I started this expedition at the Oakland Produce Market, which takes up several blocks just north of Jack London Square. The market is open from 1 am to 7 am, so it was closed when I visited, but still fun to see.
Apparently, there have been plans over the decades to move the market, which dates from 1916 and certainly shows its age. Maybe I’ll try visiting soon! It’s open to the public although it mostly serves restaurant and grocery owners.
The area supports a few restaurants plus the infamous dive bar, Merchant’s Saloon, whose delightful tag line is “poisoning Oakland since 1916.” I have no idea what this mural is about but it seems to fit in with the atmosphere.
Next I walked across the railroad tracks to Jack London Square. When he was 15, Jack London bought a boat called the Razzle Dazzle, completing the transaction at nearby Heinold’sFirst and Last Chance Saloon, which has been in business at the same location since 1884.
It’s known to locals for having an extremely slanted floor due to damage from the 1906 earthquake. The building was originally an oysterman’s bunkhouse built from the timbers of an abandoned steamboat. The name derives from its customers, who were either going to sea or returning. Or maybe both.
Other Jack London memorials are a life sized bronze statue of him, one of a wolf and half of his 1898 cabin from the Klondike Gold Rush. The cabin was taken apart and divided into two. The logs are original. The other cabin is in Dawson City in the Yukon. I love how flowers are growing on the roof!
The plaque commemorates a Pony Express rider who rode from Sacramento to Oakland with the mail sack and then nearly missed the boat going to San Francisco. Normally, the mail was loaded onto a ship in Sacramento but sometimes the rider missed that one too. The Pony Express is amazingly famous in spite of only existing for 18 months and then going bankrupt after the arrival of telegraph service.
My final Oakland history stop was at Hansen’s Coffee, a wholesale coffee seller owned by the Hansen family since 1894. I didn’t find a photo of the neon lit up so I guess it’s no longer working. Too bad! Next time I take BART home from San Francisco, I’ll look out the window and check!