On May 4, 2024, Charlotte and I got to check off a big bucket list item and take the drive out from San Francisco to Modesto, California, George Lucas’s hometown. Getting to do this on Star Wars Day no less was the happiest of coincidences. A few years ago we did an episode all about George Lucas’s life in the town he lives now: San Anselmo, California. As an architectural historian in my 9-5 job, I thought it would be fun to dive into some of the buildings and places associated with him there and we had this episode and post all about what we learned. Since then, I’ve been thinking about doing similar episodes for other places in California associated with George Lucas and Star Wars. And thus, now we have this episode all about some of the buildings and places associated with George Lucas in his hometown of Modesto! You can listen to us talk about our trip, the places and buildings, and the overall vibe of Modesto here. See below for all the pictures and references we talk about on the podcast!
This post will be organized in the same three parts as the podcast episode:
Part 1: Modesto’s Historical Context
Part 2: “Local Lucas”: George’s Spots
Part 3: Modesto Today
Continue reading for all the photos and details!
Part 1: Modesto’s Historical Context
I wanted to add some larger historical context to this post for a few reasons: namely I find it interesting and wanted to share. But also, it really is astounding how quickly things can evolve and change. Learning about the history of Modesto reminded me of this once again. Modesto was founded as the county seat of Stanislaus County in 1871 and barely 100 years later, American Graffiti comes out in 1973. One hundred years is not a lot of time, and yet so much had to change and grow for it to become the place that would inspire the young George Lucas. This is just a small, brief highlight of some of its early history.
Modesto is located in Stanislaus County, California, a little under 100 miles east from San Francisco. Prior to colonization, the Yokut indigenous peoples lived here and were one of the biggest indigenous groups in the California area at the time. Spain took control from 1806 – 1821, followed by Mexico until 1848, and then the land was taken by the United States of America. The land grant system in this area began under Mexican control and is a process that the United States would continue when settling this land in the mid 19th century. Forever a huge player in the development of land across the United States, the railroad company, Central Pacific Railroad, built a rail line through Stanislaus County. When the railroad selected the location to build its first train station along the line, this site became Modesto, and Modesto was born as a true railroad town. In its early days, Modesto was known as a lawless boom town.
One of Charlotte and I’s favorite sites that we saw in Modesto is the Modesto Arch, installed in 1912 with the town’s motto, “Water, Wealth, Contentment, and Health”. The town’s motto was selected through a contest in the local newspaper with the original winner having the motto of “Nobody’s got Modesto’s goat”! When the town decided they did not actually want that slogan as their motto, they decided to go with the second place winner, “Water, Wealth, Contentment, and Health”. The arch was then constructed and illuminated with almost 700 incandescent light bulbs. The choice of the word “water” is also specific as Modesto is not only home to acclaimed filmmaker George Lucas, but also home to the Father of Irrigation: Christopher Columbus Wright. When elected to the California State Assembly in the late 19th century, Wright passed the Wright Act of 1887 which allowed for local governments to control water and he made Modesto one of the first official irrigation districts in the state. This system of irrigation canals and dams that were constructed also helped to produce electricity, further emphasized in the lit up Modesto Arch.
Thus concludes some early Modesto history. Now, as we dive into Modesto’s history as it relates to George Lucas, let’s level set about how George Lucas, and those who have studied him, talk about his relationship to his hometown.
Brian Jay Jones, author of “George Lucas: A Life”, writes this about George’s relationship with Modesto:
He was equally ambivalent about Modesto. For years, a slight embarrassment would tinge the way he talked about his hometown. While he would eventually come to embrace his status as a son of Modesto with pride – and his film American Graffiti would practically make it a destination – Lucas was, for the first several decades of his life, always slightly self-conscious about his Modesto roots. When asked where he was from, Lucas would respond with an ambiguous and unhelpful “California”. If pressed, he would admit to coming from “northern California”, or sometimes more specific “south of San Francisco”, before finally muttering, “Modesto”. Still, he knew his hometown had its charms. “Modesto was really Normal Rockwell, Boys’ Life magazine…raking leaves on Saturday afternoons and having bonfires,” Lucas put it later. “Just very classic Americana” (page 19).
George is also quoted in Jones’ book as saying,
It was a “normal, tough, repressed childhood filled with fear and trepidation all over the place,” […] “But generally I enjoyed it. It was good” (page 19).
