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<br />DPR 523L (Rev. 1/1995)(Word 9/2013) <br />State of California Natural Resources Agency Primary# <br />DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI # <br /> Trinomial <br />CONTINUATION SHEET <br />Property Name: 493 St. John Street <br />Page 7 of 11 <br />nineteenth century. In the early twentieth-century, Pleasanton was also a major regional dairy <br />producer and commercial flower growing site. <br />Commercial activity in Pleasanton in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries clustered along <br />Main Street and the Central Pacific Railroad line and centered on marketing and shipping agricultural <br />commodities, servicing livestock, and providing retail, financial, legal, medical, and recreational <br />services to residents. Industrial development in Pleasanton was limited, but included a major <br />brickyard operation for Oakland’s Remillard Brick Company, gravel mining, and water supply <br />infrastructure for the Spring Valley Water Company. Residential development on a substantive scale <br />began in Pleasanton after the arrival of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869, with development peaks <br />in the 1880s and 1890s and the early decades of the twentieth century.8 <br />[…] <br />Property types associated with post-railroad residential subdivision and development in Pleasanton <br />[ca. 1869-1900] include residences exhibiting nationally popular forms and architectural detailing <br />consistent with the Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne styles as well as common nineteenth- <br />century vernacular housing forms. Based on historic map evidence, residential buildings in the <br />downtown neighborhoods of Pleasanton from the period consisted of largely single-story, rectangular <br />or square plan dwellings with small rear dependencies. Toward the later decades of the nineteenth- <br />century, more asymmetrical plan houses consistent with Queen Anne style housing forms appeared in <br />greater numbers. Residential properties typically had one or more single-story, wood-frame <br />outbuildings on the property to shelter horses, wheeled vehicles, poultry, and other uses. Few <br />properties maintained tank houses after 1890.9 <br /> <br />Pleasanton incorporated as a city in 1894. In the early 20th century, the community constructed a city hall <br />and established a local high school. World War II brought a small boom in commercial and agricultural <br />activity, spurred by the needs of the war effort and the nearby service members and war workers. The <br />U.S. Navy constructed the Naval Construction Battalion Center in 1943 and later Camp Parks and Camp <br />Shoemaker, just north of Pleasanton. After World War II, commercial and residential development in <br />Pleasanton continued on the outskirts of the downtown area. The former agricultural districts saw <br />development of large-scale research, office, and industrial complexes in the 1960s. The residential growth <br />of Pleasanton continued until the 1970s; population doubled between 1950 and 1960, and more than <br />quadrupled between 1960 and 1970. <br /> <br />Architect/Builder <br />According to information provided by Museum on Main, the house at 493 St. John Street was designed <br />and constructed in 1885 by Mr. Derendinger.”10 Joseph Derendinger was recorded as a wheel wright, <br />wood worker, and wagon maker in the 1880s records.11 <br /> <br />Architectural Style <br />The main house at 493 St. John Street was identified as a late 19th century vernacular form residential <br />development by the City of Pleasanton.12 <br />Late nineteenth-century residential development in Pleasanton included several wood-frame, <br />vernacular housing forms common in the period. Some of the examples display architectural <br />ornament and detailing consistent with popular recognized styles, though most are architecturally <br />modest.