John is a history detective who digs beneath the legends, folklore, and myths to learn what’s either been hidden from the common narrative or else lost to time, in hopes of enlarging the collective understanding of our culture and communities.
A snapshot history of the Bank of America Building at 201 Petaluma Blvd. North
Bank of America Building, 2022 (photo courtesy of Scott Hess)
No site better expresses the changing look of Petaluma’s commercial architecture than the bank buildings that have occupied the northwest corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street since 1872.
Until 1865, local money lending was conducted by private bankers, most prominently attorney Isaac Wickersham and wheat merchants John and George W. McNear. In 1865, Wickersham opened I.G. Wickersham & Co., the first incorporated bank in Sonoma County.
The McNear brothers followed suit the next year, raising $100,000 ($2 million in today’s currency) to capitalize the Bank of Sonoma County. The bank initially operated at the southeast corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street.
In 1872, a fire burned down the Washington Hotel kitty corner to the bank. The McNears purchased the torched lot and constructed a new Italianate-style building to house both the bank and the Washington Hotel.
Bank of Sonoma County, est. 1866, 201 Petaluma Blvd. North (photo Sonoma County Library)
The building surpassed anything of its kind in Sonoma County. Standing at what was then the main entrance to Petaluma, it became the signature cornerstone of the city.
In 1926, the Bank of Sonoma County merged with Petaluma Savings Bank, and moved into a newly constructed building at 199 Main Street across the street (most recently the Petaluma Seed Bank).
Bank of Sonoma County & Petlauma Savings Bank, built 1926, purchased by Bank of American in 1930, 199 Petaluma Boulevard North (photo Sonoma County Library)
The former building was purchased by the Bank of Italy, which retained the Washington Hotel portion of the building, but replaced the bank itself with a new Spanish Revival-style structure. In 1930, the Bank of Italy merged into the Bank of America.
Bank of Italy, built 1928, 201 Petaluma Blvd. North (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1967, all the buildings on the block between Petaluma Boulevard to Kentucky Street were torn down to widen Washington Street. In their place, the Bank of America constructed a modern-style building facing the Kentucky Street side of the block, converting the former bank site to a parking lot.
Bank of America Building, built 1967, with opening at Washington and Kentucky Streets (photo courtesy of Philip Squires)
Within 12 years, the Bank of America outgrew the building. Before tearing it down, they erected a new building on the original bank site at the corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street. It was designed in what the bank described as a “Victorian style” to better fit in with other buildings in the area.
Bank of America Building on the left built 1967, beside new Bank of America under construction in 1982, 201 Petaluma Blvd. North (photo Sonoma County Library)
Cosmopolitan Hotel (today’s parking lot beside McNear’s Saloon), circa 1900, built in 1866 as the New York Hotel (photo courtesy of the Dan Brown Collection)
The parking lot between the Lan Mart and McNear buildings on Petaluma Boulevard has seen many incarnations since 1853, when it housed the local post office and the first doctor’s office in town.
When Dr. Samuel W. Brown rolled into town in the spring of 1852, Petaluma was a very new community. It had been established just months before by George H. Keller, a failed gold miner from Missouri.
Brown, a physician and former postmaster from Hartford, Connecticut, Brown, came west in 1849 for the gold rush, then settled in Sacramento. Keller sold him a large lot running from Lower Main Street to Kentucky Street. Here he built one of the first houses in town. It served as a home for his family, as well as an office for seeing patients.
1855 illustration of Petaluma with Dr. Samuel W. Brown’s house and office marked in red; behind Dr. Brown’s house is the first Methodist Episcopal Church at 4th & A streets; Main Street runs to the right of Dr. Brown’s house, with the two-story American Hotel in the center (illustration Sonoma County Library)
In the fall of 1853, after Brown was appointed Petaluma’s postmaster—a position first held by Keller’s 21-year old son Garret—his house also became the local post office.[i]
A strong advocate of public education, in 1856 Dr. Brown was elected president of the board of the Bowers School, the town’s only public school. Four years later, he led the campaign to replace the dilapidated schoolhouse at Fifth and B streets in 1860 with the B Street or “Brick School,” which occupied the site until 1911, when it was replaced by Lincoln Elementary (today converted into an office complex).[ii]
B Street School, also known as the Brick School, built 1860 at the northeast corner of B and Fifth streets (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
A co-founder of the Sonoma County Republican Party, Brown ran for State Superintendent of Public Schools on the Republican ticket in 1860, but lost. He died two years later of a sudden heart attack. The children of the Brick School made enough 10 cent donations to purchase a tombstone for his grave, upon which they had inscribed “The children’s friend.”[iii]
Following Brown’s death, his home and office—declared a “Petaluma landmark” by the local newspaper—were moved to an unknown part of town. The lot was purchased in 1866 by George L. Purdy, a blacksmith from Valley Ford, who erected the New York Hotel on the site. Three stories high with 46 rooms, the first floor was occupied by two storefronts, initially for a grocery and a shoe store.[iv]
The hotel sat in the middle of Chinatown, adjacent to Chinese dwellings and businesses. Its point of distinction was as the hotel closest to the railroad depot at Second and B streets, which served the Petaluma & Haystack Landing Railroad. The line extended two-and-a-half miles south to the steamboat dock of Haystack Landing.
Unfortunately for Purdy, just prior to the opening of his hotel, the locomotive’s boiler blew up while the train was sitting at the depot, killing four people. It was replaced with a horse-drawn train car.[v]
After three years of struggling to make ends meet, Purdy sold the hotel. It turned over a couple of times before it was purchased in 1873 by Heinrich Matthies, the owner of the Union Hotel at the nearby corner of Main Street and Western Avenue (site of today’s Masonic Lodge), which he advertised as the “Deutsches Gasthaus” (German guest house).
Union Hotel (Deutsches Gasthaus), 1870s, originally located at the southwest corner of Main Street and Western Avenue, moved in 1882 to the northeast corner of Main and B Streets to make way for the new Masonic Building (illustration Sonoma County Library)
In 1876 Matthies remodeled and upgraded the New York hotel, renaming it the Cosmopolitan. On the Kentucky Street side, across from where City Hall would be built in 1886, he constructed a cottage for his family to live in.[vi] He also leased 11 rooms in the upper story of the new Centennial Building next door (today’s Lan Mart building), inserting a hallway to provide passage between the two buildings.
Cosmopolitan Hotel and Centennial Building (today’s Lan Mart), 1876 (illustration Sonoma County Library)
According to local lore, those 11 rooms served as a discrete brothel for hotel guests.[vii] If true, it would have most likely been in the late 1870s and 1880s, as the hallway between the two buildings was eliminated by the early 1890s.[viii]
After Matthies’ death in 1883, the Cosmopolitan became a workingman’s boarding house.
The Cosmopolitan Hotel, circa 1910s (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
In 1919, Matthies’ son Henry, a San Francisco-based contractor, tore down the dilapidated hotel and erected a modern single story commercial building with two storefronts in its place.
