One of the most fascinating museums in San Diego County is located in the city of Lemon Grove.
The Parsonage Museum, operated by the Lemon Grove Historical Society, occupies a beautifully restored Victorian building at Treganza Heritage Park. The building began as Lemon Grove’s first church, the 1897 Atherton Chapel.
The old church was eventually moved from its original location, served as a community meeting hall, then became a private residence. Today it houses a museum whose exhibits recall a time when Lemon Grove was a small agricultural town with citrus orchards and packing houses, a general store, and a boast of the Best Climate on Earth!
I walked about Treganza Heritage Park and visited the Parsonage Museum last weekend. I also took a quick look at the 1928 H. Lee House, a Tudor Revival structure that stands nearby in the park and serves as a cultural center.
I urge anyone interested in the history of San Diego and Lemon Grove to head to the Parsonage Museum on a day when they are open. See their website for more information here!
To get an idea of what you’ll discover, please read my photo captions!
Treganza Heritage Park in Lemon Grove was first called Civic Center Park. It’s name was changed in 2020. The Treganza family was an influential pioneer family in Lemon Grove.A view of the H. Lee House. It was moved to this location to make way for the extension of State Route 125.The H. Lee House was built in 1928. It was designed by British architect Frederick C. Clemesha. Today it serves as a cultural center, where events such as History Alive lectures can be enjoyed. One more photo of the handsome H. Lee House.Lemon trees stand in a plaza between the H. Lee House and the Parsonage Museum.The small plaza welcomes visitors to Treganza Heritage Park.A 2002 dedication plaque from back when it was called Civic Center Park.Now turning to look at the Parsonage Museum. The restored Folk Victorian building, the 1897 Atherton Chapel, served as the only Lemon Grove church until 1912. Recovered grave marker of Anton Sonka just outside the museum entrance.
Anton Sonka was the patriarch of the Sonka family that led the growth of Lemon Grove between 1908 and the 1950s. His headstone, along with many others, was removed from Calvary Cemetery in 1970 by the City of San Diego and dumped at Mt. Hope Cemetery for mass burial. In 1985 Lemon Grove Historical Society members rescued and stored the headstone. It was brought to The Parsonage Museum in 2000 and unveiled on this permanent site in 2004.
(If you’d like to learn more about this callous dumping of gravestones, which were discovered in a gully at Mt. Hope Cemetery, I posted a blog concerning it here.)
When I visited in November 2021, the Parsonage Museum was featuring several historical exhibits concerning Lemon Grove.The museum building was “Built in 1897 as First Congregational Church of Lemon Grove.”Stepping into the museum, greeted by a lemony, welcoming doormat!Look at what’s in the museum! A recreation of the Sonka Brothers General Store.Items on display recall Lemon Grove’s rural history, which includes general stores where the community would gather.
The Sonka Brothers General Store stood near the center of town for decades. You can see photos of the Lemon Grove History Mural that’s painted on the south side of the historic Sonka Brothers General Store building here!
Photo from October 3, 1957 of The Big Lemon during a flag-raising. Civic leader Tony Sonka stands at the center.
If you like to see The Big Lemon today, which still stands on Broadway, check out these photos!
Old drum from the Lemon Grove Junior High School band.1891 photograph of the first general store in Lemon Grove, built by A. E. Christianson at Main and Pacific Streets.The many displays at the Parsonage Museum include these Lemon Grove Fruit Growers Association packing crates.Lemon sizers, circa 1930’s. Packers would separate lemons by size.Woman holding lemon sizer, with stacked ready-to-assemble crates nearby.A room on the ground floor of the Parsonage Museum recreates the Parson’s Study. Reverend Isaac Atherton established the First Congregational Church of Lemon Grove in 1894. The building was constructed in 1897.Several rooms can be viewed on the second floor of the Parsonage Museum, including this Parents’ Room, or bedroom.The Sewing Room.The Children’s Room.Back on the museum’s ground floor, in a corner gallery, the current exhibit is titled Miller Dairy Remembered. This local dairy sold its first milk in 1926. Houses were finally built on the ranch site in the 1980’s. An important chapter of Lemon Grove’s agrarian past is recalled.Lemon Grove’s old Miller Dairy and their 300 freely roaming Holstein cows are fondly remembered at the Parsonage Museum.Historical photos show the Miller Dairy in Lemon Grove, from 1940-1980.One last look at the lemon yellow Parsonage Museum!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
I spotted some cool chalk art this morning as I walked through San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. Star Wars characters and a Ghostbusters graphic had been created in front of the Blarney Stone Pub on Fifth Avenue.
