Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading.
Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
Welcome! We hope that you enjoy our free content.
Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribe purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribe purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Thank you for signing in! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Please purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Your current subscription does not provide access to this content.
Sorry, no promotional deals were found matching that code.
Promotional Rates were found for your code.
Clear skies. Low 67F. Winds light and variable..
Clear skies. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.
The Curtin Mansion on Columbia Way in Sonora in all of its current splendor.
One of four palm trees that were part of the Curtin Mansion's original landscaping, as seen in this photo taken in 1904.
The Curtin Mansion on Columbia Way in Sonora in all of its current splendor.
One of four palm trees that were part of the Curtin Mansion's original landscaping, as seen in this photo taken in 1904.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series about John Barry Curtin, a former California state senator, gubernatorial candidate and prominent figure in Tuolumne County’s history. See Saturday’s Union Democrat print or e-edition for the second part about his family, political career and what happened to his ornate Sonora home after his death.
When John Barry “J.B.” Curtin built his mansion on Sonora’s Columbia Way at the end of the 19th century, he built it to last. Still standing majestically in the first quarter of the 21st century, it remains a stunning gem in the crown of the Queen of the Southern Mines.
The mansion Curtin provided his family was an instant landmark. Distinctive and exuberant in design, set well back from the street amid extensive landscaping and located at Sonora’s northern gateway, it endures today as an important part of Tuolumne County’s architectural, social and political history.
This impressive heritage home is also reflective of the second Gold Rush’s boom times beginning in the 1890s, the talent of a Sonora architect, and the desire of a husband-to-be to provide his bride with a home a cut above just about anyplace else.
Curtin was equally as impressive as his home. At 5 feet, 10 inches tall and stocky, he was a powerhouse of a man. A son of Erin, self-made, hard-working, well-liked, intelligent, politically savvy and with the DNA of John Barry, a Revolutionary War naval hero, he is a giant in the county’s history. And, he is a person of more than passing interest in the annals of California government. His rise from freight wagon driver to the Democratic Party’s 1914 gubernatorial standard bearer is just a snapshot of his life and career.
When Curtin engaged Sonora architect Clarence W. Ayers in 1897, he chose a professional who had firmly secured a place in Tuolumne County’s architectural pantheon and could meet the challenge of designing a forever home for Curtin, then only months away from declaring his candidacy for state Senate.
Ayers’ most prominent buildings bloomed in Sonora: the fiery red Street-Morgan mansion (1896) opposite St. James Episcopal Church, the Bradford-Rosasco confection (1895) on North Norlin Street at Dodge Street, and the gorgeously sprawling county hospital (1896) now demolished at the south end of town.
Another commission of Ayers’ was the Jamestown branch jail (1897). The next year, his rendering of the proposed new Tuolumne County Courthouse was in the running, but after prolonged debate by the county Board of Supervisors, a contract was awarded to Wm. Mooser and Son, Architects of San Francisco, in a 3-2 vote. Their Spanish Revival proposal bested Ayers’ romantic vision, a Chateauesque pile more at home in the Loire Valley of France than on the flanks of Piety Hill.
Before he was hired by Curtin, Ayers worked with him earlier in 1897 on preparations for a statewide meeting of the Native Daughters of the Golden West in June. His future client helped construct a street-width archway in a style popular during England’s feudal period. A parade down Washington Street during the Grand Parlor conclave passed beneath Ayers’ castle-like battlement placed between Jackson Street and Bradford Avenue.
Curtin, a lifelong member of the Native Sons of the Golden West, gave the welcoming address, which was printed in its entirety in the Tuolumne Independent newspaper.
The stately residence Ayers designed is on what we call Columbia Way today, but in 1897, it was named Main Street and was Sonora’s northern entrance. Curtin bought his approximately 1-acre homesite from Thomas W. Wells for $1,000.
His timing was fortuitous, as Wells was manager of the Citizens Bank of Sonora, which collapsed from poor management and questionable loans to mining speculators four years later.
That end of Main Street was in a rural part of Sonora that in 1905 was being considered by the Board of Supervisors for the county’s first high school. Lawyer Curtin, representing a client, offered a 5-acre site on Main Street, but the county leaders decided on land on Shaws Flat Road.
When Ayers signed on with Curtin, he began a collaboration with a man uniquely positioned to build and enjoy a splendid estate. Born in 1867 at Gold Springs to Irish immigrant parents who settled in Columbia during the 1850s, he joined his father in the family’s freighting business in the days when stagecoaches, wagons and long-line teams of horses and mules ruled the road. Not afraid of hard work, but wanting something better, he studied law under Edwin A. “Ned” Rodgers, then dean of the local bar.
Sufficiently educated after 18 months reading law books and studying court cases, Curtin, then 25, petitioned the Tuolumne County Superior Court to be admitted to the bar. Following an interview conducted by Judge George Woodburn Nicol in the county’s original Gold Rush courthouse, Curtin was certified as an attorney on June 24, 1892.
