The Schimpf family were German immigrants
who settled in what is now east Marysville, California. The Schimpfs owned a great deal of land in east
Marysville and, therefore, that part of town became known as Schimpfville.
Most of the land east of A Street and
north of 9th Street, now known as East Marysville,
was at one time or another owned or leased by the Schimpf family.
The Schimpfs arrived before 1869 as that is the date
of the first Schmipf
burial in the Marysville Cemetery.
The first mention of the Schimpfs in
local newspapers was in May 1886 when the Schimpf Dairy, owned by Jacob Schimpf
caught fire.
Jacob advertised his dairy in local
newspapers as early as 1888 stating “milk delivered at the residence of my
patrons morning noon evening”. In
1889, Jacob billed the city of Marysville
for $472.50 though what that bill was for is not clear.
On February 24, 1890 Jacob Schimpf
testified before Judge Armstrong that Chris Zimmer and Peter Reuter, both
natives of Germany, were worthy to become U.S. citizens – the judge granted the
request.
Jacob did frequent work on the
Brownsville Grade and in 1892 Jacob’s barn was used as a survey point, assumed
to be 100 feet in elevation, “nine inches below the water level in the levee
pit”.
In 1893, Marysville was debating the
building of a “pile bridge” though the article does not state where this bridge
would be located. The newspaper does
state that most taxpayers supported the plan and showed a list of the largest
taxpayers in the city which included The Rideout Bank ($95,000), ND and NA
Rideout ($48,700), Buckeye Mill Company ($81,015), P. George ($50,250) Packard
& Woodruff ($50,050), Jacob Schimpf ($44,500) E Woodruff ($44,500), D.E.
Knight ($72,000), Gawn Strain ($92,260) and many others. The dollar values shown are the assessment
values.
Jacob continued his roadwork in the late
1890s, losing a September 1896 bid for hauling 3,000 yards of crushed rock from
the E Street depot to improvements being performed on Fifth Street – he was the
high bidder out of six companies. He won
work in 1897 worth $1098, then $283, and in September 1897 won a levee contract
worth $4,573 for sections 1, 3, 4, and 5. In 1898 Jacob offered to complete the
work of a non-performing levee contractor
Also in 1898 he won work on the E Street pump house and spreading gravel
on the Browns Valley grade between Twelfth Street and the intersection of the
north level with the Browns Valley grade.
From 1900 through 1904, Jacob continued bidding on street and levee
work, winning a $1,924 contract to improve the K Streetr levee from Tenth to Fifteenth Streets.
In October 1900, Marysville Chinatown resident Ah Tuck was
arrested for removing dirt from the city levee, in violation of Marysville
ordinances. The newspaper said “and
as the Chinese residents are in the habit of doing these things, an example is
likely to be made of Ah Tuck.”
In October 1901, the 240-acre Holland
farm six miles west of Yuba City was sold to A.G. Bremer. The farm was on Colusa Road and was “a
valuable piece of property.” It sold for
$20 per acre.
On May 31st, 1904, the city of Marysville
pressed charges against Jacob Schimpf.
Six weeks later, Jacob died and was buried in the Marysville
Cemetery.
By the end of October 1904, a sale was
held for the property of his estate including farm animals and dairy equipment,
as shown in this list.
Just six months later, Jacob’s widow Marie Schimpf had a second sale
at her residence at Swezy and
Twelfth Streets in Marysville, as is shown in this list. It looks possible that some of these items
are things that didn’t sell at the October estate sale.
Ultimately, the Marysville Dairy Company
was formed by W.F. Kelly, R. Pozzi, and J.J. Alread and the company purchased the Schimpf
Dairy equipment and animals and leased the Schimpf farm. This new company also used 500 acres of
pasture that used to be “the old Slattery place”.
In June 1905, there was another estate
sale for Anna E. Schimpf, deceased. Her
relationship to Jacob is unknown. Marie
Schimpf bought land from this estate on September 10, 1906.
Also in 1906, a large sand grading
machine built for F. B. Crane by the
Swift Brothers was moved to the sand deposits near the Schimpf property. It was used to grade several thousand tons of
sand for shipment to other areas of the United States.