In Chris Taylor’s How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, he writes:
[Modesto] exerts a strong cultural gravitational pull. It’s just that, to see what else the world has to offer, you must be determined, and you must like fast cars – two qualities that the young George Lucas had in spades (page 15).
In our discussion on the podcast, Charlotte and I posit what exactly Modesto means to George Lucas and the ways that it shows itself in his artistry outside of American Graffiti. When George attended a rare public event in Modesto in 2013, he was asked by the local paper, the Modesto Bee, if Modesto somehow inspired Star Wars: “Lucas offered a smile that was one part pained grimace to two parts practiced politeness, “No not really. Most of these things come out of your imagination.”
How true is this? How much can we speculate into the truth of this through visiting some of the places that defined his childhood? By simply exploring the built environment that he once called home? Walking around Modesto that day, there was a palpable push and pull between the celebration of George Lucas and the town’s need to embrace its classic Americana history on its own accord. Sometimes, it felt like you could be caught quite literally in the middle of these sentiments. Nonetheless, Charlotte and I left Modesto that day charmed by it much more than I think we expected.
Part 2: ‘Local Lucas”: George’s Spots
“Local Lucas” is pulled directly from an informational sign on the streets of downtown Modesto that highlights some of the places that George frequented in his childhood. Similarly, this section will walk you through some of these places.
530 Ramona Avenue
Jones writes this about George’s first childhood home:
With his family growing and business succeeding, George [Lucas, Sr.] bought a lot at 530 Ramona Avenue out on the edge of Modesto and, using $5,000 borrowed from Dorothy’s [George’s mother] parents, built a respectable single-story stuccoed house he was certain he and Dorothy would fill with more children” (page 14).
This map of Modesto in 1938 shows the town edges, Ramona Avenue not yet developed on the map. The Lucas family will build their home on the outskirts of the town a year later in 1939. The approximate location of the Lucas residence is indicated in red. A few years later, George Lucas would be born on May 14, 1944. Modesto will continue to spread outward until the Lucas family is well within the town limits and the streets nearby are full of single-family homes where George Lucas will find his first friends, bike to school, and begin exploring the world of comics, Westerns, and storytelling. The alleyway between Ramona Avenue and El Cajon Avenue provided the perfect playspace for George and his friends.
In the podcast, we dive into some of the deeper research I did on the first land deeds of the land George’s original childhood home sits on. This involved researching what is called the PLSS coordinates, which stands for “Public Land Survey System”. The first owner of this land under the United States of America was a man named John H. Seawell in 1861. This particular deed is not digitized, but I’ve included a screenshot from the website. I’ll note that PLSS coordinates were developed by Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the United States’ history but most of the Thirteen Colonies did not adopt this system, and being from Georgia…I don’t have a lot of experience with it (although Georgia does have its own land grant coordinate system). It was a fun rabbit hole to explore, and you can probably do the same in your own state!
Lucas Company/L.M. Stationary Store
George’s father, George Lucas Sr., was a successful businessman in Modesto and he ran a stationary store that traces its roots back to the mid 19th-century in Modesto as a stationary and confectionary store, originally owned by Philip Hamilton “P.H.” Medley. The store was sold in 1884 to Charles Perley who then sold it in 1904 to brothers LeRoy Miller, LM Morris, and Edwin Hanson Morris. About 25 years later in 1934, George Lucas Sr. would begin working for the L.M. Morris Stationary Store after he moved to Modesto. The store building was originally located in downtown Modesto on H Street, but I Street later became its permanent home. Although the store is no longer in business, the building is still extant and a restaurant called the Fox Pub occupies the space.
Two above photos from Modesto Bee Archive showing an ad for the store, and an image of the interior. Top dated 7/30/1956; Bottom dated 10/9/1956
In 1949, LeRoy Morris would end up selling his remaining stake in the company to George Lucas Sr., leaving Lucas Sr. to own the business outright. It would be renamed the Lucas Company and was the area’s only supplier of copying machines (obviously an important business in the mid-20th century). The stationary store was not strictly paper and copying machines, in fact, the store was known to have a wide selection of toys and models. George Lucas would often end up first in line when new items would hit the shelves. As he got older, it became clear his father wanted him to inherit the business, something George hated. George would work at the store begrudgingly, further increasing the tension between him and his father. Although George never took over the store, it remained in the family until its final closure in the 1990s.