It appears the chalk art promotes a Star Wars/Mandalorian cosplay contest at 9 pm on Friday, during Comic-Con Special Edition. I’m not sure if it will be held here or elsewhere.
I took these photos of the artwork…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Comic-Con Special Edition, during this Thanksgiving weekend, will be featuring a few cool offsite activations in and around San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. They are free and open to the public.
I walked along Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade this morning and saw a big new Peacemaker display and workers readying an offsite that promotes Tubi’s new show The Freak Brothers. (UPDATE—possibly The Freak Brothers! It might actually be the Peacemaker Proving Ground. We’ll have to see Friday!)
NBC will also be promoting La Brea in Gaslamp Square next to the Tin Fish, across from the San Diego Convention Center. I took updated photos of that offsite yesterday, which you can see here.
A security guard told me a homeless person tried to rip off the plastic wrapping, breaking the Peacemaker sign below.
Here’s a photo of the big Peacemaker building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. Peacemaker is a show about the DC Comics character, who appeared in the latest Suicide Squad movie. The new series will be on HBO Max.
Here come more pics from this Thanksgiving morning. It looks like (maybe) The Freak Brothers will be living in a trailer. The animated Tubi show satirizes both the drug counter-culture and the establishment. It’s based on an underground comic about stoner characters and their crazy exploits.
The Garden of Peace sign makes me wonder if this isn’t actually the Peacemaker Proving Ground, referenced here. We’ll find out!
UPDATE!
Turns out I was wrong! What I thought might be The Freak Brothers activation is actually the Peacemaker Proving Ground. That would explain the obstacle course I photographed earlier.
A bus promoting The Freak Brothers will be parked by the Hilton San Diego Bayfront!
I’ll have to check that out this weekend!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Just in case the roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberries and pumpkin pie isn’t enough to send you into a blissful post-feast coma, have a turkey donut! (I swung by the downtown Donut Bar a couple days ago.)
I was walking around the San Diego Convention Center this morning, looking for cool stuff popping up for this weekend’s Comic-Con Special Edition, when I had to pause on the Harbor Drive pedestrian bridge and marvel at the brilliant sunrise.
I took these two photos of sunrise above downtown’s trolley and rail yard.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Preparations are now underway in downtown San Diego for this Thanksgiving weekend’s big Comic-Con Special Edition!
I walked around the Gaslamp Quarter this morning and spotted a building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. In the evening, after dark, I saw workers setting up a couple of Comic-Con offsites!
One offsite, by the Tin Fish, promotes NBC’s television show La Brea. The premise, I learned, is a sinkhole opens up in Los Angeles, swallowing modern people and depositing them in a mysterious subterranean world–where their smartphones don’t work! What will they do when they encounter dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures? The La Brea offsite will be giving away premium swag to all visitors!
The other offsite I spotted is on some grass by Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade, where Deadquarters has been located the last couple Comic-Cons. Workers were setting up an obstacle course. One person I spoke to thinks this offsite promotes a show on Tubi. Possibly The Freak Brothers. I’ll be providing updates with more photos and info. Stay tuned!
