This third stop is one that is sure to delight all ages. The Carnegie Museum is located at one end of Historic Roseville and is a history lover's delight that has to be seen to appreciate.
Roseville's History Runs Deep
The beautiful building called Carnegie Museum was once the Roseville City Library. Built as the Carnegie Library in 1912, it operated as the city's library until it's closing in 1982. In 1988, it was reopened as a museum and has done nothing but grow with the help of its many caring volunteers. Roseville's history runs deep and for many miles in several directions. Originally known as, "Grinders, Junction, and then just Junction," Roseville began as a stagecoach town. The origin of the name Grinders is still somewhat of a mystery however the Junction clearly relates to its railroad connection (oh yes, that’s a pun worth twice the points). In the 1890s fruit orchards that were thriving in Placer County, started sending fruit to Roseville by rail.
At some point, Southern Pacific Railroad moved its switching yards from Rocklin to Junction (now Roseville). It's at that point that Junction began growing faster than other towns in Placer County. That growth was additionally spurred by the decision made by Pacific Fruit Express to centrally locate all its refrigerator plants to Junction. Because of the high volume of rail activity in Junction, it made sense to have the refrigerator plants close to the fruit cars requiring ice. But when the Southern Pacific Railroad decided to move the switching yards from Rocklin to Roseville, it's then that it saw its first real growth spurt. In the early 1900s, the name Junction was dropped and Roseville became the official name of a city that is "Roseville".
The Historic Roseville area has been the home to a couple of huge entities. The Pacific Fruit Express Building was the largest ice manufacturer in the world and to date, the Roseville railroad area sees the most train traffic in all the Western United States. Roseville's growth continued at a fast rate including during the Great Depression and beyond. During the U.S.' four-year involvement in World War II, the people of Roseville, subscribed to eight victory loan drives totaling $478,267.25. This enabled a building boon that included Citizens Bank of Roseville, JC Penny Company's large building and the Veteran's Hall. Furthering the growth of the area were the local rail yard. These impressive rail yards had undergone several expansions and renovation programs to accommodate the tremendous number of troops and tons of war materials during WWII. They handled as many as 7,055 freight cars in a single day! However, the city's post WWII activities meant increasing housing and auto industry related businesses; Roseville's growth moved away from what is now Historic Roseville.
Carnegie Museum Captures it All
In addition to residing in a beautiful old building, this museum provides visitors with a rewarding reflection of Roseville's relics. Once you walk in its front doors, you realize there's much to appreciate about Roseville's history. Of course, one of the incredible features of this museum is its model recreation of downtown Roseville which features the 1973 Southern Pacific Railroad accident. There are hundreds of other items nicely displayed within the museum's rooms.
Volunteers are the Museum's Heart
Museums are only as good as the people who care about them. Their quality is at the mercy of docents, volunteers and benefactors. Without an overwhelming number of unpaid workers who are determined to keep a museum's doors open, they don't thrive. Carnegie Museum is a great example of a thriving museum. While the displays are part a great part of your visit to this museum, the exposure to historical knowledge is equally great. This museum's mission is to preserve artifacts and to continue to gather information from the community for the community. An enormous amount of work has gone into archiving information for the benefit of anyone researching Roseville's history. The Carnegie museum is currently recruiting for volunteers and docents. Of course, the museum is always grateful for donations and any profit made from gift store purchases. During your visit, be sure to spend some time in the Carnegie Museum gift shop. And speaking of benefiting the museum, save the date of October 19th, 2019 for the Carnegie Hall Annual Murder Mystery Event.
At Roseville Self Storage, We Love Our Local Community
As your neighborhood self-storage facility, Roseville Self Storage is always happy to share the great things to see and do in Roseville. We at Roseville Self Storage feel very fortunate to be in such an exciting city and we're always eager to learn from others. Please take a moment to stop by and tell us about what you enjoy seeing and doing in Roseville. We'd love to meet you!
By they way, you may want to check out our other recent blog posts about historic Roseville: Fourscore Coffee and Pacific Street Cafe.
Carnegie Museum is located at 557 Lincoln Street
Roseville, CA 95678
916-773-3003
http://www.rosevillehistorical.org/
