In Part II of this video presentation sponsored by the Petaluma Historical Museum and the Sonoma County Library, historian John Sheehy explores how a diverse community of Irish, Black, and German merchants in the 19th century made Petaluma’s Main Street such a bustling melting pot.
Real Main Street Video Presentation, Part I
Part I of this video presentation series explores Petaluma’s early Jewish, Chinese, and Swiss Italian communities.
A snapshot history of the Lan Mart Building at 35 Petaluma Blvd. North
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]
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.
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
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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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.
