2018 December Colony Magazine

TENT CITY
THE BIRTH OF ATASCADERO
The Original Design for the Civic Center
Once E.G. Lewis, a major
magazine publisher
from St. Louis (actually
University City, Mo.) purchased
the 23,000-acre Atascadero
Rancho from Jason Henry in
1913, and almost before starting
to plan what he would do
with the property, E.G. decided
to start advertising the concept
of Atascadero in a series
of bulletins. Ultimately, there
were nine Atascadero Bulletins
published. The writers of
this column will use and reference
those bulletins in some of
our columns published here in
COLONY Magazine. Unfortunately,
the Atascadero Historical
Society does not have
copies of all of the bulletins
but we are currently working
on a project to scan those we
have and make them available
on our website, as they make
fascinating reading.
This column will focus on
E.G. Lewis’ initial design for
the Atascadero Civic Center.
Below is the perspective sketch
of the planned Atascadero
Civic Center, as well as a caption
with a description of it, all
appearing in Atascadero Bulletin
#3, dated June 1913. (In
the drawing’s title, notice the
reference to “the Woman’s Republic,”
indicating the role of a
By The Atascadero Historical Society
national organization Mr. and
Mrs. Lewis had created in the
very early 1900s, to promote
the role of women in government.)
More specifics about
this connection will be presented
in a later column.
Some of the buildings in this
sketch were built, but many were
not. However, this sketch does
show the early vision E.G. Lewis
had for the city. His main collaborator
was Walter Bliss, a San
Francisco architect who was a
member of the governing board
of the Colony Holding Corporation.
The Bliss firm, because of its
knowledge of the most modern
seismic design practices learned
from their work in rebuilding
San Francisco, after the 1906
earthquake, was a great choice
in designing the Civic Center of
Atascadero. We think you will
be impressed by the details of
these buildings from the actual
caption and some insights from
our discussion which we hope
you find informative.
Notice the orientation of the
Civic Center and the buildings
that were planned. From this
sketch, only the Administration
Building was built as indicated,
giving it the distinction of being
the only building that was not
significantly modified throughout
the planning process.
One eventual change from the
diagram was to move the Administration
Building and the
current Sunken Gardens one
block east of the State Highway,
currently El Camino Real
(the caption describes the State
Highway between the Administration
Building and the current
Sunken Gardens.) The caption
also identifies “a central plaza
and beautiful gardens” as a key
feature behind the Administration
Building. These were to be
what we call Sunken Gardens
and was originally intended to
be where the current middle
school is located.
In keeping with the grand
plan, an Opera House, a University
and office buildings were
all in the core of the planned
city. The grand department store
called La Plaza or the Mercantile,
was the only other building
described in the caption, that
was built. This building, which
had been converted into a hotel,
known as the Atascadero Inn,
burned to the ground in a fire
in 1935.
Until next time…
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22 | colonymagazine.com COLONY Magazine, December 2018