The history of Petaluma’s Center Park stretches back to the original founding of Petaluma. Located on Petaluma Boulevard between Western Avenue and B Street, the pocket park was created by Columbus Tustin, whose development, Tustin’s Addition, followed a year after George H. Keller founded the town in 1852.[1]
Keller’s original street grid was laid out parallel to the Petaluma River, with Main Street ending just south of Western Avenue, where the river took a bend toward the east (today’s Turning Basin). The next year, Tustin’s Addition was created abutting Keller’s grid at that bend in the river. Extending from A to F streets and First to Eighth streets, it also ran parallel to the river in its layout, but at a different angle than Keller’s.
The juncture where the two grids met created an angle of roughly 140 degrees. In the case of where Keller’s Main Street met Tustin’s Third Street, Tustin created an open rectangular space in the street between the juncture and B Street. That block between Western Avenue and B Street soon became known as Lower Main Street. (In 1958, Main and Third streets were combined into Petaluma Boulevard North and South).[2]
Throughout the 1860s, the rectangular space on Lower Main Street served as a makeshift parking lot for farmers with horse-drawn wagons bringing their goods to town. In 1871, the city’s board of trustees (predecessors to today’s city council) allowed merchants in the area to install hitching posts and a horse trough with a well in the space, which came to be called Lower Main Street Plaza.[3]
A decade later the city removed the hitching posts and horse trough, reportedly to build a shed for sheltering horses from sun and rain. Instead, the site reverted to its former makeshift parking lot until 1886, when members of the city’s Board of Trustees personally funded the installation of new hitching posts, a water trough, cobblestone paving, and shade trees. [4]
These improvements coincided with a wave of new commercial development along Lower Main Street, beginning in 1882 with the construction of the Masonic Building at the corner of Main Street and Western Avenue.[5]
At the time, Lower Main Street was the commercial hub of Petaluma’s German and Chinese immigrant populations. The German district extended along the west side of the block from Western Avenue to the plaza. German merchants owned and operated two hotels, the Union and the Cosmopolitan, as well as the Centennial Building which housed a horse stable, shops, and the Druid’s Lodge, home to gatherings of the German community (today’s Lan Mart Building).[6]
The rest of Lower Main Street was the heart of Petaluma’s Chinatown, which extended from Western Avenue down Main and Third streets to D Street. Lower Main Street Plaza was surrounded by both Chinese dwellings and businesses, including laundries, groceries, tobacco shops, boarding houses, and restaurants. On the east side of the block, there were interspersed with grain and produce warehouses.[7]
In 1886, the Chinese were temporarily driven from Petaluma during a surge in anti-Chinese sentiment in Sonoma County. During their absence, local capitalist John A. McNear replaced a group of their dwellings he owned on the block with the first McNear Building. The commercial gentrification of Lower Main Street soon followed, pushing the Chinese community further south along Third Street to between B and D streets.[8]
During the 1890s, Lower Main Street Plaza became a popular gathering place for public events. With the street to the west side of the plaza roped off, the site hosted political orators, concerts, parade stands, National Guard drills, street vendors, estate auctions, horse sales, and the city’s Fourth of July fireworks.[9]
In 1920, with automobiles having replaced horse-drawn wagons and carriages in town, Petaluma’s city council voted to replace Lower Main Street Plaza with additional parking spaces for surrounding merchants. Outraged residents petitioned against the destruction of the plaza, calling instead for its beautification as a gateway to the downtown for auto tourists. The city council quickly reversed their decision, and set about beautifying the plaza with grass and plantings.[10]
This work effort coincided with the efforts of the newly-formed Redwood Highway Association. Seeking to direct the new wave of auto tourists to what remained of California’s old-growth redwood groves, the association promoted rechristening the thoroughfare between Sausalito and the Oregon border as a scenic route called the Redwood Highway.[11] In 1921, the Petaluma Chamber of Commerce made Petaluma the first city in Sonoma County to officially designate its Main Street as part of the Redwood Highway.[12]
During Petaluma’s Egg Day Celebration in 1921, the newly-beautified Lower Main Street Plaza became the setting for a chicken rodeo, an egg rolling contest, a game of egg baseball, and an egg laying display. Two of the city’s banks sponsored a contest to rename the plaza. Out of 200 submissions, “Mainway”—a combination of Main Street and highway—was chosen as the winner. The name “Center Park,” signifying the plaza’s location between Walnut Park and Hill Plaza Park (today’s Penry Park), came in third.[13]
Renaming of the plaza was postponed until 1925, when, thanks to the lobbying of Park Commissioner Hiram “Hoppy” Hopkins, Center Park was chosen as the plaza’s new name.[14]