Later in the year, the newly minted barrister declared his candidacy for district attorney and was elected in November, defeating Frank Otis, the incumbent. During his two-year term, he continued to nurture his growing private practice, remained active in public affairs and was elected a director of the First National Bank of Sonora.
By 1898, Curtin was ready for higher elected office, state senator from the 12th District. He captured the Democratic Party’s nomination in August at a convention in Merced in the days before the primary election. Victory at the polls followed three months later.
Representing Tuolumne, Mariposa, Stanislaus and Merced counties and, after reappointment in 1900, Madera County, too, he distinguished himself in the Legislature during four consecutive terms, although, as a Democrat, he and his fellow partisans were outnumbered by Republicans.
It was a challenging time to be in public office with many important issues facing Californians, such as the proposed surrender of the state’s 38,000-acre Yosemite Valley grant to the federal park service, planning and financing the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and much-needed tax reform during a time when railroads and other corporate interest were major statewide power brokers.
Curtin, however, was up to these challenges and more. He was rewarded along the way with election as senate minority leader and appointment by Republican Gov. James Gillette to the state Commission on Revenue and Taxation, a place where he thrived.
He earned the sobriquet “Constitutional John” for his grasp of state law and the revenue side of a spreadsheet. He was a driving force behind Constitutional Amendment One, which had wide-spread popular support and was approved by California voters in November 1910. This then-visionary legislation let local governments keep their share of property tax they had been passing on to the state treasury, while the state was authorized to backfill the difference by taxing the income of corporations.
Frequent trips to Sacramento and other parts of the state, where he was in considerable demand as a speaker, kept him away from Tuolumne County. When he was home, he tended to his law practice and cattle ranch, which eventually grew into a sizable enterprise. Lucy Shaw Curtin, his wife, did much to make the couple’s posh home quite the oasis from public life and a comfortable place for family and friends.
John Curtin and Lucy Shaw were wed on Nov. 22, 1897, in San Francisco and took up residence in their new home after a honeymoon. However, Curtin’s ledger of construction costs, which ultimately reached over $7,000 ($249,000 in 2022) notes that work continued into 1898.
In the City of Sonora’s landmarks survey, the style of their graceful residence is described as “half-timbered Queen Anne,” which one local paper praised for its “commendable absence of that tawdry and questionable tasteful trimming which mars so many of the residential architecture of the day.” So much for today’s fondness for Victorian architecture.
Nonetheless, Ayers unleashed a pleasing variety of Victorian-era architectural finery such as horizontal wood siding with bold accents and trim, stained-glass windows and doors, decorative rounded shingles then so popular for exterior finishes, gabled rooflines, a veranda or piazza with spindled posts which contrast in their simplicity with eye-catching, eave-level brackets and a patterned chimney rising above the second store.
It is on the front of the building that Ayers’ grasp of design, proportion and utility came together in the form of an exquisite dormer that juts out from the shingled roof. There is a small balcony accessed from the master bedroom, but it is the exterior finish that dazzles. By mixing small stones and broken bits of colored glass, the architect gave Sonora and, perhaps, Tuolumne County its best example of pebbledash artistry in stucco.
Rusticated chunks of Columbia limestone appear at the foundation and as a retaining wall along the Columbia Way sidewalk, which is edged at the curb with a length of rail from a train yard.
Inside, the original floor plan is very much in the Queen Anne manner. With the exception of the kitchen, the downstairs spaces radiate from a large entry or living hall, the backdrop of which is a magnificent wooden staircase that climbs up to some bedrooms. A subsequent addition circa 1904 increased the number of bedrooms, as well as adding other living areas.
Many of the construction materials were made in Tuolumne County as indicated by Curtin’s ledger: S.S. Bradford’s planing mill on today’s West Bradford Avenue supplied most of the lumber; bricks came from Engler’s kiln at Springfield, and J.S. Cady’s store in the Odd Fellows building was the source of paint and wallpaper. Curtin also tapped local vendors for furnishings and local craftsmen, such as William Rother, L.L. Shell and Robert Scudamore.
Although the original front door has been replaced, the new old-fashioned one features two carbed fans below a clear glass pane topped with smaller tile-like squares in blue, yellow and green. This door is but a hint of the beauty and luxury beyond the threshold.
Once inside the entry hall with its spectacular staircase, Gay ’90s interiors abound. Rich, dark reddish-brown embossed Lincrusta-Walton wainscoting rests atop foot-wide baseboards and on the wall below the staircase on its rise upward.
Its turned balusters are shaped as squares with crossmembers, a pattern that repeats five times before reaching a landing and the final ascent to the second floor. Complementing such a dramatic backdrop, the Curtins placed a custom-made settee with upholstered cushion along the base of the staircase, a mirror, two walnut side chairs, a table, Victrola, paintings (a still-life with roses and an ocean scene), a wall tapestry and floor lamps. A 1945 furnishings inventory shows these pieces and Asian touches, such as an urn and area rugs scattered over Bigelow carpeting laid in strips.
