“My first job was helping sweep out the California Theater on Saturday mornings for owner Doc Naify,” Bob said. Petaluma Little League built its first baseball diamond at Kenilworth Park, a convenient spot for eastsiders like Bob, who played first base and was a left-handed pitching all-star on the Petaluma Grocery team. Safeway Stores moved to the east side, several gas stations opened, the Petaluma Inn was built and housing continued to spread along the renamed McDowell Boulevard. “We had the first swimming pool on that side of town. “In our neighborhood every house had schoolkids,” remembered Bob. McDowell Elementary and Kenilworth Junior High were built in 1957, shortening the walking distance for students on the emerging east side. Jake landed a job with McNear Brick in San Rafael, and the children attended the Lutheran school on Fifth Street before transferring to McKinley School the following year. Arriving in 1955 – with their belongings packed into a small trailer towed by the family Studebaker – the Hofers moved into a home on Cortez Drive. Halfway across the country, in Huron, South Dakota, feed and grain inspector Jake Hofer, his wife Lorraine and children Bob and Brenda had decided to move to Petaluma, population 12,000, where they had relatives. Before Highway 101 was completed in 1956, the first development along McDowell Road was a tract of about 125 two-or three-bedroom, one-bath homes, built in 1952 and known as McDowell Village. The first subdivision on the east side, the Blackwell tract, was built in 1946. and Sunset Line & Twine, mixed with early 20th-century housing. Until the 1950s, East Petaluma was a combination of businesses such as Golden Eagle Milling, Poultry Producers of Central California, Cavanaugh Lumber Co. Along with having a career that required clocking in at 3 a.m., Hofer lived on the east side and watched it transform from hay fields and farms into an area where the majority of townsfolk live today. Longtime resident Bob Hofer became a baker as a teenager and may be the only person to have worked at three of the above bakeries. The other much-loved earl Petaluma bakeries are Petaluma French, which opened in 1913 and became Lombardi’s French in 1951, the Daylight, which opened in 1921 and became Joe’s A-1 Bakery in 1954, Polly Ann in 1928 and Schindler’s in 1948.īy the mid-1960s, we were down to four bakeries, but added two doughnut shops – Winchell’s Donut House and Flaky Cream Do-nuts.

It’s gone through a number of owners and name changes since the 1990s and is now Della Fattoria. Bakery, at 141 Main St., opened in the 1860s. In the late 1950s, there were five uptown bakeries offering a choice of fresh-baked loaves of white, wheat, rye and French breads, and a sweet-tooth-satisfying selection of delectable pies, cakes, cookies and other pastries. It seems like Petaluma has always harbored a craving for fresh bread and baked sugary temptations.

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