Denny Bar Store and Baker Hotel - Callahan, CA
N 41° 18.554 W 122° 48.047
10T E 516675 N 4573104
A vintage photo captures a few historic buildings in downtown Callahan. These buildings still exist today.
Waymark Code: WMX7DD
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 12/07/2017
Views: 0
A vintage photo captures downtown Callahan in the late 1800s when there used to be a Denny Bar store and Wells Fargo bank in one building and the Baker Hotel (most of the hotel has been converted to the Emporium, a bar and store). You can also see a livery barn in the background, long gone. The Denny Bar/Wells Fargo building remains empty and the building next to it in the foreground is now a Grange.
The Siskiyou County Historical Society blog site where the vintage image was taken from highlights the Denny Bar stores which were a fixture in other towns including Callahan and tells us:
Denny Brothers Stores were originally run by the three brothers – Tom, Joe and Albert. Stores were in South Fork and Callahan’s, with Albert running the South Fork store and Tom and Joe running the Callahan’s branch.
Of interest to note – A. H. Denny qualified as a Justice of the Peace in 1873, the same year that he moved to Callahan’s Ranch and took over that store. He also was the agent for Wells Fargo.
Abe Bar was a boy of sixteen when Albert Denny put him to work in his Callahan’s Ranch store. He taught him the mercantile business. The combination of A. H. Denny as head of the company and Abe Bar as general manager was never changed until Albert’s death in 1907. Under this set-up the Denny Bar Company formed the first chain store in northern California, with nine branches at various times – at Callahan’s, Etna, Fort Jones, Greenview, New River, Gazelle, Yreka, Montague and Cecilville.
Three of the Denny Bar Store buildings are still standing. The Gazelle Denny Bar store stands in the little town of Gazelle along the old Stage Road, the store in Etna that most recently held a drug store, and one in the town of Callahan (formerly Callahan’s Ranch). It is made of green granite from a local quarry.