The Matthies Building, 1930 (today’s parking lot beside McNear’s Saloon), featuring Bolton’s 5 cents to $1.00 Store and Alyne’s Women’s Apparel, built in 1919 (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
One storefront was occupied by Alyne’s, a women’s apparel shop operated by Alyne Thomas, the daughter of local grocery merchant Achille Kahn. The other was occupied by F.W. Woolworth’s department store. After Woolworth’s moved to the new Phoenix Building on Main Street in 1929, they were replaced by a discount shop called Bolton’s 5 cents to $1.00 Store.[ix]
In 1934, the Matthies family sold the building to Americo Gervasoni of the Gervasoni Finance Company, which owned a number of properties around town.[x] In May 1952, with the two storefronts occupied by Guy’s Furniture Store and the Petaluma Paint Store, a fire of unknown origin broke out behind the paint store, burning down the building. The brick frontage was later demolish. [xi]
Matthies Building, 1953, boarded up after fire in May 1952 gutted the building (photo Sonoma County Library)
The lot sat vacant for almost a decade, until it was leased by the Chamber of Commerce for merchant parking, as a means of opening up more street parking for shoppers.[xii]
Scene from “American Graffiti” featuring police car parked in the lot left by 1952 fire of the Matthies building (photo public domain)
In 1973, the parking lot was famously featured in a scene in the film “American Graffiti.” A teenager covertly attaches a cable to the rear axle of a police car parked in the lot watching for speeders on the boulevard. The teen then speeds by in a car with his friends, prompting the police to pull out of the lot in pursuit, only to have the axle and rear tires of their car ripped off by the cable.”[xiii]
This landmark location remains a private parking lot today.
Parking lot at 27 Petaluma Boulevard North, 2022 (photo John Sheehy)
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FOOTNOTES:
[i] Ad for Dr. S.W. Brown, Hartford Courant, December 23, 1833; “Whig State Convention,” Hartford Courant, January 16, 1842; “The Guillotine in Motion!” Hartford Courant, February 2, 1843; “Physician Charges in Petaluma,” Sonoma County Journal, December 1, 1855; “The Indigent Sick,” Sonoma County Journal, November 18, 1859 ;“Sudden Death,” Sonoma County Journal, January 31, 1862; “An Old Landmark,” Petaluma Argus, August 16, 1866; “Appointments of U.S. Postmaster, 1832-1971, National Archives; ancestry.com lists Brown as assuming Petaluma postmaster’s position on December 14, 1853.
[ii] “School Notice,” Sonoma County Journal, January 26, 1856; “Laying the Cornerstone” Sonoma County Journal, August 12, 1859; “Our Public School House,” Sonoma County Journal, February 24, 1860.
[iii] Republican County Convention,” Sonoma County Journal, August 22, 1856; Political, ”Sonoma County Journal, August 10, 1860; “Sudden Death,” Sonoma County Journal, January 31, 1862; “Name Then,” Petaluma Argus, August 22, 1867; “G.F. Parker, Former Petaluma resident, Compiles History of B Street School,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 10, 1937.
[iv] “Dissolution of Copartnership,” Petaluma Argus, January 5, 1864; Frightful Explosion,” Petaluma Argus, August 30, 1866; “New York Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, November 8, 1866; Ad for Sullivan’s New York Hotel, Petaluma Argus, June 17, 1869; “Changing Hands,” Petaluma Argus, April 16, 1870; “Real Estate Transactions,” Petaluma Argus, February 7, 1873; Ad for New York and Union hotels, Petaluma Argus, October 1873; Munro-Fraser, History of Sonoma County (University of Wisconsin, 1880) p. 239.
[v] “Frightful Explosion,” Petaluma Argus, August 30, 1866.
[vi] “Improvements,” Petaluma Argus, May 12, 1876; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, August 18, 1876;
[vii] “Improvements,” Petaluma Argus, May 12, 1876.
[viii] The hallway between the two buildings is featured in both the 1883 and 1885 Sanborn maps, but not in the 1894 Sanborn map.
[ix] “Henry Matthies,” Petaluma Argus, September 29, 1883; “New Building and Two New Stories,” Petaluma Courier, June 28, 1919; “Get Notice to Vacate,” Petaluma Argus, June 30, 1919; The Woolworth Store Opening,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 30, 1929.
[x] “Gervasoni Finance Co. to Buy Matthies Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 23, 1934.
[xi] “Fire Destroys Two Stores in Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 19, 1952.
[xii] “Chamber Parking Lease Due Today,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 28, 1961.
[xiii] “Movie Crews Film Scenes in Downtown Area,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 29, 1972; “Re-enacting ‘American Graffiti at 4:30 in the Morning,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, May 15, 2008.
A snapshot history of the Lan Mart Building at 35 Petaluma Blvd. North
The Centennial Stable and Druids Hall in the Centennial Building, late 1890s (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
For its first half century, half of this building served as a livery stable. The fieldstone wall from its original 1856 construction is still visible along the building’s interior hallway.
Built by S.G. McCollugh, the two-story Rough & Ready Stone Stable served guests at the adjacent Union Hotel to the north, where the Masonic Lodge sits today. An open stable yard extended from the back of the building all the way to Kentucky Street.[1]
In 1865, John Pfau, a German horse breeder, purchased the livery, and in 1876 incorporated it into a new building he constructed on its south side. He christened it the Centennial Building in honor of America’s 100th birthday.[2]
Early 1900s photo of The Ark dry goods store in the Centennial Building between the Masonic Lodge, right, and the Cosmopolitan Hotel, left (photo Sonoma County Library)
For the next half century, the Centennial Building, which sat in the middle of early Petaluma’s Chinatown, served as a social and commercial hub for German immigrants.
On the first level beside his livery, Pfau created two storefronts. The first was occupied by Centennial Headquarters, his high-class drinking establishment for ladies and gentlemen, offering classical and operatic music performances.
Ad for Centennial Headquarters, Petaluma Courier, 1877
In 1883, it was renamed the Eureka Saloon after Pfau’s champion stallion, and stayed in operation until Prohibition shut it down in 1920.[3] The other storefront featured the wine store of German immigrant Henry Dortmund, who established one of Petaluma’s first wineries near the end of Keokuk Street in Cherry Valley.[4
Ad for Wine Depot, Petaluma Courier, 1885
The front half of the Centennial Building’s second floor, the front half, where Old Chicago Pizza restaurant has pleased local taste buds for the past 45 years, was occupied by professional offices. The back half of the floor was divided into a meeting hall used as a lodge by the local fraternal chapter of German Druids—occupied today by a yoga studio—and 11 windowless rooms lit by skylights.