In June 1908, Mrs. Schimpf asked that two men, C. K. Denver and J. Robinson, stop sleeping
in her barn as they had been doing for a week, but they ignored her. She called the Marysville Police and they
arrested the two men on Yuba Street for vagrancy. Mrs. Schimpf attended court proceedings to
testify.
In October 1908, Marie Schimpf’s property became involved in
the bidding for the Simpson Lane bridge, as described here. Several days later, Amos Lane contacted the
newspaper stating he did not misrepresent the circumstances and that he was
acting indirectly for the county supervisors.
Work on the bridge continued into 1909
with more height added to the levee in the area, and road improvements made on
the approaches to the bridge.
In 1910, Mrs. Schimpf put a 6-room house
with a 7-foot basement and a horse barn up for rent, either furnished or
unfurnished at the corner of Thirteenth and Sweezy Streets.
The home had previously been rented by John Schonlan.
An ongoing court case from 1921 continued
into 1922 with F. J., Marie, and Nielsen Hildebrand claiming that Marie Schimpf
owed them monies for rent of properties including the Friedel Ranch, Slattery
Ranch, and other properties both inside and outside of the city limits. The courts found Mrs. Schimpf owed rents for
1914-1920 of $1900 for the Slattery Ranch, $687.50 for the Friedel Ranch, and
$752 for certain other parcels in the city of Marysville. Mrs. Schimpf had paid some taxes on this
properties and was due a credit for those taxes. The results of this case were reported in the
December 8, 1922 Evening Democrat.
In April 1924 an ad appeared in the paper
asking for the return of a dark brown horse that had strayed from the Schimpf
place near the race
track. It was to be returned to Bozo’s Barbero.
signed an agreement on June 11th 1928 stating that Davis would lease 11.62 of
her Yuba River bottoms land for 1/3rd of
the red kidney bean crop that he grew plus $75 for use of a house on the
property. Marie stated that Davis
refused to raise the crop or pay rent for the house. Her suit claimed she had suffered $1000
damages - $500 for the crop and $500 for lost of rents and profits.
In April 1929, Marie Schimpf sued Frank Lucero for taking
the bathtub and fixtures when he moved out of the house he rented from
Marie. Frank claimed that Mrs. Schimpf
installed it at his request and increased the rent by $4 a month until the tub
was paid for. It was his understanding
that it then belonged to him so he could take it. Marie asked for a judgment of $49.20.
In August 1929, councilmen Walter Kynoch and
L.L. Freeman began planning to pave all unpaved sidewalks in Marysville. It came to their attention that Marie Schimpf
was already having the paving done on the sidewalks on her property and that it
was costing her about $3000. The council
discussed how if the work had been done under city’s effort it would have cost
her about $6000. Kynoch and
Freeman felt that she was offered “undue consideration” and that it was not
fair to other property owners. Other
councilmen were sympathetic to Mrs. Schimpf and allowed her work to continue. The only other large property owner at the
time was Southern Pacific and they had made the decision to wait until the
sidewalk order came then pay the sidewalk district for the work.
On June 1, 1931 Marie Shimpf and
her council Ray Manwell
negotiated the realignment of a new road through her property in Road District
Number 2 so that it would run along the easterly edge of her property. She agreed on a price of $150 per acre if the
road was so aligned, and the county supervisors agreed to the adjustment.
At that same meeting, Marie was
reimbursed $30 for “rent for indigent”.
In December 1931, Marie Schimpf was badly injured at the
funeral of former Marysville mayor L.L. Freeman when she fell on the steps of
the Presbyterian Church and fractured several ribs. She was sent to Rideout Hospital for awhile
before being sent to recover at her home.
By April 1933, Marie Schimpf had been
ruled “an incompetent person” and part of her land was put up for sale to the
highest bidder. In May 1933, Marie and Nielson Hildebrand were appointed
her guardians. That same month, some of
Mrs. Schimpf’s land was sold to the California Water Service for the
construction of wells to provide Marysville with a “new tasteless, odorless and
pure water supply”. The land was sold
for $200.
