Colusa Roundhouse

Hi Everyone,

I first want to say that I am happy to see an organized group of enthusiasts for an important part of Califonia's history. Please keep the good stuff going.

My name is Pat Kittle. I was born and raised in Colusa, 1965. Sadly I never new about the history of the "Colusa Roundhouse" until just this year, 2009.

I asked the owner - friend of the family- if I could have the lumber and tin from his "old barn" if I took it down for him. I wanted the old siding and tin to decorate the inside of the old Zumwalt Building where we are planning to relocate our sporting goods store. He said sure. This deal was made around Jan. '09. I had planned on taking a year or so to salvage as much of the lumber as possible. In March or April the owner received a letter from the City building inspector demanding that the building be demolished in 30 days due to its dangerous state.

I got busy and to this date we are still cleaning out junk and artifacts before the excavator vists the site. I have found a new appreciation for the people that built and worked on this site. I too wish very much that the building could have been rescued. I even suggested to the owner that the west side be saved. But there was no interest. Plenty of fear of liability and costs. The owner told me that he had a local contractor look at renovating it around 1976,and was told that it was too far gone then. Unfortunately these types of projects take a lot of time and money. Time seems to have been something that the people who built this beautiful piece of art had a lot more of than we are able to experience today.

So now I am a week away from having the excavator come in. I have salvaged the line shafts with wooden pulleys from the rafters. There are still some on the walls with framework. A gentleman contacted me from a railroad preservation society from the bay area that wanted these items for a machine shop / railyard museum. I have Lost his number. I think his name was Roger. Can someone direct him back to me?

A bit of my recently acquired but limited knowledge of the rest of the story on this site. It was the first and possibly the only "Rumley" tractor distributor in the area. It then became a very successful Allis Chalmlers tractor sales and service dealer and machine shop up to the late 1960's.

We have not discovered any signs of the railroad in the cleanup. I suspect some local collectors in the know gathered that stuff decades ago. I really want as much as possible that is left of the machine shop to go to a museum. So please contact me on this forum or my work email at patrick@kittlesoutdoor.com. I will arrange any reasonalbe transactions with the owner. If you visit the site - please
1. Be very careful
2. Please respect the private landowners
3. Don't tell them I sent you

A thought for saving other sites in the future. Find someone that knows the owner of the property and open the discussions with a list of possible solutions. Try to avoid the government route or only as a last resort.

PK