821 Sylvan Avenue
About seven years after taking over the stationary store, the Lucas’s would again move to the new edge of town along Sylvan Avenue in 1956. With the growing success of the business, Lucas Sr. was able to buy 13-acres of land. The property was filled with walnut trees and the Lucas’s built a new Ranch home, complete with a pool in the backyard. I’ll note that there are two properties that I think may be the Lucas residence in this area. They are both circled in red below. When you input the address “821 Sylvan Avenue” into Google Maps for example, it pulls up the southern location on the aerials below, but I think there are some good reasons that the northern location may actually be the Lucas residence as well since you can more clearly see the pool in the backyard and the walnut trees.
In the 1957 aerial, it is clear that this area of Modesto is still defined by agricultural land and is not the densely populated commercial and residential area that it is now. According to his biographers, the newly teenaged George was not at all happy to be moving further away from his friends and their proximity to their town and schools. The family had more financial capital now though and the move to the edge of town on more land and with a bigger house was indicative of this.
The house on Sylvan Avenue is the location of one of the defining moments of George’s life: a nearly fatal car crash that happened days before his high school graduation in 1962. Jones writes about the crash saying,
By 4:50 PM he was hurtling down Sylvan Road, with the dirt road entrance to the Lucas ranch coming up on his left. Lucas slowed the Bianchina to a crawl, then began to ease the little Fiat into a left turn. Lucas neither saw nor heard the Chevy Impala, driven by seventeen-year-old Frank Ferreira, roaring up the road from the opposite direction. As Lucas turned across Sylvan, Ferreira’s Impala T-boned the little Fiat, hitting it fast and hard. The Bianchina rolled several times, then smashed into an enormous walnut tree, wrapping itself around the trunk in a mangled metal death grip. Lucas’s carefully juiced-up engine tumbled from the car’s shattered husk, dripping oil and radiator fluid onto the hard-baked Modesto soil (page 37).
George has spoken before about the crash saying that when his car was towed through town afterwards, everyone had assumed he died with how totaled the car was. His teachers basically passed him out of pity as he was in the hospital during graduation. The event was seismic in George’s life though. After a long recovery he would choose to attend Modesto Junior College, which would then lead him to transfer to the University of Southern California.
Thomas Downey High School
George Lucas’s high school first opened in 1951, making George’s graduating class in 1962 one of the earlier graduating classes in the school’s history. The school still operates as a school today and is an excellent example of a mid-20th century stylized high school.
American Graffiti has some ties to Thomas Downey High School, with the characters attending Dewey High, a reference to the school’s name. Additionally, Dewey High’s colors are royal blue and white, the same as Thomas Downey High School. George had actually considered filming American Graffiti in Modesto, but at the time much had changed in the downtown area, so George would end up filming some of the film in Petaluma, California, about 2 ½ hours northwest of Modesto.
10th and 11th Street Cruising Culture
The defining piece of American Graffiti and George Lucas’s childhood was car culture, specifically “cruising”, which is exactly how it sounds – cruising up and down the street with the music turned up, your friends or partners in the seat next to you, and nowhere to be. American Graffiti was inspired by this cruising culture that George participated in and the spot to be in Modesto was 10th and 11th Street. These streets formed the main drag of the downtown area and where you would be most likely to find George Lucas in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
When George Jr. was a teenager, the upwardly mobile Lucas family moved to a walnut ranch on the edge of town. Until he got his car, he was a quiet loner who kept to his bedroom outside of meal times and TV time, ate Hershey Bars, drank Cokes, read comics, played rock and roll and jazz 45s, and shoot the occasional BB pellet out of the window. But cruising culture put him in the swing of Modesto’s social scene. Tenth and Eleventh Streets on Friday nights were a fascinating parade of chrome. There were ritual courtesies: kids left their cars unlocked so friends could sit in them; if you had a favorite parking spot, other kids would hold it for you. Lucas slid into a phase of minor juvenile delinquency, filling a glove compartment with speeding tickets and appearing in court after he’d racked up too many. He didn’t join the real-life gang depicted in American Graffiti, the Faros, but he did become an enabler. His job, the story goes, was to lure local toughs into fights by sitting his scrawny self next to them in the local burger joint. When the inevitable challenge came, he would run away, leading his quarry to the Faros (Taylor, pages 41-42).
His parents knew nothing of it – not the dragging Tenth all night, nor the autocross races with Allen Grant, nor the art films in San Francisco. “He just disappeared in the evenings,” said his sister Wendy (Jones, page 35).
While in high school, George was also a part of car clubs and he talks about his experience in this YouTube video.
