Bailey House v. Dinsmoor House

A story about Whittier's Bailey House in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune had me thinking about Rosemead's Dinsmoor House.

In the case of the Bailey House, reading the first sentence of the Tribune article made the home's historic value immediately obvious: It was the place where the city's founder was deployed to found a western settlement by his church. It's Whittier's equivalent of the Beehive House in Salt Lake City (where Brigham Young lived). If you want to preserve your city's historic heritage, of course those are places you need to protect.

By contrast, when you read about the Dinsmoor House, it seems like the best they can do to justify its preservation is that it has a cool refrigerator. $700,000 to preserve a refrigerator seems kinda pricey for Rosemead. I'm just saying. . . .