Pfau leased the rooms to Heinrich Matthies, a fellow German who operated both the Union Hotel and the New York Hotel, a boarding house on the south side of the Centennial Building, advertised them as “Deutsches Gasthaus.”[5]
The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Centennial Building (with sign for The Ark dry goods store), c. 1900 (photo courtesy of Dan Brown Collection)
In 1876, Matthies remodeled and upgraded the New York, renaming it the Cosmopolitan Hotel. He added a hallway to connect the rooms on the Centennial’s second floor to the hotel. Based on hearsay, these rooms were said to have served as a backdoor bordello for hotel guests.[6]
Layout of the Centennial Building and Cosmopolitan Hotel, 1883 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
Pfau doubled the size of the livery yard behind the Centennial Building extending to Kentucky Street, adding a carriage and wagon house. That came in handy on Saturdays, when as many as 1,000 farmers and ranchers drove their wagons into town to do their trading—this at a time when Petaluma’s population stood at only 3,300.[7]
In 1884, Pfau sold the Centennial Building to two young Germans, Christian and Jeppe Lauritzen, who opened a meat market on the first floor beside the Eureka Saloon. Ten years later, the Lauritzens sold the building to German hardware merchant Ludwig Gross. Renaming it the Gross Building, he rented out the storefront beside the Eureka to Herman and Josef Schoeningh, operators of a dry goods store called The Ark, for almost two decades.[8]
Beginning in 1902, Druids Hall on the second floor became headquarters of a German mutual relief society called Hermann Sons. In 1930, they moved into their lodge on Western Avenue. The hall also hosted meetings of the Dania Society, the Swedish Lodge, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. From 1940 to 1960, it served as the Moose Lodge.[9]
1950s photo of the Gross Building, Main Street entrance (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
After Gross’ death in 1908, his wife Hattie assumed ownership of the building. In 1911, she closed the livery—a victim to the increasing adoption of automobiles—and remodeled the building, redesigning the front in a Mission Revival style.[10]
In 1928, she hired Petaluma architect Brainerd Jones to design a new building for what had been the livery’s back lot facing Kentucky Street. From 1934 to 1967, that building was occupied by Ascherman’s Grocery, which, during the 1930s, extended its market across to the Gross Building on Main Street.[11]
Lan Mart Building’s Kentucky Street entrance, 2022 (photo public domain)
In 1972, Victor and Marisa DeCarli, who owned both Gross Buildings, combined them into a boutique shopping center of shops and restaurants based on San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square. Renamed the Lan Mart—a play on “landmark,” it kicked off a revitalization and restoration of Petaluma’s historic downtown buildings.[12]
Lan Mart Building’s Petaluma Boulevard entrance, 2002 (photo public domain)
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ad for the Dutch Horse Doctor at the Petaluma Livery Stable (McCullough’s livery), Sonoma County Journal, December 19, 1856; Ad for Rough & Ready Livery, Sonoma County Journal, August 7, 1857; Ad for McLaughlin’s purchase of livery, Sonoma County Journal, September 17, 1858.
[2] Ad for Pfau’s purchase of livery, Petaluma Argus, April 13, 1865; Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, July 23, 1875; “Pfau’s Centennial Building,” Petaluma Argus, March 3, 1876.
[3] “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.
[4] “In Town,” Petaluma Argus, July 18, 1883; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, September 16, 1883; “County Notes,” Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar, November 10, 1998; “Has Answered the Call,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 12, 1898.
[5] “Real Estate Transactions,” Petaluma Argus, February 7, 1873; “Improvements,” Petaluma Argus, May 12, 1876; “The Druids,” Petaluma Courier, December 22, 1880; “A House Warming,” Petaluma Courier, June 3, 1897; “Pizza Lovers Rejoice,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 1, 1976.
[6] Ad, Petaluma Argus, October 1873; Adair Heig, History of Petaluma: A California River Town (Petaluma, CA: Scotwall Associates, 1982), p. 143.
[7] “Pfau’s Centennial Building,” Petaluma Argus, March 3, 1876; “Saturday in Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 2, 1884; U.S. Census, Petaluma, 1880.
[8] “Real Estate Transactions,” Petaluma Argus, February 8, 1884; Ad for Lauritzen Meat Market, Petaluma Argus, April 28, 1888; “Change of Base,” Petaluma Courier, May 11, 1894; “Brevities,” Petaluma Courier, May 2, 1899; “Remodeling Building,” Petaluma Courier, April 5, 1917.
[9] “Society Dania,” Petaluma Courier, April 11, 1899; “Briefs,” Petaluma Courier, February 20, 1902; “Hermann Sons Elected Officers,” Petaluma Courier, March 21, 1902; “Mayor Farrell Officiates at Corner Stone Laying of Hermann Sons’ Hall,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 8, 1930; “V.F.W. News, Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 15, 1938; “VFW To Dedicate New Club Rooms,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 5, 1945; “Moose Lodges Leases Gross Hall,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 1, 1940; “Members Prepare New Hall for Occupancy,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 30, 1860.
[10] “Death of L.L. Gross,” Petaluma Argus, April 18, 1908; “Centennial Stable Closes After Half Century,” Petaluma Argus, September 1, 1911; “Contract Awarded,” Petaluma Argus, September 5, 1911.
[11] A.M. Seeberg Awarded Contract for New Gross Bldg,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 3, 1928; “Elegant New Building has Been Completed and Accepted,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 26, 1928; “Brainerd Jones Was Architect,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 26, 1928; “Ascherman Grocery Store Moves Over Week-end,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 7, 1934; “Ascherman Grocery Will Move to Gross Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 27, 1934; Ad announcing Ascherman’s sale,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 7, 1967; “Market Closes,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 13, 1970.
[12] First Ad for shop in the Lan Mart building, Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 9, 1972; “Lan Mart Stores are Commercial Experiment,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 15, 1973; “Lan Mart Center Has Grand Opening,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 6, 1973.
Bunya-Bunya Tree in front of Petaluma Carnegie Library, 1940 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In the fall of 1961, I gathered with a group of other kids across the street from Petaluma’s Carnegie Library, to watch a man standing atop a long ladder extending up from a fire truck. He was knocking seed cones the size of pineapples from the Bunya-Bunya tree outside the library. In a normal year the tree generated only a handful of cones. That year it produced 50.[1]
A few months later, Elizabeth Burbank had the 100-foot Bunya-Bunya beside her house cut down. She had grown tired of its cones crashing through the roof, breaking telephone lines and threatening visitors.[2] Her late husband, Santa Rosa horticulturist Luther Burbank, planted the tree in the 1880s, when wealthy estate owners came to his nursery shopping for exotic trees to showcase in their gardens.
Bunya-Bunya Tree beside Burbank home in Santa Rosa, 1930s (photos Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego)
A majestic, dome-topped evergreen conifer from Australia, the Bunya-Bunya, or Araucaria bidwillii, fit the bill. The tree was a living fossil, its roots extending back to the Jurassic era. Along with its genetic cousin, the Monkey Puzzle Tree, the Bunya-Bunya became all the rage among Victorian tree connoisseurs, including Addie Atwater, wife of a Petaluma banker.[3]
Atwater planted a Bunya-Bunya in front of her house on the northwest corner of Fourth and E streets, across from Walnut Park, where it still stands today. An early advocate of city beautification, in 1896 she and Petaluma journalist Rena Shattuck co-founded the Petaluma Ladies Improvement Club.
Atwater home at 222 Fourth Street, 1910; partial view of Bunya-Bunya tree at far right (photo Sonoma County Library)
The club’s initial impetus was cleaning up Petaluma’s two public parks—Walnut Park and Hill Plaza Park (today’s Penry Park)—which were being used at the time for trash and livestock grazing. After transforming them into inviting public spaces, the club ventured forth as “municipal housekeepers” in planting trees and installing walking sidewalks throughout town.[4]
In 1904, Atwater, then a wealthy widow, sold a deeply discounted parcel of land at Fourth and B streets to the city for the new Carnegie Library.[5] The Ladies Improvement Club assumed responsibility for landscaping the grounds. In the winter of 1906, they solicited local nurseryman William Stratton, known as California’s “Eucalyptus King” for his early cultivation of the eucalyptus tree from Australia, to donate 11 ornamental trees to their library plantings, one of which is believed to have been the Bunya-Bunya.[6]
New planting of small Bunya-Bunya tree at the Petlauma Carnegie Library, left of palm tree, circa 1907 (photo Sonoma County Library)
The long-term manifestations of the Bunya-Bunya were relatively unknown to the Victorians. Mature trees grow to between 100 and 150 feet tall, with trunks measuring as much as five feet wide. Its timber is highly valued as “tonewood” in making musical stringed instruments such as guitars and ukuleles.