Over the past 100 years, Center Park has served many functions as a community hub, including serving for many decades as the focus of the city’s annual holiday festivities with bands, choirs, tree lightings, and the arrival of Santa Claus. In 1930, the large Christmas tree the city had annually erected in the park was replaced with a living Norway spruce courtesy of the Petaluma Garden Club. By 1933, there were two living trees in the park.[15] Over the years, redwoods were added to the park, until their numbers were reduced to just three trees in 1964 to allow more room for upward growth.[16]
In 1985, Hospice of Petaluma launched an annual holiday tradition at the park called “light up a life.” In exchange for a donation, one could dedicate one bulb on the string of lights draped around a redwood tree in the park to the memory of someone deceased. In 2017, the event was moved to Walnut Park.[17]
In 1976, the city council approved erecting a facsimile of the El Camino Real Bell in Center Park. One of more than 585 such bells displayed along California’s mission trail from San Diego to Sonoma, it was created in the early 1900s to promote auto tourism and visitation of the missions. Petaluma obtained their bell from the Redwood Empire Association, who had stored it for decades. Although Petaluma was not on the mission trail, the city laid claim to the bell on the grounds that Padre Jose Altamira had passed through the Petaluma area while searching for a suitable location for the mission in Sonoma.[18]
Over the years, Center Park has also been the topic of proposed repurposing. In 1957, Petaluma’s Chamber of Commerce petitioned the city to build their new headquarters on the park. Legal challenges and opposition from merchants on the west side of the park defeated the effort.[19]
In 1984, four years after investing in a major facelift to the park, the city council approved making Center Park a memorial site to honor former mayor Helen Putnam, who died that year. They set aside $85,000 ($257,000 in today’s currency) for a dome fountain, stone seating, additional walkways, permanent lighting, and a memorial plaque. The next year, the city decided instead to purchase the empty lot on Petaluma Boulevard at the end of Golden Concourse to create the memorial site known as Putnam Plaza.[20]
Today, Center Park remains a landmark pocket park in the city, largely dominated by three towering redwood trees, all of which began showing signs of sickness and distress in the 2010s, resulting in the removal and replacement of the worst afflicted, the redwood at the north end. The park still has hitching posts, only now for bicycles.[21]
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sonoma County Deed Records, show two grants in 1853 from Columbus Tustin, one to Edward S, Jones, May 16, 1853, and the other to Fred Starkey, August 12, 1853, indicating that he was selling lots.
[2] The boundaries of Tustin’s Addition and Keller development, entitled Brewster’s Survey, are specified in Thos. H. Thompson’s Map of Sonoma County, 1877, Sonoma County Library; “Supervisors Vote to Change Name of Old U.S. 101,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 9, 1958.
[3] “Board of Trustees,” Petaluma Argus, August 19, 1871.
[4] “Will Be Restored,” Petaluma Argus, December 2, 1881; “Should Be Replaced,” Petaluma Courier, January 4, 1882; “Hitching Posts,” Petaluma Courier, January 7, 1885; “Improvement,” Petaluma Argus, January 28, 1886; “Good,” Petaluma Courier, June 1, 1887; “About Streets,” Petaluma Courier, July 6, 1887; “Humane Society Holds a Meeting,” Petaluma Argus, October 4, 1905; “Planted New Trees on Main Street,” Petaluma Argus, March 12, 1909.
[5] Dedication of Masonic Temple,” Petaluma Argus, April 21, 1882.
[6] Ad for Pfau’s purchase of livery, Petaluma Argus, April 13, 1865; Ad, Petaluma Argus, October 1873; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, July 23, 1875; “Pfau’s Centennial Building,” Petaluma Argus, March 3, 1876 “Centennial Headquarters,” Petaluma Argus, July 14, 1876; Ad for Centennial Saloon and Music Hall,” Petaluma Courier, March 7, 1878; Ad for Eureka horse, Petaluma Courier, May 31, 1877; Ad, Petaluma Courier, March 24, 1880; “The Druids,” Petaluma Courier, December 22, 1880; Adair Heig, History of Petaluma: A California River Town (Petaluma, CA: Scottwall Associates, 1982), p. 143.
[7] Chinese stores and shanties are listed in the 1883 Sanborn map of Petaluma extending along Western Avenue from Kentucky to Main Street, and from there down Main and Third streets to D Street, as well as along B Street from Main Street to Fourth Street.
[8] “A Terrible Crime,” Petaluma Courier, January 27, 1886; “Ah Ti, the Murderer,” Petaluma Argus, January 30, 1886; Anti-Coolie Meeting,” Sonoma Democrat, February 6, 1886; “Going Below,” Petaluma Argus, February 13, 1866; “Sebastopol Anti-Chinese League,” Sonoma Democrat, February 27, 1886; “Blew Them Up,” Petaluma Argus, March 10, 1886; Chinatown fires (no headline) Petaluma Courier, September 21, 1887; “An Additional Story,” Petaluma Argus, April 3, 1886; Jeff Elliot examines holes in the accusations against the Wickersham’s cook: “The Wickersham Murders,” “Who Killed the Wickershams,” Santarosahistory.com, http://santarosahistory.com/wordpress/2017/05/the-wickersham-murders/.
