Creamery, Garage and Recycling

Corner of 1st and C Street

2/01/1883--William Hemphill will shortly begin the erection of a blacksmith shop on the vacant lot north of the Brewery.

1884 Sanborn Map still shows a Blacksmith

1888 Sanborn Map shows Storage Room on north and a Carriage House and Blacksmith on the south/corner

1905 George Pedrick and Wilhilmina Hackman move into town from country Pedrick and Hackman roads and operate a creamery here then move it to the McDermott building later. Per Mrs. Pedrick on original photo given to Recology, she said this photo was taken in 1912 inside the creamery.

1/7/1914 CB Frese buys lots from JL Kilkenny

09/01/1914 NEW AUTO GARAGE COVERS LARGE AREA. The auto garage being built by C.B. Frese is big enough to throw a cat around in, her nine lives and kittens in the bargain. It looks big enough to take care of all the machines in town, and baby buggies on the side. It is one of the largest garages for a small town in the state, for it covers an area 71 by 150. It is a double decker, with part of the upper story for a paint shop, the machines going up by elevator. The entire floor will be of concrete, and the equipment will be modern and complete in every respect, say Frese & Rossi. The front will be of plate glass. A good feature will be doors for entering and a door for egress. The cost of the building will be over $4500. Some of the space will be used for Overland cars, a carload of which will arrive shortly and be sold by the firm.

1916 BJ Freese owns northern section of enlarged building and Hans Schomer owns the corner and southern portion

Juanita Olivas who lived in Dixon for 76 years worked for the Rossi’s...not sure of the years. Listen to her oral histories!

Sunday, August 29, 1999

Rossi family steered Dixon for seven decades

by Kristin Delaplane

On almost every corner of every busy street it seems there is a gas station. But that wasn’t the case in the early years of this century, when “horseless carriages” began clattering over roadways. In fact, when Emil Rossi arrived in Dixon, he probably couldn’t see a station at all.

Born in Italy in 1888, Emil Rossi traveled to the United States when he was 16, eventually arriving in San Francisco.

In 1908, he answered an ad placed by Roy Mayes, a Dixon farmer seeking a mechanic. At the time, automobile mechanics were not easily found in Dixon.

“Mayes was also a racing car enthusiast,” said Emil Rossi’s son, Bud Rossi, “and he recruited my father to drive his cars.”

From there Emil Rossi went to work for Milton Carpenter, a Dixon livery stable owner and blacksmith who had expanded his business to include working on cars. A partnership was formed, and the business expanded to include a car agency, located in the livery stable.

“Then in about 1913 or ‘14, my father became partners with Clarence Frese,” continued Bud Rossi. “They built the downtown (Dixon) garage.” It was a tin structure.

In 1917, Frese was drafted to fight in World War I while Rossi, a family man, was not. Frese was killed in the war, and in 1919 Emil Rossi’s brother joined the business, which they renamed Rossi Brothers.

“The gas pumps were on Main Street,” recalled Bud Rossi, describing early Dixon. “The highway came into Dixon - Highway 40, which was the main U.S. cross-continental artery. There were 11 gas pumps at garages and in front of different stores.”

By the 1920s, many garages had sprung up to serve the traveling public and the town’s 800 to 1,000 residents. Besides Rossi Brothers, there was Marvin Garage, McGimsey Ford Garage, City Garage, Weigle Garage, a Standard station and D’Artenay’s Garage.

Many of these garages also were automobile dealerships. As such, the garage had two or three cars on their lot and would take orders from customers. The car would arrive within three to four weeks.

Marvin’s Garage had the Grand Page agency. McGimsey’s was a Ford Agency. The City Garage was a subagency for a Vacaville dealership that handled Buicks. Weigle’s had a Chevrolet agency, while D’Artenay had the Star Agency.

Over the years, Rossi Brothers handled several different car lines including Hanes and Rickenbacker, which was a premium car then.

“They ended up as a General Motors agency,” Bud Rossi explained. In 1927, the partners built a modern showroom next to the garage. In the ‘30s, they became an Oldsmobile dealership.

In 1939, Bud Rossi graduated from Davis and joined the family business, buying his uncle out. By then the business included a farm equipment dealership for Allis-Chalmers Farm Equipment, which they acquired in 1929. Most of the equipment was tilling- or harvesting-related.

“In the early part of the century, horses were replaced by tractors, which pretty much became the method of tilling in the Dixon area,” Bud Rossi explained. “It went from wheel tractors to crawler tractors. Crawler tractors were the main source of power in tilling, because they needed heavy horsepower to till deep into the soil, which when we went into irrigation you had to have deep penetration.”

In 1946, Emil Rossi passed away and Bud Rossi’s brother, Vincent, came into the business. By then, the mainstay of the operation was the farm equipment.