It takes up to 14 years before the trees begin to generate seed cones weighing between 10 and 20 pounds, each of which contains between 50 and 100 edible nuts ranging up to 2 1/2 inches long.[7]Aboriginal peoples relied upon them for sustenance, eating them raw or roasted, or else storing them underground in wet mud, which is believed to have improved the flavor as well as extended their shelf life.
Europeans found their flavor similar to chestnuts. They liked to boil them with their corned beef. Boiling remains a favorite means of preparing them today, for use in stews, salads or stir-fried dishes.[8]
Bunya-bunya seed cones (photo by John Sheehy)
But not everyone is a fan of the Bunya Bunya. That became clear in 1977, when the city of Petaluma opened a new public library on East Washington Street, and converted the former library into the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum.
The architect in charge of the conversion flagged the 80-foot tall Bunya Bunya for removal, noting the severe drought that year had caused it to precariously lean forward. Bunya-Bunya critics agreed, citing not only the inherent danger of its diving bomb cones, but the sharp, serrated leaves of its shedded branches, which made for formidable weapons in the hands of children playing war.
Leaning Bunya-Bunya outside new Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, 1978 (photo Sonoma County Library)
After tree-lovers rallied in protest, the city conducted a thorough arboreal examination of the tree, finding it to be healthier than assumed, and sparing it from the axe.[9]
In 1991, Ross Parkerson, a board member of the Petaluma Historical Museum Association and a former city planner, led a group of fellow tree advocates in convincing the Petaluma city council to protect the city’s oldest trees by passing the Heritage Tree Ordinance. The museum’s Bunya-Bunya was among the first to fall under its protection, along with the large oak and giant Sequoia behind the museum.[10]
The next year, the city created a Tree Advisory Committee, appointing Parkerson as its founding chairman. Thirty years later, it continues to consult with the city on tree management and preservation.[11]
While I could find no record of anyone having ever been clobbered by a falling seed cone from the museum’s Bunya-Bunya, since that day in 1961, when as a young boy I witnessed the tree’s big cones being knocked to the ground, I always look up when I pass the museum. It’s partly out of respect for the 116-year-old heritage tree, and partly out of personal caution.
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A version of this article appears in the Fall/Winter 2022 newsletter of the Petaluma Museum Association.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Real Monkey Would Have Helped,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 23, 1961.
[2] “Burbank ‘Monkey’ Tree Coming Down,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 6, 1961.
[3] “The Trees in California’s Cityscapes,” California Garden and Landscape History Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, Spring 2013; “August Tree of the Month: Bunya Bunya,” edhat, Santa Barbara.
[4] “The Splendid Work of the Ladies Improvement Club,” Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1907.
[5] “Carnegie Library Cornerstone Laid,” Petaluma Argus, June 10, 1904.
[6] “Ladies Improvement Club,” Petaluma Courier, December 30, 1905; “Improvement Club Meeting,” Petaluma Courier, October 3, 1906; “Made Donation of Trees,” Petaluma Courier, March 16, 1907; “W.A.T. Stratton’s Book on the Eucalyptus,” Petaluma Argus, November 15, 1907.
[7] Alistair Watt, “Tree of the Year: Araucaria bidwillii,” International Dendrology Society, 2018.
[8] The Bunya-Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii),” Permaculture News, November 27, 2013; Ian Wright, “Bunya Pines are Ancient, Delicious, and Possibly Deadly,” The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/bunya-pines-are-ancient-delicious-and-possibly-deadly-96003
[9] “Monkey Puzzle Tree Wins Life,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 7, 1978.
[10] “Three Trees Look to be First Protected Under Heritage Law,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 25, 1991; “E. Ross Parkerson: Artist, Planner,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 18, 1991; “City Tree Panel in Full Bloom,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 7, 1992; “The Group Offers Neighborhoods Re-Leaf,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 24, 1993.
[11] “City Tree Panel in Full Bloom,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 7, 1992; “The Group Offers Neighborhoods Re-Leaf,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 24, 1993.
A snapshot history of the 1886 McNear Building at 23 Petaluma Blvd. North
McNear Building with presumably John McNear standing in front with horse and carriage, 1880s (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
In 1886, John A. McNear erected a two story, Italianate-style building across from what was then known as Lower Main Street Plaza, today’s Center Park.[1] The area was then part of Chinatown, which extended along Lower Main Street from Western Avenue to B Street, where Main Street became Third Street, and continued to D Street.[2]
Of the roughly 1,000 Chinese residing in Sonoma County at the time, more than 100 lived in Chinatown, where they operated five laundries, a tobacco shop, a variety store, a restaurant, and a grocery. There was also a Joss House, or Buddhist-Taoist Temple, Chinese Masonic Hall, and a Chinese Mission School conducted by the Congregational Church, which trained young Chinese men to return to China as Christian evangelists.[3]
John A. McNear (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
In the mid-1880s, Petaluma’s Anti-Chinese League temporarily drove most of the Chinese from Chinatown. McNear, who continued to employ two Chinese as house servants and many more Chinese at his shrimping operations and brickmaking factory in Marin County, came under personal attack by the League.[4]
1885 Sanborn map showing the cleared building site of the new McNear Building extending from Main Street to Fourth Street, beside a group of “Chinese Shanties” still standing (Library of Congress)
Immediately after the Chinese expulsion, McNear erected his building on the site of a group of abandoned Chinese dwellings known as “shanties” beside the Cosmopolitan Hotel. His new two-story, 20,000-square-foot brick building extended from Main Street to Fourth Street. He leased out the entire upper story to Petaluma’s militia for an armory. The bottom story was occupied by a rotation of grocery, hardware, and appliance stores, many occupying the entire floor extending to the Fourth Street entrance.[5]
Labor Day automobile race outside the McNear Buildings, 1916 (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
In 1911, McNear constructed a new two-story building adjacent to his 1886 building. It included the Mystic Theater operated by his oldest son John Jr., a retired doctor, and his son’s sister-in-law, Lulu Egan. McNear evicted the Armory from his 1886 building and reconfigured the top floor into individual business and medical offices for lease.[6]
From the 1930 to 1942, the first floor of the 1886 building was occupied by Safeway Grocery. After Safeway consolidated into their other store on Western Avenue near Liberty Street, the space was leased to Tibbett’s Appliance.[7]
Tibbett’s gave way in 1953 to Guy Manwaring’s Furniture Store, after his original store, in the adjacent Gervasoni Building, burned down. That building site was converted into a parking lot, made famous in the movie “American Graffiti.”[8]
In 1976, Guy’s Furniture relocated after the two McNear Buildings were purchased by Jeff Harriman and Wally Lourdeaux. After an extensive restoration of both buildings, they rented out the bottom floor of the 1886 building to a series of restaurants, beginning with the Petaluma Café, Cheers, and finally McNear’s Saloon and Dining House, which has occupied the building since 1987.[9]
A lifelong teetotaler, McNear is likely rolling over in his grave at the thought of his name being affixed to a bar in his landmark building.
1886 McNear Building, 2022 (photo public domain)
******
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “The Upper Story,” Petaluma Argus, July 3, 1886.
