By Mendy Schuster
Mayor of Susanville
Sometimes being a mayor is not easy. November 1st, 2024 was one of those days. We lost the beautiful, iconic and historic St. Francis Hotel building. The Utopia Management building next door to it was damaged as well.
I knew our Main Street had changed and many of our citizens would feel emotional over this loss.
A lot of our residents have great memories of the St. Francis. We attended weddings, birthday parties, retirement parties and many memorable events there.
We saw the Goni family working hard to see that we were treated like family. Some of us were introduced to Basque culture and its food at the St. Francis. I would be remiss if I did not mention Mr. Goni’s Picon drink.
The Utopia Management building also holds memories, going back to when it was a Buick dealership or Western Auto.
I have heard that a community member offered a place for Utopia Management to do business for now. I am grateful we have citizens who care so much about each other.
We have had other fires in Susanville: The Emerson Hotel burned down in 1915 and was replaced by the Hotel Mt. Lassen. The Mt. Lassen burned in 1947 and it was rebuilt and reopened two years later.
The Story Club burned down in 1944, and the area became Fruit Growers Park which we can all still enjoy today. More recently, the Lumberjack Restaurant in town caught on fire and has been rebuilt.
As has happened in the past, the newly burned area will be rebuilt or become something to improve our Main Street. Let’s look forward to seeing what it becomes.
I can’t speak highly enough of our firefighters, police department and all the agencies who responded to help get the fire out. No one working on the fire was injured and our water system held strong until the fire was out.
The site will be busy for a while as clean-up happens. We will miss the Saint Francis building and the memories it held.
If I could do anything I wanted to do as a mayor, I would have a Goni family portrait stamped into the sidewalk on the corner of South Union and Main.
Until next time…
