HOW CITIZENS GOT PLAYED 100 YEARS AGO
The new hotel was touted to be Petaluma’s saving grace, a means of reviving the downtown economy after a four-year pandemic and a national recession. With tourists increasingly drawn to Sonoma County, the city needed something to hook in those just passing through. What better lure than a high-rise, luxury hotel, the likes of which Petaluma had never seen, positioned at the corner of B Street and Petaluma Boulevard?
The year was 1922.
The economic recession following World War I was beginning to lift. The deadly influenza afflicting the country since the war had mutated into a less deadly seasonal flu. The town’s last livery stable had closed, motorcars having replaced horse-driven buggies. Auto tourism was suddenly all the rage in Northern California.[1]
It began in 1918 with the Save the Redwoods League who set out in to preserve what remained of California’s old growth redwood groves by making them state parks.[2] Their call of the wild spoke to the new wave of automobility sweeping the country. No longer hampered by the limited speed and endurance of horses pulling wagons and stages, motor-savvy tourists were setting out on excursions to the most remote natural settings.[3]
In 1921, a group of promoters created the Redwood Empire Association to capitalize on the new craze. Their plan was to rechristen the route from Sausalito through Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties as the Redwood Highway.[4] Petaluma, having recently declared itself “The Egg Basket of the World,” was quick to jump on the bandwagon, becoming one of the first cities to declare its Main Street (today’s Petaluma Boulevard) part of the Redwood Highway.[5]
Now, all the city needed was an eye-catching attraction to ensnare the gas-powered, tree huggers passing through town.
The idea of a new downtown hotel had been kicking around for a decade. Petaluma’s existing hotels—small, outdated, and shabby—were patronized mostly by traveling salesmen and itinerant workers. In 1912, a group of local businessmen formed the Petaluma Development Company to promote building a grand new hotel. After ten years, they were still struggling to make it happen.[6]
The breakthrough came in the spring of 1922, when Sophie Hammell, chair of the Chamber of Commerce’s publicity campaign, brought to town the Hockenbury System, a Pennsylvania outfit who specialized in raising local capital to build landmark hotels.[7]
Hockenbury recommended erecting a hotel along the promising new Redwood Highway, close to the downtown commercial district. They estimated the hotel would generate annual revenues of $100,000, with a net profit of $40,000 ($1.9 million and $750,000 respectively in today’s currency). That didn’t include the indirect return from what guests spent around the city, which they projected to be as much, if not more.[8]
Their speculative projections generated considerable excitement around town. Launching a time-limited stock rally, they pulled in $258,000 from 855 local investors ($5.3 million in today’s currency. The money, less Hockenbury’s commission, was deposited in the Petaluma Hotel Company Trust under the purview of a board of local business leaders.[9]
Site selection quickly coalesced around an empty lot at the northwest corner of Washington and Kentucky streets. The site of the Brooklyn Hotel from the 1850s until it burned down in 1900, the property had recently gone on the market. A San Francisco movie theater syndicate had purchased it earlier with plans to build a new motion picture theater, but instead sold it to a local speculator.[10]
The speculator already had two bids for the property from outside developers, but offered the hotel board first preference. The board’s vice-president and largest stockholder, George P. McNear, objected that the site was too far away from the new Redwood Highway. As an alternative, he offered a lot he owned at the southwest corner of B and Main streets, kitty-corner to his grain and feed mill (today’s Great Petaluma Mill).[11]
The site was occupied by a gas station and two brick commercial buildings McNear had constructed just six months before. He told the board he was willing to tear down the buildings at his own expense, and sell the lot for the same price the speculator was asking for the Washington Street site.[12]
Public opinion quickly shifted in favor of McNear’s proposal. A four-story, 100-room hotel at B and Main streets would be visible for blocks in every direction. Most importantly, it had parking—McNear owned a garage on the adjacent corner of C and Third streets—which the Washington Street site lacked. There was just one hitch. Demolition couldn’t begin at the site for a year, until the leases held by McNear’s tenants expired.[13]
The hotel board couldn’t wait that long. They moved forward with the purchase of the Washington Street lot, along with two adjacent buildings slated for demolition. Within weeks of closing the deal, they hired a San Francisco architect to begin designing the hotel.[14]
In April 1924, the Hotel Petaluma opened to great fanfare, California’s governor serving as a guest of honor. Rising five stories above street level, the new hotel offered 96 guest rooms, with an additional 12 rooms for staff lodging. The ground floor featured a spacious lobby, a state-of-the-art kitchen, and an ornate dining room that seated 200.[15]
The hotel’s opening coincided with an economic upswing for Petaluma thanks to the city’s egg boom, the Roaring Twenties’ bull stock market, and the increasing popularity of the Redwood Highway. The hotel quickly became a valuable community hub for luncheons and conventions of local service clubs and civic organizations. It struggled however to fill beds, passing through a rotation of hotel operators.