[2] Petaluma Sanborn Maps, 1883 and 1885, Library of Congress; “Improvements,” Petaluma Argus, November 29, 1884.
[3] 1870 U.S. Census; Thomas W. Chinn, A History of Chinese in California (Chinese Historical Society of America, 1969), p. 24; “Gordon C. Phillips, “The Chinese in Sonoma County, California, 1900-1930: The Aftermath of Exclusion,” a master’s thesis, Sonoma State University, 2015; Chinese New Year,” Petaluma Argus, January 20, 1868; “The Chinese Mission School,” Petaluma Courier, May 1, 1899;
[4] “The Boycott,” Petaluma Argus, March 13, 1886; “The Boycott Again,” Petaluma Argus, March 31, 1886;
[5] 1885 Sanborn Map of Petaluma, Library of Congress; Phillips thesis.
[6] “Last Dance in the Armory,” Petaluma Courier, June 14, 1912; “Company K Votes to Vacate Present Armory on First of Next Month,” Petaluma Argus, June 18, 1912.
[7] Ad for Skagg’s Grocery, Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 21, 1928; “Skaggs Now Safeway,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 10, 1930; “Earl Tibbetts To Engage in Business Here,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 14, 1945.
[8] “Fire Destroys Two Stores in Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 19, 1952; Ad for Guy’s Furniture, Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 2, 1952; Ad for Tibbett’s Furniture, Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 20, 1953.
[9] Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 11, 1976; “Another Historic Building Faces Renovation Project,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 30, 1976; “Petaluma Café to Offer Lunch, Late Night Dining,” PAC, January 28, 1978; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 22, 1984; “McNear’s: Good food, dancing and fun,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 30, 1987.
A snapshot history of the Steiger Building at 132 Petaluma Blvd. North
Steiger Building, c. 1870s, occupied upstairs by George Ross’ Photographic Gallery, and downstairs to the right by Charles Kubie’s tailor shop, and to the left by Wm. A. Steiger Gunsmithing, 132 Petaluma Blvd. North (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
The Steiger Building may be the oldest building on Petaluma’s Main Street. Built in 1856 by Capt. Palmer Hewlett, commander of the Petaluma’s early militia, the Petaluma Guards, the two-story brick building was erected on the north side of the town’s first general store, Kent, Smith & Coe, which opened in 1852.[i]
Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, the storefront housed a series of groceries and dry goods, beginning with Elder & Hinman’s Dry Goods.
Elder & Hinman Dry Goods, 1857 (illustration from 1857 map of Petaluma, Sonoma County Library)
The upstairs floor initially served as the Petaluma Reading Room, a literary center where subscribers could read newspapers and journals from around the world, as well as books of philosophy, history, theology, romance, and poetry.[ii]
In 1870, the building became occupied by three tenants who would remain for more than two decades, Scottish photographer George Ross, German gunsmith Wilheim Steiger, and Czech Jewish tailor Charles Kubie. All three had been in business elsewhere on Main Street since the mid-1850s.[iii]
After Wilheim Steiger died in 1878, his son Peter took over the store with his own two sons, Joe and Bill. Rebranded Steiger’s Sporting Emporium, it became a local hub for anglers and hunters, and beginning in 1881, headquarters of the Petaluma’s Sportsman Club, which maintained a rod and gun club and game preserve along the river south of town.
Steiger Building occupied by Petaluma Photo Parlors on second floor and Steiger Sporting Goods Emporium on first floor , c. 1900 (photo Sonoma County Library)
The Steigers purchased the building in 1894, turning their shop into something of a technological innovation center. One of the first telephones used in the city in the late 1870s was developed at Steiger’s, connecting the store with the Steiger family home on Second Street. The store also introduced the first pumpguns and automatic revolvers in town, as well the first Victorola phonograph.[iv]
The young Joe Steiger became a transportation trailblazer, selling the first safety bicycles in town in 1892, the first autos in 1902, and establishing the first auto livery, or taxi service, in 1907. He also began offering Indian Motorcycles at the shop in 1908.[v]
In 1902, the tailor Kubie retired, providing the Steigers with the entire first floor, which they extensively remodeled, exchanging the brick storefront with plate glass windows to display their wares. They also installed an iron front cornice on the front of the building, adding their name at the top. In 1905, the Steigers expanded the back of building by 50 feet to open the city’s first auto repair garage, accessed via Water Street.[vi]
Joe Steiger took over the store after the deaths of his father in 1907 and brother in 1912. He himself died in 1924, along with his best friend, city councilman and contractor Hugh McCargar, while the two were bass fishing aboard a boat that capsized on the Petaluma River.[vii]
Steiger Building, c. 1930, occupied by California Water Services Company on the first floor (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1928, the Steiger Building became the new local headquarters of the California Water Services Company, which had recently purchased the Petaluma Water and Power Company. After the City of Petaluma purchased the water company in 1959, the storefront was occupied by Century 21’s Petaluma Realty until 1997. The upstairs featured a rotating number of tenants including the Camp Girls Center.[viii]
Steiger Building, 1977, occupied by Century 21-Petaluma Realty on first floor (photo Sonoma County Library)
Since 2007, the storefront has been home to the Riverfront Art Gallery. The upstairs was occupied by Murray Rockowitz Photo Studio for more than 20 years until 2018.[ix]
Steiger Building, 2022, occupied by the Riverfront Art Gallery on the first floor (photo John Sheehy)
*****
FOOTNOTES:
[i] “Worked on Original Building,” Petaluma Courier, April 15, 1902; “Fire Bell,” Sonoma County Journal, December 25, 1857; “Real Estate Petaluma,” Sonoma County Journal, January 28, 1859; “Death of Major Hewlett,” Petaluma Courier, January 8, 1896; Munro-Fraser, History of Sonoma County (Allen, Bowen & Co, 1880), pp. 260-261.
[ii] “The Work Goes Bravely On,” Sonoma County Journal, February 20, 1857; “Petaluma Reading Rooms,” Sonoma County Journal, January 16, 1857; Ad for Elder & Hinman’s, Sonoma County Journal, March 20, 1857; “Dr. Miles Hinman,” Petaluma Courier, May 25, 1897.
[iii] “Removed,” Petaluma Argus, July 30, 1870; “A Card,” Petaluma Argus, October 15, 1870; “For Rent, Petaluma Argus, August 13, 1870; Munro-Fraser, p. 587; Ad for Steiger’s Gunsmith shop, Petaluma Argus, December 27, 1878 (note: established 1858);“On the Move,” Petaluma Argus, December 3, 1870; “Will Make Improvements,” Petaluma Courier, January 27, 1902; “Charles Kubie Dies at Age of 90 Years,” Petaluma Courier, July 9, 1919; “Remains Removed to the Family Home,” Petaluma Courier, July 9, 1919.
[iv] “Sportsmen’s Club,” Petaluma Courier, June 1, 1881; Petaluma Sportsmen Club,”Petaluma Courier, December 21, 1881; Ad for Victor Talking Machines at Steiger’s,” Petaluma Argus, March 30, 1905, “Mrs. P.J. Steiger Enters Last Rest,” Petaluma Argus, January 27, 1926; “Walter H. Dado Buys The Jos. Steiger Sporting Goods Store on Tuesday,” Petaluma Argus, December 10, 1924;
[v] Ad, Petaluma Courier, January 28, 1892; “The Pesky Thing Would Note Drink,” Petaluma Argus, September 17, 1902; “Two new Automobiles for Petaluma People,” Petaluma Courier, October 31, 1903; “Briefs,” Petaluma Argus, April 23, 1907; “Sold Two Indians,” Petaluma Courier, June 13, 1911.
