Ye Olden Oakland Days
(Contributed by Oakland Pioneers - No. 32)
EARLY-DAY DRYGOODS STORES by J. S. Gilmore
There came into Oakland about 1857 a pack peddler named J. Herzog. He traveled about the county for about a year or two, selling notions of various kinds but gave particular attention to things connected with the dry goods line. His business increased so rapidly that he could not carry a sufficient amount of goods to suit all his customers, so he purchased an old white horse and transferred his pack to the animal, which was led about with a halter. A few years more elapsed and our enterprising merchant built a two-story brick building, still standing on the west side of Broadway, about midway between Third and Fourth streets. He used the ground floor for a drygoods store and the upper floor was made into a hall and rented to the Good Templar's lodge.
He carried a large stock of foods, and with one clerk to help him he amassed quite a fortune. To give class to his establishment he called it "Herzog's Bazaar." This new word was a puzzle to the boys and girls who on their way to school disputed as to the proper pronunciation, but the one most generally accepted was "buzzer." Herzog afterwards purchased a tract of land between Oakland and Berkeley and sold it off in small lots.
When I first came to Oakland, in 1863, the business section was all on Broadway below Seventh street, on which the steam railroad trains had then been running but a short time. The few stores that Oakland boasted of at that time corresponded in a measure with the modern department store, as they carried everything from a needle to an anchor. One of them was conducted by S. Hirshberg, whose son, the late David S. Hirshberg 1 2, Attorney, will be remembered by all old-timers as one of the pupils who attended Oakland's first public school.
In the early '60's, Sol Adler opened a small dry goods store on the west side of Broadway, just a few doors north from Fourth street, where he also lived in the rear with his family. There he did a good business for several years.
These stores were all located south of Seventh street, but, with the advent of the steam cars on that street, business began to move north, and before 1868, the year of a big earthquake, several stores were in operation north of Seventh street. These were larger and more citified than the old ones, having show-windows, cared fixtures, etc. They also required their clerks to wear white shirts and stiff collars and to shave frequently, while to wait on customers in shirt sleeves came to be considered bad form.
Jacob Greenhood's store was in the Shattuck building on the southwest corner of Broadway and Eighth streets. His head clerk was James T. Moran, who is still in the business in this city. It was in this store that the writer of this article sold his first yard of calico. As there were no parcel deliveries or street cars at that time, it was also his duty to deliver packages, sometimes as far as East Oakland, then known as Brooklyn; also to Temescal and the Willows, as the section now called Emeryville was known in those days. There were no time clocks to punch and the boss never kicked about the length of time taken.
Several years later Greenhood's establishment was moved to Broadway and Eleventh Street, and known as "Greenhood Bros.," with the clothing annex next door conducted by J. Greenhood and James T. Moran, under the firm name of "Greenhood & Moran."