Saving Some of Sam's Town

In the early 1960s, a landmark emerged along Highway 50 called Sam's Town. The Wild West style building façade housed a restaurant and arcade. Many northern Californians will recall Sam's Town as the traditional stopping place between the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. It was also a favorite spot with the locals for birthday parties and family celebrations. Children could enjoy the games arcade while the adults visited in the bar or restaurant. Peanut shells from the bowls of nuts on the bar covered the floor. Wagons and carriages from the old West added to the character of the place.

The building materials both inside and outside the building had a history. Much of the Victorian-style gingerbread on the facades was salvaged from Victorian homes in nearby Sacramento. Some of the posts and beams in the structure were once part of the old Yolo bypass.

Sam's Town became a victim of economic progress in the late 1990s and has been boarded up since 2000. When the property was sold and Sam's Town was scheduled to be replaced by a grocery store and other retail establishments, the community yearned for a way to save some of Sam's Town.

The El Dorado County Habitat For Humanity ReSTORE received a suggestion: conduct a building deconstruction and use the proceeds for its mission of building homes for low-income families in the community. ReSTORE is a thrift store specializing in building materials. Donations of excess building materials are received from the public, business, and contractors and resold to the public at greatly reduced prices.

ReSTORE had done a similar project deconstructing a home to make way for a WalMart and enjoyed great success on that project. The nonprofit organization saved material that would have otherwise gone into the landfill. At the same time, ReSTORE was raising public awareness and creating good will in the community.

After about three weeks of volunteer time spent painstakingly removing material from the Sam's Town façade and building, ReSTORE conducted a sale on the site. All proceeds were returned to the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity to aid their building fund. Great media coverage on TV, radio, and in the local newspaper brought buyers from surrounding counties as well as from the local population.

Architectural details such as gingerbread and corbels from the building's façade were hot items. Many people were anxious to have a little piece of memorabilia from Sam's. Some of the posts and beams will continue their history as part of a local horse barn, and the gingerbread and fixtures have found homes throughout the Sacramento Valley.

The community feels better that Sam's Town didn't all end up in the dump, and El Dorado County Habitat for Humanity took in about $20,000 to add to its building fund. Someone even suggested that Sam's Town be incorporated in the name of the new shopping area. Now that's taking Reuse to the ultimate.

El Dorado County Habitat for Humanity started the ReSTORE operation about six years ago in a borrowed shed of about 800 square feet and operated there as a once-a-month yard sale for about two years. That building had no heat, no light, no water, and no restroom facilities. Success drove the organization to seek larger quarters.

ReSTORE now occupies a space of about 4,000 square feet and will be expanding this spring. The hours of operation increased to one day a week in this location, then increased to a second and third day. The facility is now open 5 days a week and employs a full-time manager. Habitat for Humanity of El Dorado County hopes to make the ReSTORE the destination of choice for building products that used to go into the landfill.

The ReSTORE is located in the town of El Dorado at 5781 Pleasant Valley Road; phone: (530) 621-3972.

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Last updated: August 01, 2008