One of the two dozen or so accident attorneys appearing on television has a new series of client testimonies as commercials. I get a kick out of when an older woman says the firm "takes an interest in you as a person." I think I know what she means, but I wonder if the firm handles service animals or zoo residents.
I ventured out to McMenhir Nursery in late April, obstinately to buy bags of potting soil, but wound up wandering through their property, including a stopover at their succulent collection. As I walked the southern perimeter through several muddy pavers, I soon found myself at the base of their sign. The sign is nothing special: a large dark orange trapezoid meant to invoke a terracotta flower pot sporting the business's name in white letters. I've seen old photographs from the 1950s with a flower-like decoration perched atop the sign to tie the flowerpot motif further together, but I haven't seen such an ornament since I've been coming here. The pole holding up the sign is only slightly more interesting. It stands about 10 feet tall and has weathered poorly, but you can still see the leaf shapes embossed on it. I guess someone meant them to be acanthus.
I find the pole and trapezoid-shaped sign interesting, if only because there's an identical one on the other side of town. To understand why, one must learn about the various independent farms that dotted the hills outside town in the late nineteenth century. The city gradually expanded and swallowed some farms, while many farmers bought land in town, resulting in something not unlike competing farmers' markets. Over time, many grew into full-fledged nurseries and garden centers, offering plants, seeds, and implements.
Post-Depression-era newspapers tell the issues families had running these businesses. As such, the number of family-run nurseries slowly dwindled. Some sold out to other families or more prominent regional companies – or, in the case of the Steen family, disappeared from town and left their property overgrown and rotting (see "The Steen Smell" from an Aug. 1953 issue of the Examiner).
The McMenhir farm east of town began an in-town nursery near the eastern end of Minerva Street on irregularly shaped property. The land looks like a giant letter A on modern maps, with the nursery stuck between Minerva and a disjointed alley south of Church Street. It's a pain in the A sometimes, too, as the horizontal line of the A is a one-way entrance and exit. I have lost track of how many times I've pulled into the drive only to go straight through to the exit and hoped someone departed by the time I circled the block again. I assume it was a modest-sized property when the family moved to town, but they must have crammed a lot into the space over the last century.
On the city's west side was the Howard family's smaller nursery. The only interesting thing was that their irregularly shaped greenhouse had once been an airplane hangar. Yeah, their nursery butted up against a forgotten 20th-century airfield, but that's a story for another time. The Howard family remained owners until the mid-1980s when Irus McMenhir, Jr., bought the property and its assets. Operating the nursery as McMenhir's West in everything but name, Howard Nursery remained in business for another twenty years.
By then, even McMenhirs knew it was a lost cause to keep both stores open. By 2003, all that remained of the west location were a couple of buildings and a second flower pot-shaped sign and pole. By the end of the decade, a four-story apartment complex stood on the property, with the new owners repurposing the old framework of the old sign.
While West Zenith Flats is attractive and modern, I suspect few residents have ever noticed the leaf shapes spanning the length of the signpost. Kudos to the new owners for keeping it up all these years.
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