175th Anniversary Heritage Quilt: Historic Businesses
- Kathy Brown
- Jul 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 24
By Kathy Brown, Groveland Yosemite Gateway Museum/Southern Tuolumne County Historical Society
The pen and ink sketch above is one of Irene Clark’s Historic Groveland drawings being reproduced by the Pine Needlers Guild on a Heritage Quilt for the 49er Festival's Live Auction. It shows a Groveland store as it looked when it served as the Garrote Pharmacy in the 1970s. With its unique 45 degree angled corner, it is easy to identify as the current home of the Serendipity Antique and Gift Store. When newly built in 1920 it housed a very different
business - Sal Ferretti’s Meat Market. It replaced his earlier butcher shop located in an adobe building whose interior was gutted by fire. Top of the Trail Tea and Coffee now does business in that adobe.
The meat for Ferretti’s market was provided by his ranch on Big Creek which is now mostly under Pine Mountain Lake. It had a slaughter house where cattle, hogs, and sheep raised on the ranch were killed, skinned, and quartered. Their carcasses were then trucked to this Groveland building for butchering and further processing. The building's west side featured a loading dock with a grappling hook attached to a track so sides of beef could easily be unloaded from delivery trucks and moved into the meat market's walk-in refrigerator. Ferretti also made and sold bulk ice needed for kitchen ice boxes of the day that relied on a constant supply of ice to keep perishable food fresh.
In the 1970s the building was purchased by pharmacist Maynard Lutts and his wife
Darlene, who was a surgical nurse in the South Pacific in the 1940s. The store’s
northwest corner was made diagonal when it was enlarged and remodeled by Lutts to
serve as the Garrote Pharmacy seen in Clark’s print. Maynard better known as “Mel”
served as pharmacist there through the 1980s. In the absence of a medical professional
in Groveland, Mel often gave curative advice to his customers. It was helpful that his
wife also had medical training. When emergency need arose, he went out of his way to
obtain and fill prescriptions, often after hours. After Lutts closed the pharmacy, the
building was home to a stationary store, a real estate office, and currently, a gift store.
To this day it retains some of its 1920s character. The door to Ferretti’s walk-in meat
locker, with its unique hardware, was not removed in its remodeling and can still be
seen in the store today.
Another unusual quilt block features Irene Clark’s sketch of a one-time Groveland
landmark - “Abandoned Hetch Hetchy snow plow #1173.” Its inclusion serves to remind
us of the important role Groveland played in San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Project.
After the downturn in gold mining in the early 1900s, the Groveland area was going
through a “bust” time. Few jobs remained and residents numbered only around 300.
San Francisco chose Groveland to serve as administrative headquarters of the
Mountain Division of their efforts to build O’Shaughnessy Dam and a pipeline all the way
to their city. This created a much needed “boom” time for Groveland. The building of a
railroad, housing, new school, a hospital, jobs, as well as a variety of “entertainment” for
the workers accompanied the project.
A former caboose was converted into a rotary snow plow for the Hetch Hetchy Railroad.
It was used to clear the tracks of snow to allow rolling stock to move between Old Priest
Grade and the dam construction area until the 1930s. In compliance with Congress’
Rather Act which permitted this undertaking by San Francisco, nearly all visible
indications of this important part of Groveland’s history were removed after the project’s
completion. When the rails were taken up, the snow plow was abandoned across Ferretti Road from the CalTrans yard which had served as the Hetch Hetchy Railroad Maintenance yard. For a while the caboose was used for storage and as a garage. It was burned in 1981 to
clear land for the County Youth Center’s early location just south of Two Guys Pizza. For about 40 years the Hetch Hetchy Caboose shown in the Clark sketch was the only
obvious reminder of the boomtown Groveland became during years of the Hetch Hetchy project.
An obvious choice for inclusion in the 175th Anniversary Heritage Quilt is this sketch of the Iron Door Saloon, a part of Groveland’s history since sometime prior to 1852. This building started life as a general store built by John Watts and Peter King called “Watts and Company”.
Watt’s partner James Tannahill became sole owner in 1868 when it was known as
“Tannahill’s” or “The Granite Store” because its front and rear were constructed of solid
granite blocks. It served the population of the town, then called Garrote, as a general
store. It was also its post office from 1863 - 1880 with Tannahill as postmaster. Its
famous iron doors were brought by ship from England around the Horn of South
America to California and then by mule to Garrote via Wards Ferry Road. The doors, a
thick sod and tin roof, and stone walls were an insurance against fire which destroyed
so many Gold Rush era buildings and towns.
In 1895 Giacomo De Ferrari purchased the building and obtained the first recorded
liquor license for a saloon called "Jake's Place.” After Jake’s death in 1926 the business
passed to his nephews Frank and Richard De Ferrari. It survived the “Roaring Twenties”
and Prohibition by dubbing itself a “soft drink” establishment, as many saloons of that
era did. It did not become known "The Iron Door Saloon" until 1937 under the ownership of George Laveroni. The building was remodeled at that time to add a second story where
cards, billiards, and pool were offered for diversion. Through the years it was an area gathering place for miners, Garrote pioneers, Hetch Hetchy workers, loggers and many others. With its original bar in tact, it continues to serve local citizens and travelers alike.
Watch for more stories on Groveland/Big Oak Flat's historic buildings, families, and the business enterprises that are the cornerstones of our area's heritage.
