1902 brought cars, speed limits (and women’s abstinence groups) to Petaluma

Historian Skip Sommer looks back at 1902 in Petaluma|

The year was 1902 and Petaluma was 44 years old.

American life expectancy was just 47 years for males, only 14 percent of U.S. homes had a bath tub, and just 8 percent had a telephone. The first motion picture theater in Sonoma County opened in Santa Rosa that year, and the first automobiles were seen in Petaluma, as three ‘White Flyers’ passed through town. However, our Wm. Farrell, “Blacksmith & Wagon Maker,” still carried “A full stock of Studebaker Buggies” on Main Street, just in case that “auto thing” didn’t work out. The Studebaker Buggy Co. started producing autos in 1902, and continued until 1966, when they went out of business.

Take a look at the Petaluma Museum’s permanent exhibit of a Studebaker buggy.

But the automobile trend was definitely “ON,” and Teddy Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to ride in one. Alas, he also became the first president to have an accident in an auto, as an electric train hit his vehicle that same year and killed a secret service man. The seemingly unstoppable “TR” was just slightly injured.

By 1902, across the nation, cities and towns were passing something called ‘speed limit laws.’ On average, they were 10 mph in town, 20 mph rural, both of which were a lot faster than the horse and buggy crowd was used to.

Petaluma had been overloaded with saloons for decades, and in 1902, the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union was lobbying against our Board of Trustees (City Council), for issuing a license to “The Corner Grocery,” which was both a grocery and a saloon. The ladies complained, “The Corner Grocery is an evil, as it affords the opportunity for covert indulgence in the drink habit to many, who would never go into a rum shop.” Petaluma’s WCTU was the most powerful in the entire Bay Area at the time, having in 1891 erected the water fountain still existent on the corner of Western and Main, engraved for “Total Abstinence.”

But our Trustees were unmoved on this vote.

Our town was thriving in 1902, as thousands of tons of hay, butter, hops, baby chicks and eggs were shipped out by scow schooner on our creek, and our dairy industry took note of a new invention called ‘homogenized milk,’ which was said to be an improvement to the trade.

Petaluma Pioneer William Hill died in July of 1902 in his family home on 7th Street. He had crossed the plains for the Gold Rush, but was unsuccessful there and continued on to Sonoma County, to buy a farm on Stony Point Road and to open a mercantile store in Petaluma. In 1866, he opened the Bank Of Sonoma County and was President of that for 20 years, until he organized The William Hill Bank … just across the street.

At one time, Wm. Hill owned over 6,000 acres of Sonoma and Marin County land and was President of The Sonoma County Water Company, as well as The Woolen Mills. Petaluma’s Professor Lippett, spoke at Hill’s funeral, and his pall bearers included the notable Dr. Thomas MaClay, L.C. Byce and J.L. Camm.

California’s first Rose Bowl Game was held in 1902, Stanford vs. Michigan.

The Old West was becoming somewhat tamed, as Butch Cassidy’s “Wild Bunch” was broken-up that year … just months after the announcement that our Native Americans were finally to be granted actual American citizenship. As a further sign of the new times to come, Union Pacific Railroad was advertising that they could take you to Chicago from Petaluma in just 3 days, and the train was even “electric lighted.” Another sign of the times was the Wright Brother’s amazing 1902 flight of an “Aeroplane” in North Carolina.

What would be next? Tractors? Vacuum cleaners? Brownie Cameras?

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, had only been President for a couple of months - following the assassination of President William McKinley - and our Weekly Courier Editor D.W. Ravenscroft, a staunch Democrat, was much irked by his fellow Democrat, William Jennings Bryan’s early hubris and verbosity aimed at still another election shot. DWR editorialized, “The Democracy of the United States is too big for any one man to run!”

Bryan had been soundly defeated in 1901, by the McKinley/Roosevelt ticket, and was making early noise about running once again. The Democratic Party was widely torn asunder at that time, with Bryan strongly for prohibition and against the theory of evolu-tion. It had become a nearly incurable split.

Development news here, was that The Petaluma Incubator Company (Lyman Byce, President), had purchased from Mill Owner George P. McNear the adjoining lot to their Incubator parcel on Main Street, and would build upon the burned-out ruins of the former McNear office, “an elegant two story structure.” It was said, “the lot runs back to the creek.” These parcels are now occupied by our new restaurant, ‘256 North Main’ and the adjoining ‘Buffalo Billiards.’

In World News, Britain’s Queen Victoria died in 1902 at the age of 81. She had been Queen for 64 years and held that record for a British Monarch until 2016, when Queen Elizabeth II broke it. The island of Cuba became independent from Spain in ’02, and that same year, the U.S. pulled out of there (keeping a slice of land called Guantanamo Bay). Also that year, the Country of Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the U.S. and in Asia, the Grand Empress of China finally forbade the strange ugly practice of “binding feet” …. as millions of Chinese peasant girls exclaimed, “Whew!” (It took a woman to make that happen).

But, in case you thought everything has changed since ‘02, catch this item from our Daily Courier of Aug. 28, 1902.

“Today, two Mexican women were caught attempting to smuggle cigars ashore from the Steamer Curacao. Over six hundred ci-gars were sewn in layers in petticoats and bustles of two women passengers. Over one thousand more were found hidden in the crew’s quarters.”

(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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