[vi] “Briefs,” Petaluma Courier, April 12, 1902; “Will Make Improvements,” Petaluma Courier, January 27, 1902; “Briefs,” Petaluma Courier, April 9, 1902; “Steiger’s New Building a Big Improvement,” Petaluma Argus, July 27, 1905.
[vii] “Jos. Steiger and H.S. McCargar Lose Lives,” Petaluma Argus, June 9, 1924.
[viii] “Water Company in New Office,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 1, 1928; “City Carries Off Water Finance Deal,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 2, 1959; “Realty Firm Goes to New Quarters,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 5, 1962; “Fictitious Business Name Statement,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 3, 1976; “DDT Ban Allows Continuing Bat Problem,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 26,1978; “Century 21 Offices Merge,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 21, 1997.
[ix] Ad for Acorn shop, Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 21, 1999; “A Cooperative Gallery, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 10, 2007; “Revamp for Historic Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 21, 2019.
In this video presentation sponsored by the Petaluma Historical Museum and the Sonoma County Library, historian John Sheehy explores how a diverse community of Jewish, Chinese, and Swiss Italian immigrant merchants made Petaluma’s Main Street such a bustling melting pot in the 19th century.
Real Main Street Video Presentation, Part II
Part II of the series explores the early Irish, Black, and German communities.
A snapshot history of the Phoenix Building at 119 Petaluma Blvd. North
Frtisch-Zartman Building, near right, 2002 (photo courtesy Scott Hess)
Buildings may stand as testaments to time, but like clothing and hair styles, they are also prone to makeovers. Such was the case with Main Street’s Fritsch & Zartman Building.
Originally constructed in 1852 by John Fritsch and William Zartman as a one-story blacksmith and wagon-making shop, it became a storefront rental after Fritsch and Zartman moved their shop to Western Avenue in 1861.[i]
For almost 30 years, their two tenants were a dry goods store operated by Thomas Gilbert and a stationary store operated by Philip Cowen. In 1884, Fritsch and Zartman decided to join the Italianate architectural craze sweeping the city, and remodel the building, adding a second story and ornate iron front face.[ii]
Fritsch-Zartman Building, ca. 1900 (Sonoma County Library)
In the late 1890s, Gilbert’s store was replaced by The Racket, a dry goods store owned by Ira and Henry Raymond, and Cowen’s store by Frank Atwater’s Stationary Store. In 1906, Atwater closed his store, and the Raymonds expanded into the other half of the building, renaming the store Raymond Bros.[ii
In 1924, the Raymonds retired, and their sister May assumed half of the storefront to operate a women’s clothing shop called Raymond’s. The other half was occupied by The Leader, a dry good store operated by Mose Goldman. In 1929, Raymond’s Clothing Store moved to Kentucky Street, and Goldman expanded into their half of the building.[iv]
The Leader Department Store in Fritsch-Zartman Building, 1939 (Sonoma County Library)
In 1941, Goldman erected a new building for The Leader at the northwest corner of Western Avenue and Kentucky Street (later occupied by Carithers, and currently the new corporate headquarters of Amy’s Kitchen).[v]
J.C. Penney’s Department Store then moved into the Fritsch & Zartman Building from the Wickersham Building up the street (current site of Seared Restaurant), which they had occupied since 1922. In 1952, looking to modernize the building, Penney’s covered over the building’s Italianate front with a white slipcover.[vi]
J.C. Penney’s Department Store, Fritsch-Zartman Building, 1954 (Sonoma County Library)
In 1976, Penney’s moved to the new Petaluma Plaza shopping center at McDowell and Washington Streets. They were replaced by Marin Outdoors, which occupied the building for 13 years. Since 1998, Sienna Antiques has occupied the building.[vii]
Restoration of Fritsch-Zartman Building, 2008 (photo courtesy of Scott Hess)
In 2006, the building’s owners, working with Heritage Homes of Petaluma, secured a no-interest loan from the city’s historic restoration program to remove J.C. Penney’s slipcover, described by one local preservationist as “a gigantic heater grate.”[viii]
*******
FOOTNOTES:
[i] “William Zartman Founded Growing Holm Tractor Co.,” Petaluma Argus Courier, August 17, 1955, “Twenty years Ago,” Petaluma Argus, December 3, 1875.
[ii] “Will Build,” Petaluma Argus, March 8, 1884; “The Death of T.A. Gilbert,” Petaluma Argus, April 15, 1919
[iii] “Will Remove,” Petaluma Courier, February 8, 1895; “The Rack to Move,” Petaluma Courier, November 6, 1897; “Frank Atwater passes at Bay City,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 16, 1941; “A New Firm,” Petaluma Courier, January 14, 1899; “Raymond Bros. Have a Big Store Now,” Petaluma Argus, May 23, 1906.
[iv] Ad, Petaluma Courier, April 26, 1923; Ad, Cockburn & Berger, Petaluma Courier, July 8, 1923; “Notice of Dissolution of Partnership,” Petaluma Courier, February 1, 1925; “Will Dispose of Store Here,” Petaluma Argus, February 8, 1924; “Dry Goods Merger By Mose Goldman,” Petaluma Courier, February 14, 1924; “’Raymond’s Will Move to Kentucky Street Store,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 29, 1929; “The Leader in Great Expansion, Leases the Entire Gwinn Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 13, 1929.
[v] “The Leader—Petaluma Congratulates You,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 7, 1941.
[vi] “New Home of J.C. Penney Company,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 13, 1941; “J.C. Penney Modernizes Local Store,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 19, 1952.
[vii] “J.C. Penney Will Move to New Site,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 7, 1976; Marin Surplus Moving to Larger Quarters,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 1, 1984; “New Name for Marin Surplus,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 29, 1989; Marin Outdoors Closes Petaluma Store,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 21, 1997; Ad for antique open houses, Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 4,1998
[viii] “Downtown Group Wants to Uncover Ironfront Facing on building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 25, 1995; “Facelift for Downtown Store begins,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 6, 2006.
A historical snapshot of 101 Petaluma Boulevard North
Whitney Building, 1880 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1868, grocer and grain merchant Albion P. Whitney, erected the iron-front, Italianate-style Whitney Building on the northwest corner of Western Avenue and Main Street for his new grocery.[i]
A native of Maine, Whitney first arrived in Petaluma in 1861. In 1864, he was elected to the city’s Board of Trustees (city council), where he served as president (mayor) for three terms, until being elected to the state senate in 1874. After his death in 1884, is son Arthur took over the business, operating it until 1891, when he sold the grocery to a French Jewish merchant named Achille Kahn.[ii]
Petaluma National Bank, 1903 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1903, Kahn moved his grocery across the street after the Whitney heirs sold the building to the new Petaluma National Bank. In 1923, the bank merged with its affiliate next door, the California Savings Bank, renaming itself the Mercantile Trust.[iii]
American Trust Bank, 1930 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1928, Mercantile Trust merged with the American Bank, becoming the American Trust Company. The new company tore down the Whitney Building and erected a Neo-Classical Revival building with a terra cotta finish in its place. Designed by San Francisco architects Hyman and Appleton, it expressed the temple-like style popular with bank architecture at the times.[iv]
Wells Fargo Bank, 1975 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1960, American Trust merged with Wells Fargo Bank, and continued to occupy the building until 1987, when it took over Crocker Bank at the corner of Western Avenue and Keller Street, and moved to that site to take advantage of its parking lot.[v]
Vintage Bank, 2022 (photo courtesy of Scott Hess)
From 1995 to 2022, the American Trust Building was occupied by Vintage Antiques. It is currently undergoing a renovation.[vi]
FOOTNOTES:
[i] “Imposing Front,” Petaluma Argus, August 20, 1868.
