2501 Q Street, A Modern Beauty- Cleverly Designed

Advertisement- The Sacramento Union, Sunday, January 30, 1910

The advertisement in The Sacramento Union on Sunday, January 30, 1910 reads:

-$5,000 Buys
THE HANDSOMEST AND MOST ARTISTIC HOME TO BE FOUND IN THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO FOR THE MONEY

A Modern Beauty- Cleverly Designed
COMBINING EVERY ATTRIBUTE ESSENTIAL TO A HOME

Ideal in Location---on corner of Sacramento's show block.
If you are in the market or contemplate the purchase of a home we cannot urge you too strongly to see this superb buy, and without delay.

House Will Be Open for Inspection Today
Street Number is 2501 Q. Phone
Main 3722

A very small cash payment will put you in possession.

2501 Q Street as it stands in June 2020, view from the corner of 25th and Q

Architectural Features: Deep eaves with exposed rafter tails, clinker brick porch column and chimney, 5 rooms with sleeping porch, large dormer allowing for spacious attic.

 
​Early Residents of 2501 Q Street, located on the Northeast Corner of Q and 25th:

Real Estate Salesmen Nathan A. Bradley & Charles Avery Phillips


​Nathan A. Bradley,  salesman for the real estate firm of Wright & Kimbrough, later salesman for the real estate firm Hawk & Carly. 
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The lot on the corner of Q and 25th was purchased by Bradley on Wednesday, November 6, 1907, through the Voorhies Investment Co. Many of the lots in this block were purchased through the Voorhies Investment Co. 



​Nathan A. Bradley was new to the Real Estate business when he joined Wright & Kimbrough, and when he lived at house on bungalow row. This is strikingly similar to the story of another little bungalow, on the opposite end of the block, 2531 Q Street.

Charles G. Snow, also a Wright & Kimbrough salesman, also new to the Real Estate business since coming to Sacramento from Chicago, was the first to reside at 2531 Q. Perhaps the salesmen lived in the houses as they were being built, or bought them only to be resold, living there for the convenience of showing the place? I'm not sure what the arrangement was, and perhaps there is more to discover there, but Bradley was certainly involved in the early buying and selling of 2501 Q Street.  

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Bradley, however, may not have been the first to reside at the house at 2501 Q. In fact, another Real Estate salesman moved into the newly built bungalow in March of 1908.

The following announcement appeared in The Sacramento Union, Volume 115, Number 12, published on March 8, 1908

          Mr. and Mrs. Charles Phillips are now established in their new bungalow at 2501 Q Street

                                                                                      A clue! 

Charles A. and his wife, Lucy Phillips, along with their daughter, Beth, who would have been 8 years old in 1908, were likely the first family to call 2501 Q Street home. I wonder if Beth Phillips found a playmate in little John Snow, the 7 year old son of Charles and Gertrude Snow, who, in 1908, lived at the other end of the block- where my own 7 year old son plays today, at 2531 Q Street. 
​
Charles Avery Phillips was a partner in Sacramento Real Estate Firms Hawley & Phillips, Hawley, Bohl & Phillips, and Phillips & Estes. Charles, Lucy, and Beth resided at 2417 M Street (which is now Capitol Avenue) prior to moving into the Q Street bungalow.

   The Phillips family later moved to San Francisco, then Colusa, where Charles was instrumental in the emerging rice milling business, shipping rice via barge from Colusa to the P street wharf, at Front Street and P in Sacramento. He was a managing member of M. Phillips & Company, which controlled the Phillips Rice Milling Company of Sacramento. Phillips Milling Company was a major business in Sacramento at the time, and presented exhibits at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco as well as many state and local fairs.
   Charles and Lucy eventually returned to Sacramento and  resided at 1218 17th street , where Charles passed away in 1944.  Beth married George A. Berkey, the son of Colusa County Supervisor Peter V. Berkey. Lucy lived at 17th street in Sacramento for awhile after Charles' passing, but was with her duaghter, Beth, in Carmel by the time she passed away in 1967. ​

These were the first residents at 2501 Q. Like many of the homes on this block, it later became a rental, often renting by the room, when the suburbs became more fashionable. It was owned and rented over the next 100 years by a series of Sacramento people, and still stands today on the corner of 25th and Q, looking much the same as it did a century ago,  

The Sacramento Bee, Jan 23, 1915- The biggest shipment of rice ever made in any single consignment arrived in Sacramento last night over the Northern Electric from Colusa. The rice was consigned to the Phillips Rice Milling Company of this city, which concern has just complete a plant at Front and P Streets.

Printed in the November 5, 1921 edition of The Sacramento Bee, Photo of Phillips Rice Mill on Front Street, bewteen N and P, in Sacramento. Interstate 5 now slashes through Sacramento at this spot.

1921 Ad for Phillips Rice Cereal

​Charles grew up in Sacramento, and  was the son of Frank Thomas Phillips, who operated a grocer on the Southeast Corner of 4th & K street from 1869-the early 1870's.  Frank later became the Sacramento City Health Officer, then left that job to become a travelling canvasser for the Sacramento Union. ​

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View from behind 2501 Q Street on the 25th Street side approach, June 2020