‘Indiana Jones’ moment for Fresno historians. Classic lanterns’ past discovered

Five months ago, the Fresno City & County Historical Society set out to solve a mystery.

Some 80 ornate lanterns had been discovered in a storage room in the Belmont Avenue underpass as it was being demolished to make way for High-Speed Rail.

It was a significant cache that left historians speculating.

And fielding calls from across the state from people wanting to know how the lanterns ended up in that room and more importantly, what was their original intended use.

At least one of those questions has now been answered.

“I got it all wrong,” Historical Society president Elizabeth Laval said during a news conference Friday at its office/archive on Kern Street. “They weren’t displayed in the subway; they weren’t in Roeding Park.”

And they were significantly older than originally thought.

The lanterns were made sometime in the 1920s and, for three years at least, sat atop streetlamps (or electroliers, as they were described in news stories at the time) along Fulton Street during the holiday season as part of the city’s annual Holiday Parade and Open House.

How the mystery got solved

The Historic Society was at a disadvantage early on in the investigation.

Most of what they had to go on were descriptions of the lanterns given by the High-Speed Rail Authority and a few photographs taken after the discovery. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, when they were able to actually examine the lanterns, that the pieces of the mystery began to fall into place.

Laval originally thought they were from the 1940s or ’50s and had some tie to either the Belmont Subway, which connected downtown Fresno with Roeding Park, or the park itself, which had a Japanese garden and pagoda.

“They always kind of read ‘Christmas’ to me,” says Donald Spencer an archivist with the Historic Society.

Still, says Donald Spencer an archivist with the Historic Society: “They always kind of read ‘Christmas’ to me.”

The lanterns were clearly painted green and red, though any brightness has faded over the years. They’re four feet high and made of sheet metal so they are lighter than they might appear. Each side is adorned with two intricate snowflake designs.

At the center of each snowflake (and at top to the lantern itself) is a light fixture.

That’s something that the archivists only garnered when they were able to see the lanterns. By examining inside the lanterns, Spencer was able to determine the manufacture (stamped as Bryant Spartan) and a timeframe for when the lanterns would have been made and put into use: somewhere between 1918–1940.

Using that information and newspapers archives, Spencer found mention of the “special lanterns of medieval design,” in a story in The Fresno Bee dated Dec. 3, 1931. The lanterns were funded by the Merchants Association of Fresno, whose businesses hosted a holiday open house in conjunction with the Christmas Parade.

That theory was confirmed by a picture.

“One photo out of 100k. And we found it,” Laval said during the press conference.

Taken in 1929 by Laval’s grandfather, noted local photographer Pop Laval, the image shows what was then known as the San Joaquin Power and Light Building (now the Grand 1401).

And right there, at the corner of Fulton and Tuolumne streets, is a streetlamp. It’s not the focus of the photo and you have to scan in close to make it out, but “there’s that lantern, just standing there,” Laval said.

Being able to offer this kind of conclusion is vindication, Spencer says; of his education and the work of historians and archivists like him. “You can’t help but feel like Indiana Jones.”

Will the lanterns be put back in use?

The lanterns will now be brought under the care of the Historical Society. Eventually, some will be put on display inside the archive on Kern, Laval said. She thinks it would be fitting if a few found their way into the Downtown Christmas parade next year.

But first they will be examined by an electrician and others to be sure they can be properly cared for moving forward.

“The first thing is protection.”

And then, there is still the question of how the lanterns ended up in some storage room and where they were between 1931 (the year historians could find reference of the decorations) and 1938 (the year the Belmont Subway was completed). Laval suspects they could have been stored in basements one of the major downtown businesses at the time, possibly Gottschalks.

“That’s the next mystery we’re going to have to figure out,” Laval says.

“We’re not done yet.”