[ii] Munro-Fraser, History of Sonoma County (Alley, Bowen & Co., 1880), pp. 602-603; Tom Gregory, History of Sonoma County (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911), pp. 283-284; “Municipal Election,” Petaluma Argus, April 21, 1864; “A Valuable Citizen Goes,” Petaluma Argus, February 16, 1884; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, November 2, 1891.
[iii] “Rumored Deal in Progress,” Petaluma Argus, May 28, 1903; “A History of the Petaluma Branch of American Trust Co.,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 20, 1928; “Announcement,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 17, 1927.
[iv] “Announcement,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 17, 1927; “American Trust Co. Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 20, 1928; “100 Anniversary,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 27, 1954; “1926 American Trust Building, http://www.chillybin.com/petaluma/wells.html.
[v] Ad, Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 30, 1960; Ad, Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 18, 1968; “End of an Era for Old Bank,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 30, 1986.
Bob Brunner, left, with “Diamond Mike” Gilardi, owner of Gilardi’s Corner, 1949 (photo Sonoma County Library)
On election night, June 12, 1951, the Western Avenue Rover Boys gathered in the smoke-filled back room of Bob Brunner’s insurance office in the Mutual Relief Building. Brunner, the group’s charismatic political leader, was hoping to unseat the Petaluma’s mayor in a write-in campaign. His call for eliminating the city manager’s position and returning government to the people resonated with longtime residents concerned with the city’s sudden growth.[1]
A group of merry pranksters, the Rover Boys usually met at Andresen’s Tavern next door, but state law shuttered bars on election day, a pre-Prohibition hangover when bars served as polling stations, trading drinks for votes.[2]Awaiting election results, the Rover Boys were joined in Brunner’s backroom by their political opponents, the Kentucky Street Commandos, to bury hatchets over cocktails.
Andresen’s Tavern, left at 19 Western Avenue, with Robert E. Brunner insurance beside it at 21 Western Avenue, under the sign for John Keller Real Estate, 1951 (photo Sonoma County Library)
Given the divisiveness of the mayor’s race, no one expected the hatchets to be buried for long—Petaluma’s future hung in the balance.[3]
Developers, armed with government subsidies for returning servicemen, had descended upon the area, buying up cheap farmland east of town and building tract homes. The city’s population, which had stood at 8,000 since 1930, jumped 20% to 10,000 within four years. Plans for a new freeway east of town attracted a swarm of speculators looking to build motels, restaurants, malls and car dealerships along its exit ramps. But shadows loomed in Petaluma’s post-war progress.
City resources were being overwhelmed, with roads in disrepair, schools in double session, water and sewage plants nearing capacity.[4] Downtown merchants reliant upon through traffic on Main Street, viewed the freeway as a death knell. Likewise, Petaluma’s two economic cornerstones, the poultry and dairy industries, were beginning to be displaced by more efficient factory farms springing up around the county.
In an effort to get ahead of the curve, the city council asked voters in 1947 to adopt a city manager form of government, pointing out Petaluma was becoming too big to be managed by part-time, elected officials with their own businesses to attend to.[5]Not everyone on the council agreed.
Petaluma Mayor Jasper Woodson, manager of the Sunset Line & Twine Company, 1947 (Sonoma County Library)
Mayor Jasper Woodson, manager of the Sunset Line and Twine Company, argued the change would undermine Petaluma’s democratic form of government. City officials traditionally elected by voters—the city clerk, tax collector, treasurer, chief of police, superintendent of streets, etc.—would be hired and fired by the city manager, placing too much power in the hands of one person which was an invitation for corruption.[6]
Petaluma City hall at 4th and A streets, 1951 (photo Sonoma County Library)
Proponents of the city manager model pointed out many communities adopted it for precisely the opposite reason—to thwart the practices of dishonest politicians.[7]Petaluma citizens first attempted to do so in 1934, after the mayor and four officials were found profiting from city contracts.
The officials—Mayor Will Farrell, councilmen Ludwig Schluckebier, George Van Bebber, Chris Riewerts, and City Attorney Lewis Cromwell—admitted to committing “technical violations of the law,” but denied any criminal intent, arguing they were merely following the customary practices of past officials.[8]
Mayor Will Farrell (photo Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
The citizens’ committee exposing their actions argued there was nothing “technical” about them. The men billed the city for goods and services under the names of their employees so as to conceal the true identities of their companies, and then approved the bills for payment as members of the city’s finance committee. The committee launched its investigation only after being stymied by the same officials in bringing charges of price gouging, sanitary violations and kickbacks against the salvage company contracted to collect the city’s garbage.[9]
The five officials quickly agreed to resign in exchange for avoiding a Sonoma County Grand Jury inquiry. A week after their resignations, they were feted at a retirement party by the “Old Guard” of businessmen who ran the city, including Woodson, then one of the remaining city councilmen.[10]
The citizens’ committee promptly petitioned the city to adopt a city manager form of government. That led to the election of a 15-member Board of Freeholders to draft a new city charter. The Old Guard succeeded in filling half of the seats on the board with allies opposed to a city manager, burying the proposal.[11]
When the referendum for a city manager resurfaced in 1947, the Rover Boys rallied to oppose it. The group initially formed in Hans Andresen’s Continental Hotel Tavern during World War II to write letters to local servicemen overseas, signing them “The Western Avenue Rover Boys.”[12]After the war, when Andresen moved his tavern to its current location at 19 Western Avenue, the Rover Boys followed, regrouping as watchdogs of city hall.
Hans Andresen behind bar at Andresen’s Tavern, 19 Western Avenue, 1958
Advocates of limited government, they worshiped former president Herbert Hoover, annually celebrating his birthday with a cake party at Andresen’s. Hoover exemplified their political philosophy by vetoing several bills providing relief to struggling Americans during the Depression, in the belief that such assistance was better handled on a local, voluntary basis.[13]
Despite the efforts of the Rover Boys, the 1947 referendum to adopt a city manager form of government narrowly passed. Going forward, Petaluma’s mayor and the city council were relegated to setting city policies and the city manager to implementing them. Recruiting qualified city managers, however, proved a challenge.[14]
The first two hires quickly departed after hitting a wall of internal resistance. By the 1951 election, the office had been vacant for eight months. Taking advantage of the vacancy, the Rover Boys succeeded in placing three referendums on the ballot designed to curb the powers of the city manager.[15] The city council, however, rejected their fourth petition calling for a vote on the city manager position itself.
