- The Fresno Bee
Sunday, Mar. 03, 2013 | 08:15 AM
Question: Are there any pictures of the original Chester Rowell Elementary School? I attended there in the early 1960s. It was a beautiful two-story brick building heated by radiators. The kindergarten room even had a fireplace.
-- Kathy Burrows, Fresno
Answer: In 1921, the name of Arlington Heights school was changed to Chester Rowell Elementary School when a brick school was built to replace the one-room, wood-frame school.
Arlington Heights began in 1915 at Sixth Street and Grant Avenue and had 40 students by 1919.
The four-room Rowell school, with a separate "toilet building," was built for $44,287.18 near Harvey and Millbrook avenues. In 1923, a second story was added and in 1926 a one-story classroom wing was built. An auditorium was built in 1940.
Rowell school was demolished in the early 1970s to make way for Highway 180. When the new Rowell campus was built at 3460 E. McKenzie Ave. in 1970, the old clock from the first school was hung in the office.
Dr. Chester Rowell, for whom the school was named, was a Fresno pioneer. He was the first president of the Fresno County Medical Society, forerunner of the Fresno-Madera Medical Society.
In the 1880s, Rowell started the Fresno Morning Republican and was elected to the state Senate. He also served on the Board of Regents of the University of California.
Rowell was Fresno's fourth mayor, serving from 1909 until his death in 1912. His ashes are in the left boot of his statue in Courthouse Park, facing the empty lot where the Republican's office once stood.
A downtown office building across from the park also bears Rowell's name. Started by Rowell and a business partner, it was completed the year after he died.
Q: What is the history of Christensen's markets in Fresno? A relative once worked at one of their stores that I think was on Clinton.
-- Pat Walton, Fresno
A: Brothers Niels and Carl Christensen bought out the Peacock Market No. 6 at 1344 W. Clinton Ave. in 1960 and renamed it Clinton-West Market. The store was on the northwest corner.
At the time, the Clinton-West Market was their third store, along with Christensen's Food Store in the Cedar Heights Shopping Center at Cedar and Shields avenues and Sunnyside Square Market at 5566 E. Kings Canyon Road at Clovis Avenue.
The Christensens' father ran a grocery store in Denmark before the brothers came to Fresno in 1937. They started their own grocery business after World War II and eventually ran five markets.
The Christensens sold the Cedar and Shields store to manager Kendall Butts in 1969. Carl Christensen ran the Kings Canyon store for many years.
In 1974, Niels Christensen and his son, Bruce, opened Village Food World in Fig Garden Village, which they owned until 1996.
More on North Maple Plunge: Kris Bybee-Finley of Hurricane, W.Va., daughter of former pool owner Norman Bybee, 89, sent an email last week with memories of the public pool.
"My four siblings and I grew up with that pool as our backyard. It was so much a part of our childhood," Bybee-Finley wrote. "During the summer, we did chores at the pool, hung out at the checkstand and swam a lot.
"The slide was only 30 feet [high], I think, but it was lined with tile and you could zip straight down it at amazing speeds. There was nothing better than the first day they filled the pool -- the water was so clear and cold," she wrote.
"Every summer was filled with shrieks and yells and announcements over the loudspeakers: my younger brother's birth was announced one July 4th."
