Petaluma Vintage Signs Guidebook
By By Katherine J. Rinehart, Al Barna, and Randall Ann Homan
San Francisco: Giant Orange Press, 2025, 2025
Softcover, 28 pages, $10 plus shipping at https://sfneon.org/books/
Reviewed by Douglas C. Towne
My first encounter with Petaluma, California, the self-proclaimed “Egg Basket of the World,” was a long-ago visit to see John Burbank, a high school friend who had relocated there. He immediately took me to The Washoe House, a bar and restaurant housed in a former stagecoach stop and inn that opened in 1859. “This seems to be your type of place,” he said. And it was, with an official historical marker out front and a red porcelain enamel neon sign from the 1950s advertising the establishment.
This is stop #14 in the recently published Petaluma Vintage Signs Guidebook, which covers “glowing neon, weathered ghost signs, and local hotspots in this city of historic architecture.” Katherine J. Rinehart teamed up with two of the brightest lights in commercial archaeology, Al and Randall Ann, known for their San Francisco Neon group, a beehive of projects, tours, events, and books, to put this publication together.
Rinehart’s name might sound familiar because she’s a consulting historian, the founder of the Petaluma Signs Project in 2025, and the author of “A Northern California City’s Story in Neon and Paint: The Signs of Petaluma,” featured in the Fall 2025 SCA Journal.
Petaluma is located 50 miles north of San Francisco, and the booklet is the perfect companion for those who might breeze through the city in search of roadside highlights. This geographer applauds the fun, easy-to-read introductory map of the 15 suggested stops, making navigation quick and easy. With impressive photography, vintage images, and a concise history of each stop, the guide is a perfect way to make the most of your time in the Sonoma County community.
Many recommended signs are located downtown, and the authors suggest walking to several of them or even renting a bike to visit the stops. Although the SCA is focused on auto-oriented development, walking or biking allows for even more micro-discoveries along the way.
Be sure to pick up a copy if you’re planning to visit the area. Even better, grab one and use it as a guide to create a similar publication featuring the best signs and architectural highlights in your neck of the woods. Your fellow time-crunched SCA members will be glad you did.
In a story many SCA members likely can relate to, during that 1997 trip to Petaluma, Douglas Towne was in nearby Ukiah, photographing vintage neon signs glowing in the night, when a carload of rough-looking dudes pulled over to hassle him. His friend, a firefighter, walked up, flashed his badge, and asked if there was a problem. The louts, thinking he was a cop, meekly apologized and drove off.
This book review originally appeared in the SCA Journal, Spring 2026, Vol. 44, No. 1. The SCA Journal is a semi-annual publication and a member benefit of the Society for Commercial Archeology.
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