The arrival of the Great Depression only made matters worse. The opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 had little effect, despite an immediate surge of tourist traffic that forced Petaluma to expand Main Street from two to four lanes. The final death knell came with the 1957 opening of the 101 Freeway, which became the new Redwood Highway, putting an end to downtown tourist traffic. In hopes of luring in travelers, Petaluma changed the name of Main Street to Petaluma Boulevard.[16]
As motels sprang up along the freeway, the Hotel Petaluma was converted to a residential hotel, or SRO. In 1959, the Elks Club, seeking more space for their member gatherings, purchased the hotel from the Petaluma Hotel Company trust for $91,160. Adjusted for inflation, that represented only a fifth of the $285,000 locals invested in the hotel 25 years before.[17]
In 2015, new owners undertook a full-scale historical restoration of the building, returning it to a hotel for overnight guests. As such, it asserted a new prominence as an anchor landmark in the city’s downtown historic district.[18]
Historical preservation became the economic engine for revitalizing the downtown in the mid-1970s. It began when Petaluma’s visionary mayor, Helen Putnam, enlisted developer Skip Sommer to convert George P. McNear’s abandoned grain mill at B Street and Petaluma Boulevard into a historically-themed center of boutique shops and eateries called the Great Petaluma Mill. A restoration fever soon overtook the downtown, drawing developers of adaptive reuse to town.[19]
Today, 100 years after the Hotel Petaluma’s grand opening, a new six-story, luxury hotel is being proposed for the empty lot at southwest corner of B Street and Petaluma Boulevard—the same site George P. McNear offered for the Hotel Petaluma in 1922.
The proposed new high rise will require an overlay to amend the building height limit for parts of the historic district from 45 feet to 75 feet, changing the current character and human scale of the downtown. Proponents say the trade-off is worth it. They expect the new hotel to lure in tourists and developers, revitalizing local businesses and generating needed tax revenues for the city’s coffers.
It sounds a lot like the stock rally Hockenbury pitched 100 years ago to raise money for the Hotel Petaluma. That turned out to be what Wall Street calls a “sucker rally.”
******
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 11, 2024.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] J.R. Vernon, “The 1920-21 Deflation: The Role of Aggregate Supply,” Economic Inquiry, July 1991, Issue 29, Volume 3, pps. 572–580; “Why the 1918 Flu Pandemic Never Really Ended,” History.com. https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended; “Will Close Stable on May 1st,” Petaluma Argus, April 19, 1919.
[2] “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; Save the Redwoods League website, https://www.savetheredwoods.org/about-us/mission -history/
[3] Peter J. Blodgett, “How Americans Fell in Love With Taking Road Trips,” Time magazine, August 15, 2015. https://time.com/3998949/road-trip-history/
[4] “Redwood Highway Suggested for Hiway,” Petaluma Courier, July 11, 1921; “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; “Redwood Highway to Traverse Scenic Wonderland,” Cloverdale Reveille, January 27, 1922.
[5] “Petaluma, the World’s Egg Basket,” Petaluma Courier, June 25, 1918; “Redwood Highway Suggested for Hiway,” Petaluma Courier, July 11, 1921; “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; “C.C. Endorses Naming of State Highway and Boulevard Road District,” Petaluma Courier, September 9, 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; “Petaluma C. of C. Urge Highway Completion,” Petaluma Courier, February 19, 1922.
[6] “The New Hotel Project is Being Well Received,” Petaluma Argus, December 27, 1912; “Development Co. Officers,” Petaluma Courier, June 21, 1917.
[7] “Definite Plans Made for New Hotel Campaign” Petaluma Argus, April 12, 1922; “Mrs. L.B. Hammell Has Resigned,” Petaluma Argus, February 23, 1923.
[8] “Definite Plans Made for New Hotel Campaign,” Petaluma Argus, April 12, 1922.
[9] “Enthusiasm Shown at C.C. Banquet,” Petaluma Courier, April 19, 1922; “Legal Notice for Petaluma Hotel Company,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1923; “Petaluma Realizes a Dream of Years Today as the Doors of the Hotel Petaluma Swing Open,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.
[10] “A Warm Old Time,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1900; “Turner & Dahnke Buy Brown Lot; Build Theater,” Petaluma Courier, May 18. 1921; “T&D Co. Theater Lot is Sold,” Petaluma Argus, June 8, 1922; Classified ads, Petaluma Argus, December 28, 1921; “Free Market Moves to Old Fire House,” Petaluma Argus, March 10, 1922.
[11] “Hotel Committee Confer with L.W. Clark for Purchase of Brown Lot,” Petaluma Courier, June 11, 1922; “The Largest Stockholder,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.
[12] “Brick Layers Complete Work,” Petaluma Argus, April 20, 1922; “Offers Site at Third and B Street for the New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, July 31, 1922.
[13] “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; “Offers Site at Third and B Street for the New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, July 31, 1922.
[14] “Site for New Hotel Selected by Board of Hotel Trustees,” Petaluma Courier, August 8, 1922; “New Hotel Committee Buys Site,” Petaluma Courier, November 9, 1922; “Frederic Whitton Named as Architect of New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, December 16, 1922.
[15] “How This City Made its New Hotel a Fact,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924; “Unique Opening of Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 11, 1924; “Dazzling Gayety at First Formal Banquet at Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 23, 1924; “Argus Scribe Tours Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.
[16] “Improved Highway Facilities,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 15, 1937; “Petaluma Bottlenecks Doomed,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 11, 1938; “Active Council Works for Petaluma Progress,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 15, 1938; “Comments in Brief: Main Street Traffic,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 9, 1957; “Old Redwood Highway Renaming,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 23, 1958; “Supervisors Vote to Change Name of Old U.S. 101,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 9, 1958; “Comments in Brief: New Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 6, 1959.
[17] “Soon-to-be Elks Property, Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 10, 1959.
[18] “Historic Hotel is Sold,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 5, 1994; “Hotel Petaluma Sold Again,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 19, 2015.
[19] Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives; “He’s Not Your Typical Developer,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 28, 1975; “Ambitious New Business Owners See Potential in Old Buildings,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 8, 1977; “Mill Played a Key Role in Downtown Revitalization,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 9, 1980.
