Last week, the La Jolla Historical Society embarked on its “big dig,” unearthing close to a dozen rocks that archeologists speculated could have been used many years ago as tools.
As part of a $2 million renovation and restoration project, the organization hired an archeological firm to excavate a 600-square-foot crawl space in the basement of Wisteria Cottage, 780 Prospect St., a La Jolla landmark constructed at the turn of the century, according to John Bolthouse, the society’s executive director.
“It went off a lot quicker than we thought,” Bolthouse said. “The architect expected to be there between three and six days, and they didn’t even finish day two. When they hit bedrock “” the really, really old, hard dirt “” they figured there was no sense in going any further because in their judgment there’s not any human activity under that.”
The excavation served as both an endeavor to learn more about the century-old building and as beginning steps toward turning the cottage’s basement into an archive storage room, Bolthouse said.
Jones and Stokes, the firm in charge of the dig, will test remnants of the findings over the next several weeks to determine whether the objects were in fact used as ancient tools, according to Bolthouse.
The society, which is dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting historically significant community artifacts, is tentatively scheduled to move into Wisteria Cottage from its existing location, a tiny adjacent carriage house on the same Prospect Street property.
During the 1900s, the property was owned by Ellen Browning Scripps’ family, a wealthy clan of newspaper owners who contributed significantly to the community and lived next to the society’s headquarters at what is now the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
The society’s capital campaign will launch publicly this fall. Funds will also be used to repair the property’s carriage house and a tiny cabin used for automobile storage, Bolthouse said.
“We have a couple of buildings that need similar work ” removal of mold and asbestos ” but first we needed to know can we even do this,” Bolthouse said of the dig. “Our main focus right now is toward Wisteria Cottage.”
For more information, visit lajolla.org/hist_soc or contact the office, (858) 459-5335.
