The story behind Santa Rosa's Melita Road

Melita Road, in Rincon Valley, is a reminder of the Melitta train station and the community that grew up around it. The depot served the Southern Pacific Railroad, which completed a line from Sonoma Valley to Santa Rosa in 1888.

In the days before asphalt, Melitta was the source of an important commodity - basalt paving blocks quarried from what is now Annadel State Park. A tramway carried the finished stones down to the railway. By 1891, enough people were living nearby that the Melitta Post Office and the Melitta Store were established.

Melitta’s workers were largely Italian immigrants from Massa Carrara in Tuscany. For thousands of years, the economy and culture of Massa Carrara has centered around quarrying and sculpting marble. Many Roman monuments, such as the Pantheon, were made of Massa Carrara marble. So was Michelangelo’s statue of David, possibly the most famous sculpture in the ?world.

During an economic depression in the 1880s, Massa Carrara became the birthplace of Italy’s anarchist movement. Many of its members were quarry workers who advocated violent rebellion. Government troops were called in and several people lost their lives before it was over.

A few years later, the anarchist son of Polish immigrants assassinated President William McKinley. McKinley’s successor, Teddy Roosevelt, urged that “anarchists and those like them should be kept out of this country.” Legislation was passed requiring immigrants be questioned about their politics. Anyone from Massa Carrara, the “hotbed of Italian anarchism,” must have raised suspicion.

It was against this backdrop that Melitta’s stonecutters arrived. Besides whatever political beliefs they held, they carried a desire for a fresh start and skills honed over generations. In addition to being stonecutters, some were expert masons who constructed stone buildings such as the Santa Rosa and Kenwood depots, the La Rose Hotel and St. Rose’s Church. These unique creations are an enduring local legacy that springs from the same cultural foundation as the works of ancient Rome and Michelangelo.

Decades ago, when local historian and columnist Gaye LeBaron interviewed several former stonecutters, they insisted Melitta was spelled with two Ts. While the word doesn’t appear in Italian dictionaries, the root mel-, possibly a shortening of the Italian miele, means “honey” or “sweet” in related languages. Adding “itta” suggests a diminutive form, as in “a little sweetness.”

Though working Melitta’s quarries was not easy, life could still be sweet. The stonecutters were described as “a happy bunch, mostly young, all hard workers” who sang as they rode wagons to work. Without their gifts, Sonoma County would be a poorer place today.