Story By Laurie McLaughlin
Image Courtesy Los Angeles Times
John Kolstad saw his first California bell when he was a kid growing up in Whittier.
“I was probably eight years old and couldn't understand how an old, old bell would be on that corner when there were so many newer buildings around,” says Kolstad '74 (B.A. English) of the bell that formerly stood at Colima and Whittier boulevards. He spotted his second California bell during a school field trip to the San Gabriel mission. “That's when I learned about the bells and their connection to El Camino Real,” he says.
In the 18th century, El Camino Real, or King's Highway, was forged between San Diego and Sonoma by the Franciscans as a link between the missions, pueblos and presidios. Over time, El Camino Real began to disappear with the region's growing population and introduction of the automobile.
In the early 1900s, Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes designed the California bell and spearheaded a campaign to mark the old highway's path in an effort to preserve history. The first bell was erected on historic Olvera Street in 1906, and hundreds of them stood along El Camino Real. Eventually, the California Bell Company changed hands, was closed in the 1950s, and many of the original clappered bells hanging from shepherd hook-shaped poles have disappeared.
More than 40 years after seeing his first bell, Kolstad is now the owner of the California Bell Co., a serendipitous turn of events. “I wanted to get a California bell for my backyard, and met with the owner of the California Bell Company,” an operation which had been shuttered 45 years previous and packed into the owner's garage.
“He said he wouldn't sell it to me unless I bought the whole company,” he says.
Kolstad, who owns Direct Mortgage and lives in Saratoga, contacted CalTrans to see if they were interested, and with $1.24 million in state and federal funds, now the agency is in the process of installing some 555 new bells, every two miles, along parts of El Camino Real, much of which is on or near Highway 101. A number of municipalities, historic landmark operators and private citizens have also bought and installed their own bells.
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