Escondido abandoning its history

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 31, 2006 8:45 PM PDT ∞

Do we have to destroy history in order to teach it?

That seems to be one thread of thought over at the Escondido Union School District, which wants to tear down a cluster of 67-year-old houses adjacent to Central Elementary School in Old Escondido.

Progress, you see. Or more parking spaces for the teachers. Or maybe a bigger playground. Something. They're not really sure yet.

Still, the buildings have to go.

If no one offers to buy them and pay to have them moved, the only place those buildings exist will be in the history books. Where our students can then learn about them. When they're not on recess on their newly expanded playground.

Across the street from those four homes, the city wants to tear down a 99-year-old home in order to put in a new parking lot. For the tourists, you see. Who come to downtown Escondido for its vintage charm. Which is provided by the older buildings. Which we have to tear down to make room for parking for the tourists who come seeking the experience of seeing older buildings.

Of course, the City Council is willing to sell the house if someone wants to move it. This is better than tearing it down, I suppose, but is hardly an ideal example of historic preservation.

In fact, this whole idea of tearing down or moving historic structures in a designated historic area is just plain nutty. My hometown of Dayton, Ohio, learned the lesson of not protecting your local heritage the hard way. You might have heard of a couple of lads from Dayton, went by Orville and Wilbur. Had a bicycle shop in town where they designed the first airplane in history. Dayton schoolchildren can certainly see the Wright Brothers' original bicycle shop ---- they just have to drive about eight hours to do so. Dayton didn't protect it, Henry Ford wanted it, and so, like many a historic structure from the Midwest and Eastern seaboard, the Wrights' bike shop now sits in Dearborn, Mich., as part of Ford's Greenfield Village.

You start moving all your historic structures from their original locations, and that's what you risk ---- losing your own heritage.

One might expect this sort of shortsighted lack of strategic planning from a city council, which is, after all, charged with building up the community's economic base. Short-term economic gain often gets the nod over the greater long-term good at the city level.

But for a school district to want to tear down four historic buildings to build more parking spaces or a bigger playground is truly distressing. A school district, after all, is charged with teaching our children ---- including, one presumes, the history of the local community. How can one presume to teach something one is busy destroying?

Like the city, the school district is offering to sell the buildings if someone wants to move them elsewhere.

Maybe that won't be so bad. At least when the schoolchildren from Central go off on a field trip to see Escondido's relocated historic structures, the school buses will have a place to park when picking them up.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.

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