[9] “Town Topics,” Petaluma Courier, May 21, 1893; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, October 8, 1895; “Independent Foresters,” Petaluma Courier, October 9, 1896; “Salvation Meeting,” Petaluma Courier, November 13, 1896; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, July 19, 1897; “Socialist Speaker,” Petaluma Courier, October 12, 1897; “The Day,” Petaluma Courier, July 3, 1901; “The Day Fireworks,” Petaluma Courier, July 5, 1902; “Tonight’s Band Concert,” Petaluma Courier, July 5, 1902; “Local Notes, Petaluma Argus, May 23, 1903; “City Trustees,” Petaluma Courier, August 16, 1904; “Congressman D.E. McKinlay,” Petaluma Argus, August 6, 1910; “Opening Band Concert,” Petaluma Courier, May 13, 1915; “G.W. Hoyle Will Be Speaker at Saturday’s Demonstration,” Petaluma Argus, April 15, 1918; “Band Concert Here Tonight,” Petaluma Argus, August 22, 1925; “Armistice Day Parade,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 8, 1930; “1934 Parade of Witches,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 17, 1934.
[10] “Council Votes Parking Place on Lower Main,” Petaluma Courier, October 19, 1920; “Beautify Main Street,” Petaluma Courier, October 20, 1920; “The Lower Main Street Park Will Remain as Originally Planned,” Petaluma Argus, November 2, 1920.
[11] The seven counties officially formed the North of Bay Counties Association to promote the highway, of which the Redwood Highway Association appears to have been a subsidiary, referenced as early as February 1922; “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; “Great North of Bay Development Program Outlined at S.R. Session,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 6, 1921; “North of Bay Association is Formed,” Weekly Calistogan, November 18, 1921; “Redwood Highway to Traverse Scenic Wonderland,” Cloverdale Reveille, January 27, 1922; “Petaluma C. of C. Urge Highway Completion,” Petaluma Courier, February 19, 1922; Peter J. Blodgett, “How Americans Fell in Love With Taking Road Trips,” Time magazine, August 15, 2015. https://time.com/3998949/road-trip-history/
[12] “Redwood Highway Suggested for Hiway,” Petaluma Courier, July 11, 1921; “C.C. Endorses Naming of State Highway and Boulevard Road District,” Petaluma Courier, September 9, 1921; “Santa Rosa Has Prominent Place on Map of Route of U.S. Highway,” Santa Rosa Republican, February 20, 1926.
[13] “Official Program for the Great Egg Day Celebration,” Petaluma Argus, April 19, 1921; “Prize Winners For Park Name,” Petaluma Argus, July 1, 1921; “Park Name is Debated by Council,” Petaluma Argus, July 6, 1921; “City Council Takes First Steps for Street Improvements and Repairs,” Petaluma Argus, July 19, 1921; “City Council Staged Forum on City Rezoning and the Type of Street Pavement to Be Used on Three Thoroughfares,” Petaluma Argus, August 4, 1925.
[14] “Hiram Hopkins Rounds Out 50 Years at G.P. McNears,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 1, 1951.
[15] “News Notes,” Petaluma Argus, December 13, 1916; “Living Yuletide Tree Planted,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 10, 1930; Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 8, 1930; “Santa Claus Will Arrive Here Tonight for the Big Christmas Festival,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 2, 1933; “Grand Xmas Opening Here to Take Place Tonight; Band Concert at Center Park,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 3, 1938; “Yuletide Street Decorations Dedication Here Tonight,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 30, 1946.
[16] “McDowell Park Work Urged by Recreation Unit,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 18, 1963.
[17] “Hospice of Petaluma Plans Tree Lighting Campaign,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 20, 1985; “Out and About in Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 30, 2017.
[18] “Petaluma May Soon Receive El Camino Real Mission Bell,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 4, 1976; “Council Rejects Zoning for Apartment Complex,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 17, 1976; “Bell Marks Visit by Mission Priests,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 2, 1977.
[19] “Chamber May Build an Office,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 23, 1957; “Chamber Members Favor Center Park Site, 3 to 1,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 23, 1957; “C of C Office Move Runs into Opposition,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 8, 1957.
[20] “Center Park Facelift,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 30, 1980; “Center Park at Tribute to Helen Putnam,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 20, 1984; “Reconsider Tribute to Putnam,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 21, 1985; “New Location for Putnam Tribute,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 13, 1985; “Downtown Lot Could Become Park,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 22, 1985.
[21] “Iconic Redwood Cutdown,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 17, 2013.