By 1964, in anticipation of developing a display center for the equipment, the brothers purchased the old Carpenter property where the livery stable had been. However, shortly after the purchase, it became clear the old garage was not going to be adequate for any increased business, so instead, on the historic Carpenter landmark, they built Dixon’s first mini mall, Rossi Mall. Today it is Archer Plaza.

In 1965, the two brothers handled the first mechanical tomato harvesters.

“We saw the evolution of the harvester,” Bud Rossi said, “That revolutionized the tomato industry. The first one employed 20 sorters on the machine. Then there was the advent of the electronic sorter, which separated the green and red fruit and the dirt.

“That eliminated the number of people needed to where today’s machine only has three or four people.”

Bud Rossi also saw the development of a new tomato to accommodate the machinery.

“Davis developed a tomato with a hard skin that could take the shaking and tumbling that the mechanical machines did. Also, they developed a plant where the all the tomatoes would mature at the same time.”

In 1973, the brothers let the Oldsmobile dealership go, deciding to handle farm equipment exclusively. In 1974, they built modern facility on 10 acres at North First Street. In 1985, after nearly a decade at the new facility, the brothers closed down when Allis-Chalmers went out of business.

Information for this article came from an oral history in the Dixon Public Library’s collection.

12/1/1940 EMIL ROSSI & SON GARAGE - North Main St.

1941/01/03

Henry Rossi Sells Partnership Share To Emil Rossi Jr. -- Emil Rossi Jr. recently purchased the Henry Rossi share in the partnership of Rossi Bros. Garage and the new partnership will be known as Emil Rossi & Son. The business, which handles Oldsmobiles, GMC trucks and Allis-Chalmers tractors and farm equipment, was first begun by Emil Rossi in 1910 and joined by Henry in 1913 after the latter moved from Davis. Henry will move to Sacramento where he expects to enter

into business with his son who is located there. Along with their sales and service of implements, they also have one of the best machine shops in this section.

302 North First Street. Recycling center. NE corner North First and East C Streets.

Resource Name: 302 N. First Street

P1. Other Identifier:
P2. Location: Unrestricted a. County: Solano
b. USGS 7.5' Quad: Dixon, Calif. Date: 1952 (1981)T 7 N; R 1 E; SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Sec. 13; MDM B. M.
c. Address: 302 N. First Street City: DixonZip 95620
d. UTM
e. Other Locational Data APN - 0115 070 030

P3a. Description: This single-story building has an original front section and a slightly larger rear addition. The brick front section has a flat roof and stucco finish. A stepped parapet tops the front elevation, which has three oblong panels atop a central doorway and flanking display windows, all of which are now sealed with vertical boards. On the south side elevation are two more boarded display windows on the original section and a roll-up garage door and another boarded window on the addition. A flat parapet unifies original and added sections. The addition and the boarded windows are the main alterations to the building. The property's boundary is its current parcel.

P3b. Resource Attributes: HP6 - Store
P4. Resources Present: Building
P5b. Description of Photo:
Front Elevation
July 2003

P6. Date Constructed:
1925 Estimated

P7. Owner and Address:
Macor Inc
160 Pacific Avenue #200
San Francisco, CA 94111

P8. Recorded by:
Donald S. Napoli
1614 26th Street
Sacramento, CA 95816

P9. Date Recorded: 11/25/03

P10. Survey Type: Intensive

P11. Report Citation: None


Attachments: Building, Structure, and Object Record

DPR 523A - (1/95)
State of California -- The Resources AgencyPrimary # _____________________________________________
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATIONHRI # ________________________________________________
BUILDING, STRUCTURE, AND OBJECT RECORDPage 2 of 2NHRP Status Code 5S3
Resource Name: 302 N. First Street

B1. Historic Name: Unknown
B2. Common Name: None
B3. Original Use: StoreB4. Present Use: Recycling Center

B5. Architectural Style: No Style
B6. Construction History: Built ca. 1925; rear section added, windows boarded, dates unknown

B7. Moved: No
B8. Related Features: None

B9a. Architect: Unknownb. Builder: Unknown

B10. Significance: Theme: Architectural DevelopmentArea: Dixon
Period of Significance: 1860-1960Property Type: Commercial BuildingsApplicable Criteria: N/A
This small building was probably put up around 1925. In the mid-1940s it was used for tractor sales. If the original door and windows remain in place beneath the boards, then the building would be one of the least altered old commercial structures in the city. The design is too simple, however, for the building to have much additional architectural interest. Without strong associations to important historical or architectural trends, the building appears ineligible for the National Register or the California Register.
B11. Additional Resource Attributes: Sketch Map
B12. References: Dixon, Cal., Sanborn fire insurance maps, 1921, 1945, 1953.

B13. Remarks:
B14. Evaluator: Donald S. Napoli
Date of Evaluation: 11/25/03
(This space reserved for official comments.)

Esther Bryce

Founder / Interior designer

Lianne Wilson

Broker

Jaden Smith

Architect

Jessica Kim

Photographer