page_title: Petaluma, California
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Petaluma, California / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A bust of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1807–1890) located at the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park outside of Petaluma, California
context_page_description: Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, part of the North Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area, located 37 mi north of San Francisco. Its population was 57,941 according to the 2010 Census.
  The Rancho Petaluma Adobe, located in Petaluma, is a National Historic Landmark. Its construction started in 1836 by order of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, then Commandant of the San Francisco Presidio. It was the center of a 66,000 acre ranch stretching from Petaluma River to Sonoma Creek. The adobe is considered one of the best preserved buildings of its era in Northern California.
  Petaluma is a transliteration of the Coast Miwok phrase péta lúuma which means hill backside. Péta Lúuma was originally the name of a Miwok village located near the present day borders of the city of Petaluma.
  Petaluma has a well-preserved, historic city center which includes many buildings that survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
context_section_description: The Coast Miwok resided in southern Sonoma County, and Péta Lúuma was originally the name of a Miwok village east of the Petaluma River. A number of other Coast Miwok villages were also located in and around what is now Petaluma; Wotoki, immediately to the south of the village of Petaluma, on the opposite side of the river, Etem, Likatiut, and Tuchayalin, near downtown Petaluma, and Tulme and Susuli, just north of what are now the city limits of Petaluma.
  The Petaluma area was part of a 66,000 acre (270 km²) 1834 Mexican land grant by Governor Jose Figueroa to Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo called Rancho Petaluma. In 1836, Vallejo ordered construction of his Rancho Petaluma Adobe a ranch house in Petaluma, which his family often used as a summer home, while he resided in the neighboring town of Sonoma. Vallejo's influence and Mexican control in the region began to decline after Vallejo's arrest during the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846.
  Pioneers moved to Petaluma from the eastern United States after James Marshall found gold in the Sierra Nevada in 1848. The town's position on the Petaluma River in the heart of productive farmland was critical to its growth during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Sailing scows, such as the scow schooner Alma (1892), and steamers plied the river between Petaluma and San Francisco, carrying agricultural produce and raw materials to the burgeoning city of San Francisco during the California Gold Rush.
  There were brothels downtown along Petaluma Boulevard, which used to be the main thoroughfare until U.S. Highway 101 was constructed in the 1950s.
  The Sonoma County Bank Building was the home of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company and the Petaluma Seed Bank for a time. It was built in 1926.
  Petaluma soon became known for its grain milling and chicken processing industries, which continue to the present as a smaller fraction of its commerce. At one time, Petaluma was known as the "Egg Capital of the World," sparking such nicknames as "Chickaluma". Petaluma hosted the only known poultry drugstore and is the place where the egg incubator was invented by Lyman Byce in 1879. Petaluma is also where Randall Smith founded Mesa/Boogie (also known as Mesa Engineering), which manufactures high quality guitar and bass guitar amplification.
  One of the largest historic chicken processing plants still stands in the central area of town; this 1930s brick building is no longer used for the chicken industry, but is being evaluated for preservation and change of use. Even though it is no longer known as the Egg Capital of the World, Petaluma maintains a strong agricultural base today with dairy farms, olive groves, vineyards, and berry and vegetable farms.
  According to the Army Museum at the Presidio, San Francisco, Petaluma was relatively unharmed during the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906, due to significant stable bedrock underlying the region.  As one of the few communities in the region left standing after the earthquake, Petaluma was the staging point for most Sonoma County rescue and relief efforts.
  Petaluma is today the location of many distinguished, well-preserved pre-1906 buildings and Victorian homes on the western side of the river.  The downtown area has suffered many river floods over the years and during the Depression commerce declined. A lack of funds prevented the demolition of the old homes and buildings. In the 1960s there was a counter-culture migration out of San Francisco into Marin County and southern Sonoma County, looking for inexpensive housing in a less urban environment. The old Victorian, Queen Anne and Eastlake style houses were restored. Historic iron-front buildings in the downtown commercial district were also rescued. Traffic and new home development for the most part was rerouted to the east of downtown by the construction of the 101 freeway. The downtown Petaluma Historic Commercial District is on the National Register of Historic Places.
  The first official airmail flight took place in 1911, when Fred Wiseman carried a handful of mail from Petaluma to Santa Rosa, includi
caption: Monument to Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, founder of Rancho Petaluma.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A570 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:30 12:20:58", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "3072", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2304", "Image ExifOffset": "280", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:30 12:20:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:08:30 12:20:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "319/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "127/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "40960/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2304000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}