The walls are painted plaster, a simple but effective treatment. Coving abutting the ceiling is decorated with plaster relief in patterns such as grape clusters and garlands, depending on the room.
The first room off the hall is the music room. After passing through a wide opening that could be closed off with placket doors, Ayers strikes a grace note with the delicate beauty of a leaded- and stained-glass panel above a picture window facing Columbia Way. More wide baseboards and window and door trim with bull’s eye corner roundels go well with a painted wood chimneypiece. The mantel is supported by four narrow columns accented with two fan-shaped corner details and a mirror with sculptured woodwork. Built-in mirrors top all downstairs mantels.
The Curtins decorated the music room for comfort and enjoyment. The inventory lists a piano with bench, music cabinet, mandolin, love seat, china cabinet for cups and saucers, a settee with two chairs, a half-dozen paintings, brass andirons, a collection of vases, a bronze fan, Cupid figure and a floor lamp augmenting the light of a crystal chandelier.
Another large room off the hall is described as a living room in the 1945 inventory. Here the coving of the 10-foot ceiling is embossed in a grape motif, which also surrounds the area where a crystal chandelier is moored. This room’s appointments, in the 1945 tally, showed evidence of once being a library: large table, 700 books, paintings (two mountain scenes and a rose floral), five Native American baskets, a smoking stand, sofa with two matching chairs, an occasional chair upholstered with tapestry, more vases and andirons, several sets of candlesticks and an incense burner.
A downstairs bedroom had all the furniture one would expect to find: a five-piece bedroom set, family pictures, area rugs, two chairs and a radio. A bathroom was added, perhaps in the circa 1904 remodeling.
A fireplace surround similar to one in the music room heated this first floor bed chamber. Mottled blue-and-white glazed tile add color to the heart.
The last room to open off the hall is the dining room. Delicate gilded laurel wreaths with festoons in plaster highlight the coving. Similar daintiness is found where a crystal chandelier once hung, in an oval border on the ceiling and in each corner of the ceiling.
This room can only be described as a grand setting created by a gracious host and hostess with a flair or entertaining, and the inventory is proof positive. Itemized are a table, chairs, buffet, gold candlesticks, cut glass, fine china, a chocolate set, silver platters and flatware, linens, wine glasses and three big cabinets to display all of it.
Two paintings with floral themes (white roses and carnations) are easy on the eyes and a cigarette box and cigar jar are for relaxing after coffee and dessert.
The pantry once flowed from the dining room into the kitchen where built-in cabinets can hold more dinnerware, glasses, and linens. The kitchen itself has been updated over the years and is the location of the home’s door to a rear yard once part of a large tract owned by William L. Turner. He has been one of Curtin’s clients and a friend of Lucy who was a beneficiary on his will.
A small building, perhaps a carriage house, still stands opposite the back door. A former owner, David Bradley, said he thought it had been used for winemaking in later years.
Beyond this building, was a fence with a gate which led to a corral and barn where, before the automobile age, the Curtins kept a horse along with a cow for milk. This part of the original one-acre parcel was split off and today is the site of a home facing N. Stewart St.
There was originally an outdoor staircase that went up to the second story, but it was removed in the c.1904 expansion which bumped up the property’s assessed valuation from $4,200 to $5,000. This may seem a minor increase, but it could easily have reflected the costs of added rooms on both floors.
The upstairs hall was as inviting as its counterpart below. Wallpaper with muted gray swirls on a tawny background was pasted to thin cloth which provided a smooth surface on the 1” by 12” wall boards. The hall was a cozy nook with a settee, a leather-covered chair, table with lamp, an area rug, and three paintings.
The ornate master bedroom is at the top of the stairs and a door on its far wall pierces the pebbledash dormer to overlook the front garden and Columbia Way. This view in years past included four tall palm trees around a wrought iron fountain and two magnolia trees on each side of a concrete pathway to the front gate. Sadly, the palm trees and one magnolia are just memories.
The big bedroom’s walls and other bedrooms were papered in subtle floral or striped patterns topped with a complementary border at ceiling level. The Curtins had a dressing alcove with two built-in closets and marble corner sink. An adjacent bedroom shared a bath with another, and it may have been there that the Independent’s correspondent spied a “roll-rim, porcelain, nickel-plated tub.”
He also wrote that there were three sleeping chambers upstairs, but a fourth room, which could have been another bedroom or nursery, appears original to the date of construction. It’s small, but like the bedroom across from it, the east wall bears the shape of what was once a sloping roofline.
The entire upstairs was outfitted completely as the first-floor rooms. When it was expanded about 1904, there were at least two big, wood-paneled rooms augmenting the floorplan, and a new stairway leading down to the kitchen. The old and the new blend seamlessly.