Readers have something to crow about with this month’s “Where in the Napa Valley.” This month’s mystery rooster is joined by a couple of historic buildings.

A rooster south of Napa, an historic building on Napa’s Main Street that took more than 20 years to complete and the two-man jail in Calistoga are the icons featured in the monthly “Where in the Napa Valley.”

Rooster on a hill

As tourists and locals enter the beautiful Napa Valley on Highway 29, one of the first icons to welcome guests and residents is the Grape Crusher on the hill as you ascend the north side of the Butler Bridge.

But there is another familiar icon just down the road — a giant rooster.

The fantastic fowl sits on a hill above Foster Road, looking down on the intersection of highways 29 and 121. It lives on the property of Ailene Plass.

The chicken has called Plass’ property home for many decades. Originally he was bought by Jim Pritchard, Plass’ brother-in-law.

“Jim bought the chicken for a restaurant called the Chicken Coop on Soscol Avenue,” Plass said.

At that time Plass and her husband were in the egg business. “We sold eggs in Napa for about 40 years,” she said.

When the restaurant was sold it was time for the chicken to find a new home to roost. Since Plass and her husband were in the poultry business, it seemed fitting that they should take in the homeless rooster, which they did.

For many years, Mr. Rooster had a quiet and peaceful life at their home near the lake where Stanly Lane meets Foster Road. Later, the Plasses moved to a home atop the hill off Foster Road, but the chicken stayed — at least for a while.

After her husband died, Plass got out of the egg business and sold the home by the lake.

“The people who bought the house on Stanly Lane didn’t want the chicken. They kept calling us to come and take it away,” Plass said.

Finally Mr. Rooster was carted up the hill and took his current place of honor. He has received three paint jobs over the years to retain his clean good looks.

“Now, people stop, look up at it and use it for directions. We put a  gate at our driveway on Foster Road because people were driving up the driveway and asking us to take their picture with the chicken,” Plass said.

1600 Main St.

The exterior of the building on the northeast corner of Main and Vallejo streets is a mishmash of building materials, and it has been home to an eclectic number of businesses since it was built in 1884.

According the Jeff Doran, owner of the landmark structure, it was constructed by the McDougal brothers and took 25 years to complete. Erecting the building took so long because the brothers built it in bits and pieces when they had the money and were able to find deals on bricks, rock and other building materials.

Some of the rocks and bricks came from Browns Valley, Syar and the Napa River, according to Doran.

Doran purchased the structure, which most recently had been known as the Union Temple building, about six years ago.

Doran’s research has uncovered that the first tenant of the building, which was then on the outskirts of Napa, was the Napa Steam Laundry. In another life Doran’s building was also believed to have been a Shell gas station, with a pump out front. During other periods 1600 Main St. housed an automotive parts store, an auto repair shop, a place to buy live chickens and a Moon car dealership.

The businessman admits he had never heard of a car called the Moon. It must have had a short run.

The building was home to a TV repair shop during the late 1940s and ’50s.

One of 1600 Main St.’s more tawdry tenants was in the 1900s as a bath and theater house, back when that stretch of Main Street had a risqué reputation.

It was in about 1946 that the Union Temple remodeled the building. The upstairs, which had contained a theater stage, was transformed into a union meeting hall. The union called the location home until it was purchased by Doran, who stripped away the exterior stucco to unveil the variety of brick and stone material beneath.

Today, Doran occupies an upstairs corner office and leases the rest of the upstairs and downstairs to a variety of other businesses.

Calistoga jail

Back in the early 1900s, what happened in Calistoga stayed in Calistoga — and the people who made it happen stayed there, too.

At that time the city had its own jail, built around 1915, which still stands today behind the current city hall.

The small cement building with two cells was used until about 1983 for those who needed to sleep off their booze or pay a modest debt to society of a couple of days behind  bars.

“In the early times, it wasn’t all that easy to transport prisoners to the county jail in Napa. Everyone who got arrested in Calistoga was booked and spent some time in the  jail,” said retired Calistoga police officer and historian Doug O’Neill.

Until the early 1970s, Calistoga had its own justice court, with judge Oliver Northrup presiding.

“We would put a drunk in jail. The next morning, we would walk him down to the Colonial Restaurant on Washington Street, feed him breakfast and then take him to court,” O’Neill said. “If it was a minor offense, the judge would arraign the prisoner and the court proceedings would be held right here in Calistoga. The prisoner never made it to the courts and jail in Napa.”

In the early days the jail served the city well. The front door had bars on it. There was a hallway with a cell on each side. “The doors on the cells had the old metal bars like you see in the old western movies. There was a toilet, a heater and small metal cot in each cell,” O’Neill said.

“We had to be careful in the winter when it rained. The area outside the jail would flood, so we had to put planks down to the door. We always kidded about how you had to walk the plank to get to the jail,” O’Neill said.

Although O’Neill couldn’t recall any famous people who called the jail home, he remembered at the time President Ronald Reagan, who was campaigning for office, had his picture taken outside the jail.

“We had one escape some time ago. The public works department had their storage yard near the jail. Someone left a full box of hacksaw blades in the jail,” O’Neill said. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure they caught the prisoner and brought him back.”

Although it no longer has the distinction of serving the justice system, the old jail has not been completely abandoned. It is used as a storage building by the city.