architect, G. W. Cooper. They described the layout of the building to have two new stores on the bottom floor, and a large assembly hall (rented by the Knights of Pythias and other orders...) and offices on the second story. "Mr. DeWitt of the Bee Hive store will occupy the corner and Peters will rent the other portion of the building downstairs." The building was also described as having a large cement cellar to be built in connection with the original cellar once used by the Yreka Brewery on the back portion of the lot. It was also stressed that there would be sidewalk elevators for "lowering and raising goods when wanted." In addition, the paper pointed out that the upper story would likely not be finished until spring as the cold weather might damage the plastering.

The exterior of the building is from red sand stone taken from a quarry at Little Shasta, according to a news article from the Yreka Journal ~ it was the first time this stone was utilized for building purposes in the area. According to further Noonan research (see above) a Mr. Ed Armstrong was in charge of the masonry, and the roof was constructed by the Iunker Brothers.

Today this fine building still stands and is proudly owned by the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks as a lodge. The photo above shows the building as it was in about 1905. Today the lower portion of the building is covered with board and batten siding to conceal the large windows.

You might wish to look at the SketchupbyDawn Blog for the August 14, 2008 post, he has a nice 3-D drawing of the original building. You can link here or check out the Blogs I am watching on the side panel: http://sketchupbydawn.blogspot.com/

For those of you with our book, Yreka, Images of America by Arcadia Publishing you can find other images with this building in the photos on pages 35, 52,and 115.

Copyright: Claudia A. East, 2008.