To keep the issue alive, Brunner picked a proxy battle with Lee Myers, owner of the L&M Drug Store in the Masonic Building, who was running unopposed for reelection as mayor.The candidate filing deadline having passed, Brunner resorted to a write-in campaign, handing out pencils inscribed with his campaign slogan: “Use this to bring the government back to the people.”[16] For Brunner, that meant eliminating the city manager position and establishing a “strong mayor” model of governance.[17]
Mayor Lee Myers wiht Egg Queen Marilyn Coleman at Egg Bowl, 1951 (photo Sonoma County Library)
The campaign wasn’t personal—Brunner and Myers had grown up together—but it created a schism among the Old Guard, giving rise to the Kentucky Street Commandos.[18] The mild-mannered Myers struggled to compete against Brunner’s ability to command the electorate’s attention, a talent he honed as a sleight-of-hand magician with the Egg City Minstrels, a vaudeville troupe of Petaluma business owners who performed at charity benefits throughout California.[19]
On election eve, Myers was announced as the winner by 28 votes. Brunner demanded a recount, citing fraud and vote counting irregularities. After an investigation, Myers’ winning margin was increased to 32 votes. Brunner refused to accept the final count.[20]
As a consolation, the city council offered him a seat on the planning commission. Brunner declined. “That’s a political graveyard to keep me quiet and cool me down,” he told them. “It’s like making a guy vice president.”[21]
Instead, he adopted the moniker “Petaluma’s Minority Leader,” and made himself a regular disruptive figure at city council meetings, speaking out against anything he considered government intrusion.[22] He also took up black magic, holding a solo séance each Halloween to summon the spirit of Harry Houdini for support.[23]
Despite Brunner’s loss, the three amendments restricting the powers of the city manager passed. They restored management duties to the mayor and city council, including final say in all hiring and firing decisions, and demoted the city manager to chief administrator.[24]
In the fall of 1951, Ed Frank was hired as city manager. He helped to guide Petaluma through its growing pains over the next decade, making friends with Brunner along the way.[25]That didn’t stop Brunner from trying to abolish his job.
Mayor Vincent Schoeningh and City Manager Ed Frank at opening of the 1010 Freeway, 1957 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1953, he made another run for mayor, this time against Vincent Schoeningh, a downtown merchant backed by the Kentucky Street Commandos. Brunner accused the city manager’s office of being a money pit, despite an audit showing the office generated ten times its annual cost in savings and new revenues. Brunner lost the race by 223 votes.[26]
In 1955, he ran for a seat on the city council, again seeking to eliminate the city manager’s position. This time he lost by only 10 votes.[27] Unable to get off his maverick soapbox, he ran again for mayor in 1957 and 1961. Despite pulling as many votes as he had in previous elections, he lost both times by substantial margins, a sign new residents weren’t joining his base.[28]
In 1959, Rover Boys founder Hans Andresen died. His son Hank assumed ownership of the tavern and shifted the Rover Boys away from politics to social activities, adopting a women’s auxiliary known as the Rover Girls.[29]
Continuing his annual séances to conjure the spirit of Houdini, Brunner blamed his failure on political interference.[30] He died after a battle with cancer in 1965, leaving his insurance business to his son, Robert A. Brunner, who in 1969 fulfilled his father’s dream of being elected to the Petaluma City Council.[31]
1969 Petaluma City Council, Councilman Robert A. Brunner seated far left, Mayor Helen Putnam at center (photo Sonoma County Library)
***************
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 21, 2022.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 30, 1960.
[2]Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 20, 1958; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 30, 1971; “Lifting of Election Day Liquor Sales Ban Didn’t Include Bars as Polling Places,” San Pedro News-Pilot, August 27, 1969; Nichol Saraniero, “The Boozy History of Voting in Bars on Election Day,” Untapped New York, November 3, 2020. https://untappedcities.com/2020/11/03/boozy-history-voting-bars-election-day/
[3] Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 6, 1982.
[4] “The Cost of Local Government,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 19, 1949; “Double Sessions? An Empty School?” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 18, 1950; “Measures on City Ballot,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 21, 1951; “Census Up in Sonoma County,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 30, 1951; “Sewage Line Expansion is Up to Council,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 5, 1951.
[5] “New Charter Ordinance Passed to Print; Mayor Expresses Opposition,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 21, 1946.
[6] For and Against the New Charter,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 2, 1947.
[7] “Antiquated,” Deas Calls Petaluma’s Charter, and Urges City Manager,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 12, 1946.
[8] “Irregularities Charged to City Heads,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 23, 1934.
[9] “Resignation of Mayor Farrell and Two Aides is Demanded,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, January 24, 1934.
[10] “Mayor Farrell, Four Aides, Quit Office,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, January 27, 1934; “Petaluma Citizens Honor Retiring City Officials,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 3, 1934.
[11] “Citizens’ Group to Petition City Council for New City Charter,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 13, 1934; “Ad Opposing Approving City Manager Charter,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 14, 1934; “Some Election Reflections,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 19, 1934.
[12] “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 31, 1962; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 21, 1975.
[13] “Hans C. Andresen, Wife Purchase Business Building,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 18, 1946;“So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 31, 1962; “Bill Soberanes,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 21, 1975; Bill Soberanes, “Camel Enters, Spices Up Local Tavern,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 29, 1988; Bill Soberanes, “Birthday Cake for Ex-President,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 10, 1970.
[14] “New Charter Carries,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 11, 1947; “Third City Manager Will be Hired by City Council,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 25, 1951.
[15] “Charter Amendments Go To Sacramento for Ratification,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 21, 1951;
[16] “City Manager Type of Government Here Will Be Tested in Petition,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 24, 1951; “Candidates for Mayor,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 1, 1951; “The Election Results,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 13, 1951.
[17] Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 30, 1971.
[18] “Brunner and Myers Trade Sentiments,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 1, 1953; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 6, 1982.
[19] “Esther B. Wengren to Wed Robt. Brunner at Quiet Service,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 8, 1933; “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 30, 1960; March 5, 1965.
[20] “Myers Leads by 28 votes; Brunner to Contest Election,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 13, 1951; “Mayor Wins Over Brunner by 32 votes, Check Says,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 20, 1951; “Guftason Quits Council,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 5, 1963.
[21] “Brunner Doesn’t Choose to Accept,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 17, 1954.
[22] “Myers Leads by 28 votes; Brunner to Contest Election,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 13, 1951; “Mayor Wins Over Brunner by 32 votes, Check Says,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 20, 1951; “Guftason Quits Council,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 5, 1963.
[23] “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 30, 1960, March 5, 1965.
[24] “Charter Amendments Go To Sacramento for Ratification,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 21, 1951.
[25] “New City Manager,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 20, 1951; “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus Courier, March 7, 1960; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 30, 1971.
[26] Mayor Candidate Levels Criticism,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 25, 1953; “The Real Facts and Figures,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 6, 1953; “Schoeningh is Elected Mayor,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 10, 1953.
[27] “King Wins Council Seat by 10 Votes,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 21, 1955.
[28] “Brunner Files for Mayor,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 19, 1961. “June 13 Candidates Tell Their Views,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 2, 1961; “Sixteen Candidates to Choose From,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 10, 1961.
[29] “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 24, 1957, June 24, 1959, June 19, 1960; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier February 21, 1975.
[30] “Esther B. Wengren to Wed Robt. Brunner at Quiet Service,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 8, 1933; “So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 30, 1960; March 5, 1965.
[31]“So They Tell Me,” Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 10, 1965; “Putnam Wins, Bonds Lose,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 11, 1969.
