Avenue of Palms

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Friday, January 16, 2015

Mystery Date of Model T Photograph

In a book about the Washington Township, there is a photo of a long line of cars, Model T's and other cars. The cars are stopped along a long row of palm trees on the right and an irrigation ditch on the left. The book says the photo is ca. 1925.
But the last auto has two license plates (Mystery 1, why two?) and the license plate says 1914. What is the true date of the photo? Is it 1914, not 1925? What does it mean to have a 1914 license plate on a car?  (Mystery 2)

Why do I care about the date, you might wonder? Because in 1914 the California Nursery was supplying many of the trees and plants for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Perhaps this was a group related to PPIE.


Let's look at that plate more closely

The photo is hand-colored so we can't depend on the colorist's choice of colors. I made the snippet black and white here.

The top plate has a dark background and light letters with 1914 on it. Does that mean the photo was taken in 1914 or after 1914, perhaps 1915? Did people have re-registration stickers back then like we do now? Could someone still have a plate in 1925 that says 1914?

The plate that is covered by the 1914 plate has a dark background and light letters. Is that a 1913 plate? (Mystery 3)

Finding the answers

The DMV has this helpful guide to license plate requirements from 1914 to 1972. The plate for 1914 had a brick red background and white letters.
Wikipedia has a table of license plate pictures by year.
They show the 1914 license plate which looks like this.
The font of the numbers matches the photo.
:







The DMV has a history of licensing.
But this is the best of all - PorcelainPlates.net
  • California History part 1 - Pre-States / City & County Plates. The plate underneath the 1914 plate doesn't look like any of the pre-state plates. In our photo the letters "CAL" are vertical not diagonal.  Maybe one of the variations that were not mentioned? (Mystery 3 remains a mystery.)
  • California History part 2 - State Issued Passenger Plates. According to this website, the 1914 license plate was required by mid-March 1914 and the 1915 license plate was required by January 8, 1915. So it seems pretty likely that this picture was taken in 1914.  (Mystery 1 and 2 solved.)

The hills matched for the 8-horse dray at the Hearst photo. What about the East side?


Need to get a good copy of the photo to better examine the shape of the hills. BR said that there was quarrying on this hill so the front will look different.






An additional mystery solved and a new one posed

The author mentions looking up the registration of a license plate in "Motor Vehicle Department's California Automobile Registration". Who owned this car? I'm going to look for that! Voila! The Registered Automobiles 1914, Nos. 36906 to 55385 inclusive.  

Mr. John J. Gill of San Leandro registered this car!
Who is he, I wonder?







Who is John J. Gill and what was his car doing at the California Nursery in 1914?

I have no answer yet, but here's a start.

Here's a biography of John Joseph Gill of San Leandro in 1907, History of the State of California, and Biographical Record of Oakland and Environs, J.M. Gunn. Would like to find a later version, closer to 1914! Or an obituary. He was president of the San Leandro board of trustees and took care of a fruit orchard. There is a list of siblings in the article (no Edward). How can I find this John Gill's address to confirm this auto was owned by this John J. Gill? The address was Pacific Avenue, San Leandro.

I also remembered that the Pacific Coast Association of Nurserymen visited the California Nursery (p.109-115, June 23, 1911) when their convention was in San Jose. There might have been a long line of cars for such a visit. They came by train, but the nursery was 600 acres at its maximum, so you'd might want to transport the delegation around the grounds by car. Did they need to bring/borrow cars? Unfortunately the year of that meeting is not 1914, but I was curious if there ever was a John Gill who attended the meeting.

So I checked the "List of Firms and Members" in the 1911 PCAN.  The Gill Nursery is listed as one of the firms of the PCAN. John Gill is listed as manager of Gill Nursery Co.

John Gill's photo is here in 1911, #43 on the California Association of Nurserymen group photo.

This John Gill was one of the largest growers of roses in 1920, in Berkeley. Was he the son, nephew, or  unrelated to our San Leandro John Gill?

I wondered if Gill Tract was named after John Gill.  According to wikipedia, that would be Edward Gill, a horticulturalist, and he died in 1909, but his son (un-named) took over.  (Mystery 4, unsolved)
From his obituary, he was mayor of San Leandro for two years, 1908-1910, councilman 1904 to 1916. 

Further help in this mystery

I just came across another copy of the phot with the title written on the picture:
"Manufactures Excursion Passing Through California Nursery Co. Niles, CAL.  B-1444"


I recognized that photographer logo from this panorama of Niles, which is the Cheney Photo Co. From that Cheney link, there are three sets of photos. Photos are numbered with B- and C-. A Bancroft set includes the Niles panorama, not listed as such, but clearly Niles.

Update (3/24/2015) 

While looking for a train picture in a May 1914 Pacific Service magazine, I ran into this "Manufacturers' Exhibit that closed April 30th: 

If this is the conference, then what would the date be and how does that match with the shipments?

Further References



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