San Francisco’s Palace Hotel had early Petalumans talking

Residents of Petaluma were all atwitter in 1875 when San Francisco’s grand Palace Hotel, the most lavish in California, opened its gilded doors for the first time on Oct. 2.

The hotel, sporting 755 rooms, was seven stories high, the tallest building in San Francisco and the largest hotel in the United States at the time. The Palace had 7,000 windows and an incredible open-court carriage entrance located on the interior, but open all the way to the glass-domed seventh floor.

Guests on upper balconies could gaze down upon arriving buggies and notables.

More importantly, perhaps, the Palace offered a private toilet and sink in a “water closet” in most rooms, although the bath tubs were shared between two rooms. This modernity was novel at a time when Petaluma was still debating the installation of public sewers.

Each room of the Palace also contained a fireplace, with hundreds of flues sticking out of the roof.

Petalumans were talking about taking a steamer down the Petaluma River to San Francisco to see for themselves the “rising rooms,” five hydraulic elevators, the first on the West Coast, that rose all the way to the seventh floor.

The Palace Hotel had long been the project of San Francisco’s William Ralston, who had made his fortune in the gold and silver rushes, and then founded the Bank of California.

Mr. Ralston had partnered with U.S. Senator William Sharon, who owned the majority of stock in the rich Comstock Lode, which Ralston had used as collateral to finance his bank.

When Sen. Sharon suddenly dumped his stock in August 1875, the Bank of California folded the following day. That same afternoon, Ralston’s body was found floating in San Francisco Bay. It was speculated, but not proven, to be a suicide.

The wily Sen. Sharon immediately took over the remaining construction of the Palace and one and a half months after Ralston’s mysterious death, opened the massive hotel doors to great fanfare.

Petaluma was vigorously trying to obtain a railroad to extend to Santa Rosa that year, after the decrepit Petaluma and Haystack RR had failed. Since 1869, the Chicago and Northwestern RR was able to take you across the entire continent via the Pioneer Route, and those trains even featured “Pullman Palace cars.” The RR subject was a very nasty and intense argument in Petaluma back then.

The three largest banks in Petaluma in 1875 were the First National Gold Bank of Petaluma, with I.G. Wickersham as president, the Petaluma Savings Bank, with H.T. Fairbanks as president, and, just across the street, the Bank of Sonoma County, with William Hill as president, and the Denmans and McNears on the board of directors.

These great Petaluma pioneer families competed with each other, but also joined together in some business ventures. They all took a steamer down the creek and rode to see the Palace Hotel. John McNear, who was mulling the idea of yanking his son, George P., out of Petaluma High School to run his feed mill, took him to San Francisco to show him how life could be in his future. McNear did pull “G.P.” out of school the following April.

And, of course, Petaluma Creek needed dredging that year, (what’s new?), and the Argus editor was hammering on our Congressman, John Luttrell, to get the required $25,000 in federal funds. Rep. Luttrell had apparently only mentioned it on the House Floor, but Argus wrote: “That’s the last we ever heard of it. Mr. Luttrell’s talents seem to go no further.”

Also in Petaluma at the time, the Ice Depot on English and Kentucky streets kept “constantly on hand a large amount of ice” and offered “fresh fish twice a week.” And the Arcade Saloon on English Street advertised: “Wine, Liquors, Cigars and Shooting Gallery.” Not a good mix, I think.

And, if you liked oysters, you didn‘t have to travel down-creek to San Francisco, the Saddle Rock Oyster House on English Street offered “California oysters from .75 cents to $1 per hundred.”

Well, it wasn’t the Palace Hotel, but it was local, and it was cheap.

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