As the Santa Clara County Fair prepares to celebrate 80 years of history, the ghost of Clyde Arbuckle lingers in a boarded-up building near the eastern fringe of the fairgrounds.
Some residents might not know that San Jose was the first capital of California, following statehood, when a group of heroic individuals first met in the original “State House,” located approximately where today’s Signia by Hilton meets the Circle of Palms near the San Jose Museum of Art.
To get there, we must travel back in time.
In 1849, the building that became the first State Capitol was a two-story adobe hotel, still in the process of being built by two Frenchmen. It was 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. The first state legislature met there in December of that year, back when most of the local roads were made of dirt and when horseback or horse conveyance were the primary methods of travel. The details, including quotes, are embossed in the ground between the Circle of Palms, if you need to read more.
The building did not have enough room for everyone and the conditions were less than ideal, but the lawmakers accomplished a lot, before growing bored with San Jose. The state government was eventually moved elsewhere. The adobe hotel turned capitol building was destroyed by fire soon thereafter.
One century later, in 1949, San Jose celebrated the centenary of the first state legislature over the course of several days, which included the construction of an authentic replica of the original state house. It was placed in Plaza Park, (nowadays Plaza de Cesar Chavez), right across the street from where the original building sat. Many descendants of original state legislators attended the celebrations. A grandiose pageant, “So Dawned the State,” unfolded in the Civic Auditorium. It was a big deal.
Less than one year later, however, in the fall of 1950, the whole replica building that had just been rigorously built was then picked up, cut in half and moved to the county fairgrounds, where it was then reconstructed and situated just to the east of the grandstand, which had also just been rigorously built. At that time, the county fair, at this location, was still a fledgling entity. The first fair unfolded in 1941.
Enter city historian Clyde Arbuckle. In due time, Arbuckle took over the State House Replica building and transformed it into a history museum. He filled it up with his own collection of artifacts and several other tidbits, documents and ephemera. The museum was popular for elementary school field trips. Nobody knew that San Jose would grow into any kind of real city decades later, so the small-timey nature of the collection was perfect.
We owe a lot to Clyde Arbuckle. His collection, in this State House replica building, was the very beginning of what eventually became the current History San Jose operation. During the ’80s, after Arbuckle had passed away, the whole collection and the business was then moved to Kelley Park. Nowadays, around a million items that people have donated over the years comprise the collection, most of which is available for research by appointment. The sheer variety of stuff is mind-boggling.
My favorite item in the collection is an old Willow Glen City Limits sign riddled with bullet holes. No disrespect to Willow Glen, of course.
Nowadays, the State House Replica has long since deteriorated into a shabby state of disrepair. The former balcony on the second story is long gone. The windows are boarded up. Like much of the fairgrounds during off days, it looks like a deserted movie set.
Yet all is not lost. Several heroic people, the Fairgrounds Heritage Foundation of Santa Clara County, are trying to raise money to restore the building to its former use as a museum and an accurate replica of the 1849 State House. They should be applauded for their efforts.
The amount of historical county fair artifacts available for museum display is downright amazing. This year at the fair, for example, Heritage Hall will again be filled up with another exhibit showcasing the crazy history of the fairgrounds. The artifacts belong in a permanent museum, somewhere, somehow. We owe it to Clyde to carry on.