The photos below show how the downtown looked throughout the 20th century. The next three historic photos were all found here.
Below is a photo of Burge’s Drive In, the iconic circular shaped building. This drive in was located at 1514 9th Street in Modesto and was demolished in 1973.
Modesto Theaters
Modesto has a long history of local theaters that were run throughout the 20th century: the Star, the Isis, the Dreamland, the Auditorium, the Richards (also known as the Covell, the Princess, and the National), the Lyric, the La Loma, the State, and the Modesto, all theaters in the downtown area. Today, only the State Theater remains and is one that George Lucas remembers visiting and seeing movies at during his childhood.
Space soldiers also cropped up in Forbidden Planet, the movie Lucas saw for his 12th birthday, in 1956, at Modesto’s State Theater (Taylor, page 26).
“I went to the State and I went to the Covell, I don’t think the Covell is there anymore. The Covell was all the Godzilla movies and the State was all the “Lawrence of Arabia’s” so uh, every once in a while we’d go to the movies. I wasn’t that into movies in those days.” – George Lucas
The State Theater, designed as an art deco theater, opened on Christmas Day in 1934. It was converted into one of the first Spanish-language theaters in the Central Valley area in the 1970s and began undergoing major restoration in 2005. A large part of the interior decor within the State Theater is its greyhound and gazelle murals that were a part of the restoration efforts in 2005. These murals were restored by local artists Sue Oler and Rhonda Darling Mcdonald. The depiction of these animals in the art deco style draws similiarities to the Stag Theater at Skywalker Ranch. In some lights, the stag emblem at the Stag Theater could be a replica of the greyhounds and gazelles at the State Theater. Notably, the Stag Theater is designed in the art deco style as well and feels like a nod from George to his hometown theater.
Below is a photo c. 1934 of the interior of the State Theater. While the murals are not discernable, you can see many of the other architectural elements in the theater that are still present and restored today.
Photos from the Stag Theater at Skywalker Ranch with the stag emblem and art deco elements.
Here are additional photos of some of the other theaters in Modesto:
Part 3: Modesto Today
In this section we’ll visit some of the places associated with George Lucas today and explore how the town of Modesto presents its cruising culture and its relationship with George Lucas.
Lucas Plaza
Lucas Plaza was dedicated on July 11, 1997 and created by Oakdale artist, Betty Saletta. The community originally pushed back against a literal George Lucas statue so the decision to make it more emblematic of the American Graffiti vibe was born. The city provided land for the monument to be installed at the five-point intersection of McHenry Avenue, J Street, 17th Street, Downey, and Needham. A teenage boy and girl sit on a 1957 Chevy and inscriptions on the back commemorate George Lucas’s achievements. George Lucas did not attend the dedication ceremony for the statue when it was installed.
Above three photos from Charlotte (this was our first pit stop in Modesto and still very rainy!)
Revenge of the Sith Premiere
In 2005, there were 11 charity premiere events of Revenge of the Sith, and the Brenden Theater in downtown Modesto was selected as one of them. Mark Hamill was in attendance and proceeds from the event went to the construction of the Gallo Center for the Arts that was later completed in 2007. The Gallo Center for the Arts is a performing arts center in Modesto located in the center of town. This event felt hand in hand with George Lucas’s donations and involvement in other fundraising and community improvement projects in his current hometown of San Anselmo.
Two images above from the Revenge of the Sith charity premiere in Modesto.
Modesto Cruise Route & the Annual American Graffiti Festival & Car Show
After the success of American Graffiti, Modesto begins to celebrate and capitalize on its car-centric history. Starting in the 1970s, and continuing into the early 1990s, there was an annual “Graffiti Night” where people and their classic cars came into Modesto to socialize, cruise, and see the sights. After some unruliness in 1993 though, cruising was actually banned in Modesto – a cruel twist of irony. However, not long after in 1999, the American Graffiti Festival & Car Show was started as a charity fundraiser event that still takes place today. In relation to this festival, the community created the “Cruising Walk of Fame” in 2013. Similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the sidewalks of downtown Modesto are peppered with inlaid markers commemorating the “cruisers, the racers, the musicians, the students, the DJs, and the dreamers” who contributed to the cruising culture of Modesto. George Lucas became the first inductee in 2013. The dedication ceremony is one of the rare public events George Lucas has attended in Modesto and it coincided with the 40th anniversary of American Graffiti. George Lucas was the Grand Marshal of the parade and did a number of interviews and photo ops during the day.
