Jennifer Dowling - Rodeo

RODEOS FIRST SALOON. Patrick Tormeys ranch foreman, Jeremiah Jerry Mahoney, built and operated Rodeos first saloon, the Rodeo Exchange. Mahoney, an Irish immigrant, also graded the streets for the new town. It was said he could plow straight as a gunshot. The early town residents built homes on Lake and Garretson Avenues. Some of these houses remain, but most of the early commercial buildings were destroyed in fires. This chapter covers the first 50 years of the town, from its founding in 1890 to the advent of World War II. (Courtesy Werth family.)

PATRICK TORMEY, EARLY SETTLER. Patrick Tormey, The Father of a Town, was born in Ireland in 1840 and immigrated to California when he was 18. He and an older brother, John, ultimately acquired property stretching from present-day Pinole to Tormey. Both brothers served as county supervisors, and Patrick was involved in the Union Stock Yard Company, to which he sold the Rodeo town site. His life came to a dramatic end in May 1907, when he died of food poisoning after dining in Oakland, California.

MEATPACKING PLANT, 1906. The ruins of the Union Stock Yard were recorded on April 18, 1906, hours after a major earthquake shook the entire Bay Area. In the 1890s, the facility included seven four-story buildings, two ice plants, railroad track, seven miles of pipe, 54 cattle pens, 72 sheep and hog pens, and a 1,000-foot wharf. Salvaged brick was bought by Grace Brothers Brewing Company for its Santa Rosa brewery. (Courtesy Crockett Historical Society, Harry Nancett Collection.)

EXCURSION BY STEAMER, 1892. To Rodeo By Steamer, urging potential buyers to visit a town into which money is being poured, appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1892. The trip to Rodeo was a special excursion not on the regular route. The paddle-wheel steamer James M. Donahue , named for a pioneer San Francisco industrialist, was put into service to connect the North Bay (Tiburon) to San Francisco. The pride of the Donahue boats was capable of 18 knots.

HOTEL RODEO, 1892. The three-story Hotel Rodeo, located at the northwest corner of Vaqueros Avenue and First Street, included offices, a stock exchange, a bank, a bar, vaults, sitting rooms, a dining room, a kitchen, and 43 handsomely furnished guest rooms, plus unfinished space for expansion. It was built for $31,370 by Oaklands Smilie Brothers. By 1893, the stockyard had failed, and the hotel was later closed. On a Sunday evening in March 1897, a fire consumed the structure.

LAGRAND HOTEL. The LaGrand Hotel and Bar (previously known as the Depot Hotel), opposite the Southern Pacific station on San Pablo Avenue, was constructed in the 1890s. The bar is remembered as the site of a fatal shooting in which a packing-plant butcher attacked his own brother, whose affectionate attention to the butchers wife had made him jealous. The bar was destroyed by a fire after the building had been vacant for several years. (Courtesy Marlene Nancett.)

CARDOZAS SALOON, 1906. Antone Tony Cardozas saloon, at 642 First Street near Railroad Avenue, was photographed the morning after it opened. Tony was one of several brothers who came from Portugal, an immigrant group heavily represented in early Rodeo. Note the barber pole at left. Ruhstallers Steam Beer is advertised on the circular sign. (Courtesy Marlene Nancett.)

MAHONEYS SALOON. This early-20th-century view shows Jerry Mahoney behind the bar. The men are believed to be Bill Pawsey (left), a teamster, and John Cooper (right), an oil company worker. Buckets could be filled with beer at the taps on the left, while the more expensive whiskeys sit on shelves behind doors etched with the words Old Judge Whiskey. The saloon was one of eight buildings that were destroyed in a July 1915 fire. (Courtesy Ginochio family.)