Wilson Island Stories of the early 1900s

The Gustave and Edith Manheim Home at

617 E. Pine Avenue

Department store manager and downtown garage owner

Gustave Adolf Manheim was born in Alameda, California on October 21, 1878, and married Edith Ann McIndoo in about 1904, before they moved to Fresno. Both of them came from immigrant families. Gustave’s parents were from Europe. His father was a corn merchant from Germany; his mother was from France. Edith’s family immigrated from Canada to California in 1888 when she was just a young child. Her father, William McIndoo, was a prominent dairyman who was influential in agricultural enterprises in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley. For example, he was one of the organizers of, and vice president of, the Lindsay Independent Packing Company which grew and shipped its own fruit harvested from its extensive ranches.

By the time they had their home built on Pine in 1919 by J. C. Kerrick, Gustave had been the Assistant Store Manager for Kutner-Goldstein Department Store for over ten years and would continue in that capacity until 1927. It’s probably the job that brought him and Edith to Fresno. As was the case with most new arrivals to Fresno, their first home was close to the center of town at 2024 Amador, just off of Van Ness below Divisidero. They would move two more times before finally building their home in the upscale Wilson Island in 1919.

In his late 40s Gustave left Kutner-Goldstein to become the Manager of Cooper’s Department Store but didn’t stay long. Within two years he made a major career change in 1928 when he went into partnership with R. B. Wilson as co-owners of the Subway Garage at 1200 H Street (northeast corner at Fresno St) and at a second location at 1818 Merced St. (in back of the Fresno Hotel).

This was more than just a parking garage. Open day and night, they handled auto sales (including repossessed cars), repairs, and body work, and often advertised in the local paper for experienced mechanics, “body and fender men.” They also had an arrangement with the State Department of Finance to handle bids on cars they stored for the State. A featured service in 1935 was towing. Heavy duty towing!

Theirs was not the only garage in town but Gustave stood out among the owners. He was one of the influential executives in the Fresno automobile storage garage group which met regularly at the Commercial Club downtown. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, he and four of his colleagues were named to a committee to draft a “code of business practice” to be presented to garage men in general. That same year, when the city commission proposed lowering the parking lot license fees from $25 to $5 and $10, Gustave successfully requested a delay in their decision. On behalf of the garage owners he argued that the lower parking lot fees would drive the garages out of business.

Gustave and Edith were both active in their community. His interests extended beyond the Subway Garage. He was a member of the Tourists and Conventions Committee of the Fresno County Chamber of Commerce. In an effort to attract the 1934 State Rotary and American Legion conventions to Fresno, they proposed making a motion picture about the recreational facilities in Fresno County. It would show trout in mountain streams and lakes, hunting, and other recreational activities in the high Sierras that would attract sportsmen to Fresno. While others on the committee handled publicity and conventions, Gustave was tasked with tourists. If tourists arrived by auto, his garage would have a new clientele! Unfortunately, neither state convention landed in Fresno.

While Gustave was busy with his commercial enterprises, Edith was quite active in a variety of social groups. She was a prominent member of the Fresno Musical Club and frequently hosted meetings and musical sessions in their home on Pine. She was part of the chorale along with Sue Lovejoy (two streets north at 605 Carmen Avenue), wife of Fresno’s District Attorney George Lovejoy. Edith also hosted a local bridge club that included her neighbor Madeline Levy, (one street north at 666 Home Avenue), wife of real estate broker Herbert Levy (and also the son of German immigrants). Throughout the Depression years of the 1930s, Edith’s social and club activities were often featured on the society pages of the local paper.

Gustave and Edith lived in the house on Pine for twenty-one years where they raised two sons, William E. and James F. Manheim. Both boys attended Fresno High, as did other children in the Wilson Island, and left home to enlist in the service during World War II. Years ago I met James who reminisced about the neighborhood of his childhood. He remembered that his father spent about $10,000 to build the house (equivalent to about $153,000 in 2019). He paid the workers at the end of each week. Unfortunately, while James was away during the War, he learned that his father had a heart attack. Soon thereafter his parents had to sell the house in 1941 because there was no downstairs bedroom and Gustave could not make it upstairs.

There were very few neighbors on their street when they moved in. James remembered that the lots on the north side of Pine were filled in but the only house on the south side when he was young was the Mosgrove home to the east at the end of the block, on the other side of the street at the southwest corner of Pine and Linden. For about ten years he and the other neighborhood children had a convenient playground in the dirt lots on the south side of the street where they dug caves and played games. In fact, almost that entire 600 block between Pine and Floradora was an open playground. Imagine living in one of the houses on the north side of Pine in the early 1920s and for over ten years seeing open expanses of dirt lots all the way down Lucerne Avenue with occasional construction going on around you!

It wasn’t until 1927 when Dennis Wheeler (of Taylor-Wheeler) built his home on Floradora, down the block near the Mosgrove house, that the children began to lose their wonderful playground. Between 1931 and 1935 more new homes finally began filling in. In the meantime, the north side of James’ street was somewhat of a European community. Ben and Leah Levy, both children of German parents, lived two doors away to the east, and next door on the corner to the west were Nis and Catherine Johnson from Denmark who spoke both Danish and German.

James and his brother were older than the rest of the children on the block. So when it came to hiring neighborhood children for small odd jobs, they were prime candidates. In particular, James remembered earning extra money as a boy working for the banker and rancher W. O. Blasingame (two streets up at 630 Carmen Avenue). The Blasingames had built their home and moved in the same year as his family.

The Manheim home was like many others in the Wilson Island - built by prominent citizens, connected through business and social groups, who were intimately involved in the shaping of Fresno during the early decades of the twentieth century. Unlike residential tracts today that erect hundreds of new homes on contiguous streets almost overnight, the Wilson Island emerged a few homes at a time over a couple decades. In the 1920s when the economy was recovering after World War I, and through the Great Depression in the 1930s Fresno’s power brokers gradually relocated in the Wilson Island. Men and women who were leaders in their respective circles of activity became neighbors in homes that are some of the best examples of period residential architecture. It is today a collection of eclectic architectural styles noted by experts for their innovative mix of features.

Sources include public building records, contemporaneous newspaper articles, military and census records, and city directories. In addition, anecdotal information was obtained from James F. Manheim in 1992. Prepared by Jeannine Raymond, Ph.D. July 2019