Happy Friday, Lodi!

Today I'm excited to announce there's tons of events and activities for kids coming up, and this newsletter is VERY hobby heavy. Books, painting, cooking, and more. 📚🍝🎶

Remember to stay up to date with more local events, check us out on Instagram at @LodiLocals!

Let's get into it!

— Kylie & Hunter Talamantez

Got an event you think the community should know about? We're now accepting submissions from our readers, so if you're hosting something public in Lodi or know about an event that deserves a spotlight, send it our way. We're excited to start featuring your events alongside everything else happening around town.

Lodi Youth Art Workshop | Saturday, July 18th

Calling all young artists. Lodi Adopt A Child is hosting a workshop where kids work alongside a professional teaching artist to sketch and start their own masterpiece for the Children's Art Show coming up in August. All supplies are provided, and the project goes home to keep growing on. It's open to students entering grades 3 through 12 who attend school in the Lodi Unified School District.

Perfect for the kid who's always doodling and would love a reason to take it further.

Details and sign up at lodiadoptachild.org

📍 100 E. Pine Street, Lodi, CA 95241

Back to School Haircuts with Tinsel at Hair Love Stef | Book now, before the back to school rush!

The kind of appointment that makes the first day of school feel like an event. $35 gets your kid a professional cut plus sparkly tinsel highlights woven in, so they walk into class with a little extra shine. Perfect for the kid who wants to feel put together on day one, or the parent who just wants one less thing to think about before school starts.

Book with Stef at (209)712-7225.

📍Salon By Kat, 15 S School St, Lodi, CA, 95240

Youth Baking Class at Emanuel Lutheran Church | Wednesday, July 22nd | Check in 10:30 am, Class starts 11:00 am

If your kid has been begging for something to do this summer that isn’t a screen, this one’s for you. Kids ages 9 to 16 get a hands on baking lesson, and they’re making a full cake from scratch, frosting and all. It’s free, but spots are limited, so don’t sit on this one. This is the kind of sweet, simple summer activity that makes a kid feel like a real baker for the day.

To sign up, call 209.334.2130 or email [email protected] with your child’s info.

📍Emanuel Lutheran Church, 1540 W Lodi Ave, Lodi, CA 95242

If you've ever driven past the corner of Main and Locust and noticed that worn brick building with the arched doorways, you've been looking at a piece of Lodi that goes all the way back to the beginning.

The building at 114 N Main Street was built in 1912 for $3,998, and it was Lodi's very first City Hall. Back then it did a little bit of everything: offices for the city clerk, the city engineer, and the superintendent of public utilities all shared the space with the fire department. The firemen kept their hook and ladder and hose wagons downstairs, slept in quarters upstairs, and the Board of Trustees held their meetings there too. A jail was added on in 1914, rounding out the city's whole civic operation under one roof.

For over fifty years that little brick building was the heartbeat of city government and the only fire station in town, until a second station went up in 1925. In 1928, the city outgrew it and built a new City Hall on West Pine Street, and from that point on the Main Street building belonged entirely to the fire department. It served as an active firehouse until 1967, when the department built its new headquarters on West Elm Street, and it wasn't fully decommissioned until 1981. After that, the building mostly sat as city storage, gathering dust for decades while the community quietly worried about its future.

There was even a point when demolition was on the table, but the Lodi Historical Society stepped in and made sure that never happened.

Now, thanks entirely to community donated funding, volunteer labor, and in kind donations, that piece of Lodi history is finally getting the second life it deserves. Once the restoration is complete, the first floor will become home to the Lodi Historical Museum, run by the Lodi Historical Society, and the second floor will serve as the Lodi Professional Firefighters Union meeting hall. It's a beautiful full circle moment: firefighters meeting again in the same building where Lodi's earliest firemen once slept and kept their gear.

A huge thank you to the Lodi Historical Society for spearheading this project, and to every individual, business, and volunteer throughout Lodi who has chipped in to make it happen.

You can read the full story and follow along with the latest updates at lodihistoricalsociety.org/blog.

📍 114 N Main Street, Lodi, CA 95240

Thanks for reading! It means more than you know that you take a few minutes out of your day to stay connected with our little corner of the world. See you around Lodi! 🍇