The guardians of Mrs. Schimpf began to
lease and sell her land during the mid 1930s.
Some was used for itinerants and some was used for new housing tracts in
east Marysville.
The Marysville community felt there was a
housing shortage and wanted to start development of Schimpfville.
The February 26, 1936 newspaper stated
that Merchant’s Association was preparing to purchase an as-yet unnamed tract
of land directly east of Marysville High School and Yuba Junior College for
much-needed housing. The tract was to
be purchased from the Schimpf estate. As
close as I can determine from the article, the property is in the red box to
the right, though the north and south boundaries may be incorrect.
According to the article, 720x1500 feet
of the tract would be developed first and it would have a “200-foot parkway
extending north and south through the middle of the property. First lost sold will face on this parkway and
50 such lots, each 60 by 125 feet, will be provided.” An additional 50 lots would face the
boundary streets. From this description,
it sounds as if the original 1936 plan was for a long park between Greely and
Boulton, extending from 22nd
Street to 19th Street.
Business structures were to be banned and
the minimum price would be $2500 for the dwellings. A smaller block between Ramirez and Sweezy was
included in the purchase, but it is unclear exactly what city block that was.
By March, names being considered for the
tract included McCoy Court, Donner Park, Buchanan Manor, Cordua
Villa, Covillaud
Drive, Golden Acres, Sutter Tract, Stephen J. Field Tract, Airway Terrace,
College Lawn, Buttes Vista, Golden Empire Tract, and Happy Landing.
A week later, the names Schimpfville, Cavilla
Park, Sunrise Terrace, Jacob-Ann Tract, Marysville Vicine,
Marysville Heights, and Jake-Marie Acres were considered. The names Jacob, Ann, Jake and Marie all
referred to prominent members of the Schimpf family. The family was appreciated because they
stayed and invested in the area when others fled fearing a flood would
eventually ruin the city. Jacob’s
companies helped build the levees to ensure that did not happen.
In the end, the development was named
“College Park”.
On May 5th,
1936, Marysville began making plans to
improve the Schimpf land bounded by A Street on the west, 15th
Street to the north, and 12th
Street to the south. The city proposed
to oil the streets that had already been curbed and to move or remove the
dilapidated buildings.
On May 18th,
Marie Schimpf passed away. The front
page of the paper gave a brief history of the family in Marysville, outlining
how Jacob and Marie Schimpf had daughter Anna while living in the area. It outlined how Jacob’s work as a dairyman
and teaming contractor allowed him to purchase over 90 acres in east
Marysville. Daughter Anna married but
died a few years later, leaving two small children Marie and Nielson Hildebrand
– the only surviving members of the family in 1936. They lived in Oakland.
The Bank of America managed the estate
with Ray Manwell as
the estate attorney. At the time of her
death, 35 of her 90 acres were pending sale.
Over the years she had held onto her land tenaciously thinking the
railroad would eventually need it and pay her a great price for the land.
On June 26th, the
family’s grand 2 story house at Eleventh and Sweezy was threatened by fire that was quickly
put out by the Marysville Fire Department.
The house had been erected by Jacob and Marie Schimpf and was at the
time considered one of the finest houses in town, but by 1936 the home was in a
state of severe disrepair.
By 1937, things had soured a bit. The Hildebrands sued the Bank of America over some of
the land transactions and the city was prepared to condemn a
number of
“shacks” on Schimpf property. The
family’s 12-room house at Eleventh and Sweezy had been rented out for $10 per month to
someone who sublet each room in unsanitary conditions. In addition, the city had observed temps and
campers north of Fourteenth Street.
By 1938, property south of Twelfth Street
(aka the “Tahoe-Ukiah Highway) between Ramirez and Sweezy
began to be developed into 24 small, attractive, comfortable residences that
would be put on the market four at a time.
The tract could be accessed by the paved highway and had water, gas,
electricity, sewer and telephone available.
The 1930s ended with a series of lawsuits
between the Schimpf heirs and various interests in the Schimpf land holdings.
