In Jack London’s heyday, Petaluma bustled

As Sonoma County unites to commemorate the life of Jack London with centennial celebrations at his former residence in Sonoma, we look back at the prolific novelist’s era and his connection to Petaluma, his neighbor to the west.|

As Sonoma County unites to commemorate the life of Jack London with centennial celebrations at his former residence in Sonoma, we look back at the prolific novelist’s era and his connection to Petaluma, his neighbor to the west.

In 1911, London’s heyday, Petaluma was a much different city. Early that year, pilot Fred Wiseman flew the world’s first airmail flight from Petaluma to Santa Rosa - or almost to Santa Rosa, as he had to put-down in a field outside the town. That plane is now enshrined in the National Air and Space Museum.

The same month, London drove his team and wagon to Petaluma to shop at the W. A. T. Stratton Nursery at 417 Upham St. There, the author purchased 30,000 eucalyptus seedlings for planting as future wind barriers on his Glen Ellen ranch. The Stratton Nursery had been the first in Sonoma County and had specialized in eucalyptus trees since 1910. No one had ever made a purchase as large as London’s, however, and they advertised it profusely.

Property owners on Payran Street made the news by petitioning for a city sewer in 1911, because the “health board would not permit cesspools anymore.” Also big news, that year, was the Petaluma River, “at the foot of B Street, is blocked with vessels and the melon boats had to turn back and go to D Street,” the Petaluma Argus read.

This blockade was further defined in the paper as “one steamer, one gasoline sloop, two tug boats, one monster barge and two schooners.”

It was announced in September 1911, that “The Doss brothers have, purchased nine fine draft horses for use on their ranch in Two Rock. As fine a bunch of horses, as had been seen in Petaluma, for a long time.” The horses would, among other chores, be pulling the new “Success Manure Spreader,” which was “made for the man, who buys the best.”

The spreader could be purchased from the Rex Mercantile Co., which had just that year expanded to carry farming implements. Rex Ace Hardware is still with us today at the corner of B and Kentucky streets.

Also in 1911, George P. McNear announced that his offices, on the corner of B Street and Main - now the Great Petaluma Mill - would add a “new lavatory and retiring room, entirely for the use of young ladies at the office.” It had been the advent of those new fangled typewriting machines that had brought those ladies into a man’s world.

The Northwest Pacific Railroad had built their new round barn on East D Street and Copeland Street in October of 1911, and Van Bebber Brothers Blacksmith and Machine Works was advertising the new “Fairbanks pumping engine, The Eclipse, which can be installed as cheap as a windmill.” Ironically, 105 years ago, it was an “in” thing to replace your clean-energy wind power with a gasoline engine. Van Bebber Brothers is also still with us, on Petaluma Boulevard South.

In the Petaluma entertainment scene in 1911, Kitty Welch, “The Irish Cucoo,” was performing at The Hill Opera House. It was said that “Miss Kitty has a costly wardrobe, and will set you wild with joy.” Miss Kitty was on a double bill with ventriloquist, Jim Derwin, “whose act is clean, classy and catchy.”

Also appearing in Petaluma the same week, was the Reverend L. O. Ferguson, who was speaking to the subject “Shall women vote?” The good reverend, by the way, was for it, and the house was packed.

In fashion, The Wardrobe Men’s Apparel Shop at 43 Main St., was advertising “The White Cat Union Suit, with a closed crotch.” It begs the question: “Did they sell one with an open crotch?” In fact they did, over at Mattei Brothers on Kentucky Street, “where the good clothes come from.”

But the big Petaluma news of 1911 was on Sept. 30, at the City Council meeting, Petaluma’s Mayor, William Zartman, son of one of Petaluma’s founders and the city’s first blacksmith, dropped a surprise announcement that he was resigning the mayorship. The announcement was said to be like “a bomb that caused total silence” in the council chambers. The Argus commented: “There seemed to be an air of something amiss.”

(Historian Skip Sommer is an Honorary Life Member of Heritage Homes and the Petaluma Historical Museum. Contact him at skipsommer@hotmail.com.)

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