Comic-Con Special Edition banner at one end of the San Diego Convention Center.These workers confided they’re getting stuff ready for the big pop culture event!More banners on the convention center along Harbor Drive.Comic-Con International banners on posts by the convention center. Celebrating the popular arts.A Peacemaker building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. The television series concerning a DC Comics character will be on streaming service HBO Max.Setting up an offsite in the dark. The workers didn’t know what it was–except it’s for Comic-Con.Part of the same offsite, which includes an obstacle course. Someone surmised it promotes a show on Tubi.The NBC La Brea offsite by the Tin Fish.Looks like mammoth tusks! Visitors will walk through here to an ambulance where cool swag will be obtained!Looks like Syfy will also be represented outside Comic-Con Special Edition!La Brea ads are all over the place.Stay tuned for more pics later this week!
UPDATE!
I walked all around the Gaslamp and convention center early Wednesday morning. This is what I saw…
First, some large banners have been on the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s parking structure for a few weeks now. They promote local rapidly growing tech company ClickUp, which is headquartered in the Gaslamp!
Next, I took a pic of exhibitors lined up behind the convention center, waiting to unload trucks.
I took some pics of construction of what I think might be The Freak Brothers offsite near the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter. (UPDATE! Now I’m thinking this might be the Peacemaker Proving Ground–we’ll see on Friday!)
And finally some daylight pics of the La Brea activation.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Earlier this year, a life-size bronze horse sculpture debuted in front of the Greg Cox Civic Complex in Bonita. I saw it for the first time when I walked down Bonita Road last weekend.
The horse sculpture has the unusual title WR This Cats Smart. It’s the name of an actual stallion. An identical sculpture can be found at a ranch in Douglas, Wyoming. The nationally renowned Western artist is Mehl Lawson.
San Diego County has one of the largest per capita populations of horses in the United States. I’ve read that at one time there were more than 1300 horses in Bonita. You can still them today in Rohr Park and in corrals throughout the residential hills. Many streets have names that are related to horses.
I took photographs of this beautiful public art and would like to share them.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A local San Diego artist has designed beautiful mood lamps that are perfect for any indoor room or outdoor patio. Why are they special? You can alter how they appear in a matter of seconds!
I love the original concept that makes these mood lamps so innovative. Their appearance can be completely changed by simply slipping on different fabric sleeves. Warm light shines through colorful symmetric designs that are inspired by the beauty of nature. In the dark they’re pure magic.
One can select lamps that are solar powered, battery powered, or plug-in. The soft light they emit slowly changes color, too!
I discovered these mood lamps today during a visit to the Talmadge Art Show at Liberty Station in Point Loma.
I love creativity, and how brilliant inventions like these can brighten one’s life.
The artist’s name is Julia Burnier. She happens to be really nice, too!
Check out her Eye-Catcher Designs website and the many beautiful, artistic sleeves that can decorate your mood lamp here!
Buy these very unique mood lamps at the artist’s online store by clicking here!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Yesterday, after riding the Mid-Coast Trolley extension on its opening day, I headed over to Liberty Station in Point Loma. I walked around in the sunshine.
I saw people ice skating at the Rady Children’s Ice Rink near a Christmas tree, and people learning how to paint, and people sitting by the grass or just walking along like myself.
It was another beautiful Sunday in San Diego.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Today was the big day! San Diego’s new Mid-Coast Trolley extension opened for regular service! And there were free rides and a big public celebration at the main UCSD campus station!
The greatly lengthened Blue Line now serves nine brand new trolley stations between Old Town and the UTC shopping mall. Much of the new line runs along Interstate 5 and is elevated. So imagine the great views!
I had to take photos, of course! And check out each new station!
A huge crowd turned out, and in some of the cars passengers were packed like sardines. But everyone was having a fun, memorable experience. Families with kids were everywhere, and the kids were especially excited!
I took loads of photos–so many, in fact, that I’ve left them somewhat unedited. But they provide a sense of what the day was about.
