E C L E C T I C E X P L O R ATIONS
Two of the most unique museums around are like neighbors here in Crockett
By Matt Larson
Need some more culture in your life?
Well Crockett may be the place for you.
Might not have been the first place on
your mind, but this little town of 6.5
thousand has a long history in the Bay
Area that goes deeper than the C&H
Sugar marquee that has brightened
our evenings for as long as we can
remember. We’d like to highlight two
very unique places to visit in Crockett
that conveniently happen to be right
around the corner from each other: The
Crockett Historical Museum, and the
Bailey Art Museum.
As different as these two attractions
may be, they have one very important
thing in common—they’re each only
open two days per week! The Crockett
Historical is open Wednesdays and
Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the
Bailey is open every Saturday and Sunday
afternoon from 1-5 p.m. So, naturally, we
suggest visiting on Saturday so you can
see both places, even though they both
open their doors throughout the week
for advanced group reservations.
At this writing the Crockett Historical
Museum has an exhibit on the Crockett
Club, which was a recreational center
that used to be in town complete with a
swimming pool, bowling alley and rifle
range. It’s a temporary exhibit that’s been
attracting former members of the Club
to come and reminisce. Some of their
permanent exhibits include a military
section, a C&H Sugar section, pictures
of all the John Swett High School
graduation photos since the beginning—
it’s a pretty eclectic mix.
“It’s a way of celebrating the present
by remembering the past,” said Erin
Mullen Brosnan, Vice President of the
Crockett Historical Society. “This is
a very low-key, funky, kind of quirky
museum.” They actually attract more
visitors from out of town, as local
residents can go visit anytime! So then
they never do. But you may be surprised
at what you’ll find here.
Perhaps their biggest attraction, no pun
intended, is housing the world record for
the largest sturgeon caught with a fishing
rod, which weighed in at 460 pounds
and measured in at 9’6” long. They also
have a scale model of the Cathedral
of Saints Peter and Paul created by a
man in the 1940’s while in a sanitarium
recovering from tuberculosis. Crockett
was also the last town in California to
have a manual telephone exchange, so if
you want to see how Vallejo connected
to Santa Rosa back in the day, this is one
of their interactive exhibits that even the
kids can play on.
Just down the street the Bailey Art
Museum is in a world all its own. Most
people visiting for the first time often say
they’ve never seen anything like it before.
“We started our museum idea several
years ago when we found a bigfoot
skeleton,” said Clayton Bailey. “It’s a
large humanoid; we studied the books
and decided the closest animal to it was
a bigfoot.” They discovered it in the
hills of Port Costa, it’s traveled to major
universities as far as Alaska and nobody
has yet to repudiate their claim.
Clayton, his wife Betty, and their son
Kurt all have their artwork on display
here. You can forage into the Robot
Room where Clayton’s life-sized robotic
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