Ask Me: Family bought Victorian in 1900

Published online on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

Question: I own a beautiful older home at 171 N. Van Ness Ave., where I also have my business. I would like to know more about the history of this house.

-- Margot Tepperman, Fresno

Answer: The Folk Victorian-style house is called the McAlpine Home after its first residents -- Alexander D. McAlpine, his wife, Rose, and their six children.

McAlpine, who worked for a Colorado railroad, took a train trip through the Valley with his family in April 1900. He was so impressed with Fresno that he decided to retire at age 41 and move here.

McAlpine bought the house in 1900, about three months after it was completed by a man named Crawford, whose first name is unknown.

The house was built from redwood with a veranda curving around two sides and fish scale shingles on the gables. The lot was carved out of a citrus orchard and some of the original trees were left beside the house.

The house sits on the west side of Van Ness Avenue, and McAlpine also owned land east of Van Ness between Belmont and Divisadero avenues, which he subdivided into lots and sold.

College, Park and Nevada avenues within McAlpine's subdivision are narrow because McAlpine built them to accommodate the horse and buggy traffic of the day.

In about 1903, McAlpine paid $2,500 for an artist to paint all the woodwork in the house with a false oak woodgrain pattern, a popular art form at the time.

The house is listed on Fresno's Local Register of Historic Resources.

McAlpine was 74 when he died at home in 1933. A native of Canada, McAlpine was an elder in the First Christian Church in Fresno.

By 1946, McAlpine's granddaughter and her husband, H. Wayne Taul, had acquired the house, in which Taul had his engineering business.

Q: Which of the numbers on plastic bags and containers mean those items can be recycled?

-- Lee DiSanto, Fresno

A: The numbers 1 through 7 are used to designate the plastics used in a wide variety of containers -- from the wispy plastic bags dry cleaners use to shopping bags, from ketchup and medicine bottles to yogurt containers and drinking straws.

The numbers are found inside a triangle and are usually stamped on the bottom of containers.

Soft-drink and water bottles, peanut butter and salad-dressing containers and oven-safe food trays are stamped with the number 1 -- which is perhaps easier than remembering its chemical name -- polyethylene terephthalate.

According to the city of Fresno's Web site, the only type of plastic that cannot be recycled in Fresno is number 6 -- polystyrene -- from which disposable plates, cups, meat trays, egg cartons, carry-out containers, aspirin bottles and compact disc cases are made.

Q: What is the history of the Furlong Field airport?

-- Peter Haupt, Fresno

A: Pilot and flight instructor Frank E. Furlong built the airstrip and hangars in 1941 around Brawley and Shaw avenues, near his home at 4747 N. Brawley Ave.

There were 12 airplanes at Furlong Field.

Furlong was a charter member of the Fresno County Sheriff's Office Aero Squadron. During World War II, Furlong was a test pilot for Douglas Aircraft Co. and also an airline pilot.

He was commander of the local Civil Air Patrol and in 1946 was credited with finding the wreckage of a plane that crashed near Bakersfield.

Furlong also designed and built automobiles. In 1948, he sold a Furlong Custom for $13,500 to a movie company official in Hollywood. The 145-horsepower one-seater had a streamlined aluminum body with a rear vertical fin and a 118-inch wheelbase. Its maximum speed was 130 mph.

Furlong, a native of Fresno, began flying in 1929. By the time he retired from flying in 1951 to raise chickens -- in a remodeled airplane hangar at the airstrip -- he had logged more than 2,400 hours in flight.

Furlong died in 1957 at age 46. He was survived by his wife, Lydia, a daughter, Joyce, two brothers, a sister and his mother.