Here we go! Starting at the Old Town Transit Center, heading north…
Another trolley heads north from Old Town. Beyond that distant Interstate 8 overpass, the Mid-Coast Trolley extension passes over the San Diego River and Friars Road, then heads along Morena Boulevard into Bay Park.Peering through the driver’s compartment. What lies ahead?Passing over the San Diego River. Those other trolley tracks veer eastward into Mission Valley–the Green Line which I often take to work.Passing over Friars Road. Some environmental work still underway, left over from creating new railway bridges.I step off at the Tecolote Road station and take a photo of the trolley continuing on north. While I waited for the next trolley, I asked MTS ambassador Pat about possible new public art along the Mid-Coast Trolley extension, and she thought it would be cool to have owl art at this station. Tecolote is Spanish for owl!I got on the next UC San Diego Blue Line train and have already arrived at the Clairemont Drive station.There it goes!Here comes the next trolley!Heading north past Mission Bay we could see water and palm trees in the distance.It’s getting noticeably busier at the Balboa Avenue station! A sizeable parking lot here was used by many passengers on this free ride day.The trolley continues north toward Rose Canyon. You can see Mount Soledad in the distance on the left.A path for pedestrians and bicyclists heads toward Balboa Avenue.Bicyclists descend to Balboa Avenue.Lots of passengers on this special day!Heading north past industrial buildings by Rose Creek. Climb those hills to the east and you’d find yourself in Clairemont.Autumn scenery is a bit blurred as we move rapidly along.The Amtrak and Coaster train tracks, which we’ve been traveling beside, now veer northeast toward Miramar. We soon veer a bit west to pass over Interstate 5 and commence an elevated journey beside the freeway.Our first glimpse of Golden Triangle office high-rises and the exotic temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Pulling into the Nobel Drive station, which is across the freeway from the distinctive Mormon temple.Folks walk along the station platform.Looking back south. Some construction is still going on.Look both ways!Looking north. You can see the big VA Medical Center building in the distance, to left of center.Continuing on the trolley north.Approaching the VA Medical Center station. The best photo I managed to get at this moment. (The trolley car was jam-packed!)We’ve arrived!Flags and plaques honor the five branches of the Armed Services at the VA Medical Center station. I’ll be posting more photos that I took here shortly.One last look down at the freeway before we curve our way into the large campus of UC San Diego. I took photos of Mid-Coast Trolley extension construction some time ago from this same bridge.There’s a good deal of construction activity around the new UC San Diego Central Campus trolley station.Here we are!The trolley cars emptied here as people flooded down toward a big Mid-Coast Trolley extension opening day celebration and festival!Somebody already got a cool new shirt!Down some stairs we go.Lots of stuff going on beneath the elevated station!A sign indicates the Grand Opening Celebration event is this way!That’s the big celebration in the distance. Meanwhile I spotted these dancers.It’s the San Diego Dance Theater! They perform the annual Trolley Dances! You’ve seen them many times before on Cool San Diego Sights!Oh, man! Look at that line! I’m afraid I didn’t have the patience to wait. More places to go today…I did take a photo from outside the big Grand Opening Celebration event. They had a huge stage for speeches and entertainment. And kettle corn, of course!Heading back under the UC San Diego Central Campus trolley station I noticed this cool public art. Words and phrases fill the plaza! I’ll blog more about this later.Heading up stairs on the station’s other side.A view of UCSD campus construction near the new trolley station. UC San Diego has been expanding like crazy the past few years.More construction photographed from the same stairs.The top of the elevators to the station platform.Well, here we are a short time later at the UC San Diego Health La Jolla station. That’s quite a mouthful!The longest station name ever.Not much action at this station. A MTS worker is keeping things clean.Looking around.We’re now on our way to the Executive Drive station.I’ve arrived at the Executive Drive trolley station near the heart of University City. Gleaming office buildings are all around. That pedestrian bridge provides easy passage to one nearby building.From here the Blue Line heads south above Genesee Avenue for a short distance.I see the UTC shopping mall a short distance to the south.I watch a trolley head toward its final destination–the UTC Transit Center.I’m riding there now!Look at all the passengers disembarking!At the UTC Transit Center trolley platform, on the west side.Stairs head down to a nearby parking lot.MTS buses at the UTC Transit Center below, on the east side of the trolley platform.People head into the popular UTC shopping mall.One last look north up Genesee Avenue.
That is a little of what many experienced on this day, November 21, 2021.
History was made in San Diego!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Cool San Diego Sights! 