The Modesto Cruising Walk of Fame continues to honor new inductees every year!
Modesto Bee images of George Lucas as Grand Marshal of the parade when he was inducted into the Cruising Walk of Fame on 6/7/2013.
During the public appearance, George said this to the crowds:
It’s a great honor to be back here […] I spent a a great deal of my life on this street. My father’s store, business, was right in that building (the Black Building along I Street) right there — in the corner. For 20 years, I was roaming in the streets here both in my bike, running around, and also in my car. So I am very happy to be where the inspiration for my movie came from. And it’s great to see you all. I’m glad you are continuing to keep the ritual going.
The Graffiti USA Museum
Modesto continues to attract visitors through the development of the Graffiti USA Museum. This museum is located nearby the original location of Burges and has been undergoing a series of construction phases, with Phase 2 set to begin in late 2024. The museum hopes to be a space for the community and of course, for lots and lots of cool cars. There are plans to have a replica of the main street from American Graffiti in the main section of the museum and will “transport visitors back to the heyday of the cruising era”. Additionally, this space will be an official California Welcome Center!
Conclusion
Charlotte and I had a wonderful day exploring Modesto and considering the childhood that George Lucas had there. While many things have changed and a lot of the places don’t look the same as when a young George Lucas was growing up, Modesto has a pull and a charm about it that is carefully crafted from its cruising culture history. As I’ve reflected on the trip, I did find myself returning to Chris Taylor’s quote that is included at the beginning of this post, where he writes that Modesto “exerts a strong cultural gravitational pull”. In some ways it feels like the town wants to keep you there: following the cruise route, watching the cars go by, urging you to just sit and stay a while. It rained for a large portion of our trip there, the sun only starting to shine through the clouds as we ended the day at the Brenden Theater, where they had pulled out Star Wars photo ops and little tables had been set up to sell vintage toys and autographs. Families emerged on the streets to take pictures and pop in the restaurants and stores, you could feel the downtown coming to life after the earlier downpour. It honestly made it a little hard to leave for our drive back to San Francisco. I imagined that young George Lucas returning here and feeling like he knew had to leave…but still wanting one last lap around the downtown before time was up. Of course, I can only speculate about what I think George Lucas feels about his hometown and his childhood here, but I think we both left Modesto glad to have seen this place and the buildings and streets that helped pave the way for our favorite storyteller.
Sources:
Part 1: Modesto’s Historical Context:
- Stanislaus County History:
- https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ab31f29c3c16a98c6045e41/t/6631cef591777e1ae49ce301/1714540294366/StaniStory+Change+and+Continuity+in+Stanislaus+County-V20.pdf
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Early%20History/Natives%20of%20Stanislaus/tribes.html
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Landmarks/thearch.html
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Early%20History/Changing%20Times/irrigation.html
- Modesto Architectural Tours:
- National Civic League:
Part 2: “Local Lucas”: George’s Spots
- 530 Ramona Avenue:
- 1938 Map of Modesto:
- See General Resources
- Lucas Company/L.M. Morris Stationary Store
- 821 Sylvan Avenue
- See General Resources
- https://www.forcematerial.com/home/2017/1/28/the-car-crash-that-changed-the-galaxy
- Thomas Downey High School
- 10th & 11th Street Cruising
- Modesto Theaters
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Landmarks/Stages%20%26%20Screens/stagesandscreens.html
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Landmarks/Stages%20%26%20Screens/thestrand.html
- https://www.cinematour.com/picview.php?db=us&id=115932
- https://www.skysound.com/services/stag-theater/
- https://thestate.org/about/our-history/
- https://www.historicmodesto.com/Landmarks/Stages%20%26%20Screens/stagesandscreenc.html
Part 3: Modesto Today
- Lucas Plaza
- Revenge of the Sith Charity Premiere
- Modesto Cruise Route & the Annual American Graffiti Festival & Car Show
- Graffiti USA Museum
General Resources:
- Historic Aerials:
- Google Earth Pro
- Modesto Historic House Research:
- Any article images and/or article references to the Modesto Bee were accessed via their online archive through newspapers.com which does require a subscription
- Affiliate Amazon Links to the 2 George Lucas biographies used in this episode:
My favorite place other than racing on 10th then back on 11th then down to five points Mc Henry where black top ended drive thru Al’s drive in then to Salida drive in where everybody went..to pick up chick’s those were the day’s..Salida Tachers had the fastest cars..