Remember When

By KRISTIN HENDERSON Special to the Tribune NOTE: The following is Part 4 of several installments on Martinez City Hall. Many thanks to retired Deputy City Clerk Mercy Cabral for setting me up with these records and lazerfiche. In 1950, the City of Martinez sold its 1912 City Hall that …

By KRISTIN HENDERSON Special to the Tribune NOTE: The following is Part 2 of several installments on Martinez City Hall. Architecture is the one art form the public cannot escape. Frank Lloyd Wright stated: “Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is …

By KRISTIN HENDERSON Special to the Tribune NOTE: The following is Part 1 of several installments on Martinez City Hall. The building where we visit the police department, pay our water bills, submit our building plans, and attend public meetings began its life in 1917 as a Grammar School. I …

By RAY ROBBINS Special to the Tribune During the 1930s till the early 1960s, everyone in the county knew that downtown Martinez was the place to go for shopping and entertainment. Martinez was sort of a hub; it had the ferry, train station, Greyhound bus station and privately owned taxi …

At the time of this photo, August 1989, the man seen in this photograph was the last remaining milkman in Contra Costa County. His delivery truck seemed to be a vintage model even then! (CONTRA COSTA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY / Courtesy)

By RAY ROBBINS Special to the Tribune I miss tagging along with my older brother and his friends, riding the ferry boat to Benicia and back. You could ride all day for 10 cents, if you knew where to hide. I miss being shooed away from Pasco’s Bar on the …

By DANNY YOEONO Martinez Tribune Pacheco Tobacco Company opens Pacheco, 1874: The Pacheco Tobacco Company was incorporated, with a capital stock of $10,000, for the purpose of leasing or purchasing land, as well as curing and manufacturing tobacco. (CCCHS) Ferry Street Canteen closes Ferry Street in 1946: Next to the …

By RAY ROBBINS Special to the Tribune When I was growing up in Martinez in the late 1940s, there wasn’t much air conditioning around, so in the dog days of summer we were always looking around for places to stay cool. We would make excuses to visit the Union Ice …

By RAY ROBBINS Special to the Tribune When I was attending Alhambra High School in the 1950s, we had curriculum and activities offered to us that would be the envy of every school district in the state of California. We didn’t have vice principals or counselors, our teachers and coaches …