Sunday, Mar. 03, 2013 | 08:15 AM
Question: I am helping to research the history of my church, Fresno First Baptist Church, which will celebrate its 130th anniversary next year. Was it one of Fresno's first churches?
-- Betty Arnold, Fresno
Answer: First Baptist was one of Fresno's early churches, but not the first.
According to the book "Fresno County in the 20th Century," Fresno's first established church was the Methodist Episcopal Church South, founded in early 1875.
Methodist Episcopal South began with seven members -- Judge Gillum Baley, his wife and their three daughters, and two other women. Baley served as steward, reader, trustee, Sunday school superintendent, janitor and occasional preacher.
Methodist Episcopal South built the first church building in Fresno in 1876.
In 1879, Saint James Episcopal was organized by Rev. D.O. Kelley, meeting in a law office over a saloon and later in a school. A cathedral and parsonage opened in 1881.
In 1880, Saint John's Catholic Church was established and a church was built at Fresno and M streets.
A Methodist Episcopal church was organized in December 1881 and a church was built at Merced and K streets in 1883.
Three churches were founded in 1882, including First Baptist, which was organized on March 18, 1882, in the Good Templar's Hall on Mariposa Street. The church's first pastor, T.T. Potter, was paid $600 a year.
In May 1882, the Rev. S.V. Blakeslee and eight members founded First Congregational Church, meeting at Donahoo's Hall for a monthly rent of $20. A church was built in 1884.
The African Methodist Episcopal also was founded in 1882, meeting at first in a blacksmith shop.
In 1884, First Baptist built its first church at Merced and Fulton streets. The building was destroyed by fire in 1896. The new wooden church built at Merced and N streets was destroyed by fire in 1899.
First Baptist dedicated a brick church, also at Merced and N, in 1909. In 1952, the building was sold and First Baptist built a new church on Saginaw Way near Blackstone Avenue. But 10 days before the scheduled dedication of the new church, it was destroyed in an arson fire. The church was rebuilt and is still the home of Fresno First Baptist.
Q: What is the history of The Pop Shoppe located on Blackstone Avenue in the 1970s?
-- Rob Bowman, Fresno
A: Pop Shoppes of Canada Ltd. opened its first California bottling plant and store at 4326 N. Blackstone Ave., just north of Ashlan, in August 1973. The company had 15 locations in Canada, and the Fresno operation was the second U.S. branch.
Sixteen flavors and four diet varieties were bottled at the Fresno plant. The store sold soda by the case of 24, priced at 5 cents per bottle. Customers paid a deposit on the red plastic cases and brought the bottles back to the store to be reused in the bottling plant.
In 1974, Fresno construction company Walker, Walker and Pinkston bought the three Pop Shoppe franchises in Fresno, Sacramento and Modesto. By 1976, the company had 70 locations. Commercial International Corp., a Selma raisin firm, owned Pop Shoppes franchises in Southern California.
The Blackstone location was closed by the end of 1979, but Pop Shoppe sodas still were sold at two variety stores, a gas station and a convenience store. By then the bottling was all done in one Southern California plant.
The company closed in 1983, but the brand was relaunched in 2004, said Paul Richards, vice president of sales for The Pop Shoppe.
There are no Pop Shoppe outlets in Fresno, but the soda brand is distributed in Sacramento, Richards said.
More about the Motel El Rancho: After the answer to a question about the Motel El Rancho ran on May 2, Melissa Orozco-Simon of Clovis sent an email about her late father who performed at the motel.
"My dad, Manuel Orozco, played with Hayward Lee and the Blue Notes," a quintet that was the motel's house band from 1961 to 1964, Orozco-Simon wrote. The band played nightly Tuesday through Sunday.
"They were a versatile group and packed the house," she said, making the El Rancho "the hottest place to enjoy music and dancing."
Orozco played electric keyboard. The original drummer, Art Tyler, was later replaced by Don Kendrick, she said. Henry King played bass, James Scoggins played guitar and Lee played saxophone. The group performed together until Orozco died in 1979.
