Stop Here *This is the Place* Klinknerville

Stop Here *This is the Place* Klinknerville

By Phil Stahlman

In the last few years of the 19th century, the rapidly expanding city of Oakland began to absorb its neighbors, the small East Bay communities begun by the generation of immigrants who followed the ’49ers. Many small towns disappeared, their stories to remain untold.

Least told of these stories is that of Klinknerville and its founder Charles Klinkner. In 1893, when Klinkner died, he had established a thriving small town boasting hotels, shops, a school, a baseball park, baseball teams, a firehouse, many fine homes and a magnificent Gothic edifice known as “Klinkner Hall” which served as the hub of the community and meeting place for its clubs and organizations, weddings and parties.

Klinkner was a small-time tycoon who built a fortune on the sale of rubber stamps, which allowed him to dabble in empire building and self-promotion; and what better base for his activities than his own town, built in his image?

And something of a strange image it was: Klinkner, with his long beard, a top hat in which he kept deeds and business papers, and a coat with 38 pockets which he used as his office, and his advertising-festooned donkey cart which he shared with his constant companions, a dog wearing an advertisement coat and a monkey who rode on the dog’s back.

On holidays the donkeys were painted by Klinkner to celebrate the day; thus on St. Patrick’s Day Klinkner and his coterie were pulled through town by a bright green donkey, and on the fourth of July by a donkey adorned with painted stars and stripes. The fact that Oakland does not annually celebrate a Klinkner holiday on which citizens paint their animals in bright colors and engage in Klinkner’s characteristic habit of drinking to excess is proof of the lack of a sense of collective East Bay memory.

A Traveling Huckster

Charles Klinkner was born in Ausen, Germany on June 25, 1852. When he was two, his family moved to Cascade, Iowa, where his father worked as a shoemaker and farmer. At age 11 Klinkner went to work in a drug store, later moving to Worthington, Iowa, where at age 19 he became a farmer. Only a year later, though, Klinkner was off to the Golden West, arriving in San Francisco on August 28, 1872. He went to work in the Van Shaack Auction House on Kearney Street, but left in a matter of months to try farming again in Solano County. Farming held no more appeal for Klinkner in California than it had in Iowa, however, and just three months later he gave it up to become a traveling “huckster” selling “patent novelties.” In 1881 a local journal credited Klinkner with “introducing many labor-saving devices into the homes of this section.” Klinkner seems to have been a natural salesman, for he prospered in trade and became a representative for a least one San Francisco business.

During this period, Klinkner met Katherine Parke, and on November 23, 1875 they were married in Vacaville. Katherine, born in Oakland on September 1, 1855, was the daughter of Robert and Margaret (Alexander) Parke. early pioneers of California. As a baby, Katherine lived at the mines of the Mother Lode. Later, her father, a veteran of the Mexican War, farmed the area where Mills College now stands, but eventually sold his farm and moved to the lower Sacramento Valley, which is presumably where Katherine encountered the energetic young Mr. Klinkner. Katherine had received an excellent education and developed a thorough competence in business, a resource she was to call on in untangling and managing her husband’s affairs after his death.

Red Rubber Stamps

About a year after their marriage, Klinkner opened his own business, a manufactory of rubber stamps at 103 Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Again, his enterprise prospered and in 1878 the company moved to better quarters at 320 Sansome Street. Here his trade really expanded, and soon Klinkner’s products were sold all over the Pacific Coast, with business especially brisk in San Francisco and Oakland.

Even as his “Red Rubber” stamp manufacturing business boomed. Klinkner found a new interest. As early as 1875, he began looking for a home site in the East Bay, possibly at Katherine’s suggestion. In 1877, he bought a lot on San Pablo Road and built a fine home. In 1877, the San Pablo Road area consisted almost entirely of dairy farms, and the city of Oakland extended only to 20th Street. The cable car ran as far as Park Avenue. Despite the fact that there were very few homes in the area, Klinkner had tracks laid down and established a horsecar line which ran from Park Avenue to about present-day 62nd Street. He hired John Marcoux to operate the line.

Gothic Bookends

The opening of a branch line of the Southern Pacific Railroad nearby in 1878 poised the area for home development, and Klinkner continued to invest. In 1885, with partner P. F. Butler, Klinkner purchased a 14-acre tract of dairy farms and quickly moved to layout lots and build homes. In 1886 he built Klinkner Hall, a Gothic 3- story building with shops on the ground floor and meeting halls and apartments above. The clock tower on the building’s southwest corner served to announce to travelers that they had arrived in Klinknerville.

By 1888 Klinkner had added 37 houses “from mansions to cottages.” To greet travelers from the north, Klinkner built the Del Monte Hotel, another substantial clock tower-equipped building. The Del Monte Hotel and Klinkner Hall formed a pair of Gothic bookends for Klinknerville.

Klinkner hired J. C. Sullivan to run the Del Monte Hotel, but Klinkner’s personal touch was evident in the boast printed on the menus:

“Anyone not getting his breakfast red hot or experiencing a delay of 16 seconds after giving his order will please mention the fact at the manager’s office and cooks and waiters will be blown from the mouth of a cannon in the front of the hotel at once.” A postscript added: “This house has no connection with any of the cheap dives of the neighborhood.”

Jackass Advertising

Klinkner’s real estate ventures seemed to whet his appetite for self-promotion, and he began to launch a series of dizzying advertising schemes, both for Klinknerville and for his rubber stamp business. It was his habit to ride in his advertising-draped donkey cart along San Pablo Avenue visiting with acquaintances and prospects, doing business out of his many-pocketed coat. Animals often featured in his promotions, including his brightly-painted donkeys. In 1888 Klinkner told an Oakland Evening Tribune reporter that he would rather have driven horses “but the Jackass advertising pays me big money.” The jackasses, according to Klinkner, were “worth $20 a day to me.”

Klinkner’s son, Fred, who ran a pharmacy on San Pablo Avenue after his father’s death, recounted for an Oakland Tribune reporter in 1942 his father’s unique elkdriven cart:

“I was just a kid then and I was afraid of that elk. My father used to harness him to a four wheel sulky rig and drive him into town. If I rode I sat as jar back as I could in case the elk reared up. Once my father was watering him and he Jumped right over the trough. Few could handle him.”

Fred Klinkner also reminisced about the kaleidoscopic colors his father’s span of jackasses assumed: “On the Fourth of July he‘d paint them red, white, and blue and on St. Patrick’s Day they galloped through town with a green coat of paint on everything but their ears.”

Klinkner’s wildest use of his animals for advertising involved parachuting a brightly-painted jackass from a hot air balloon. This stunt was described in a January 14th, 1888 Oakland Enquirer article titled, “C. A. Klinkner’s Latest And Most Novel Advertising Idea,” The article reported that

“Klinkner has on foot a new advertising scheme. Professor Van Tassel is to make a balloon ascension from Central Park tomorrow and when at a height of 2000 feet is to attach his wife to a parachute· and cut her loose from the balloon, claiming that she will descent to the earth in safety. Klinkner, by way of advertisement, offered the aeronaut $50.00 to substitute one of his painted donkeys for the gentleman’s wife in making the descent with the parachute. The offer was accepted and the donkey will sail at the appointed hour provided some humane individual from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals does not interfere. It is presumed the donkey will exercise his vocal powers to the best of his ability during the ride in the sky and should he make a descent in heavy jog upon some unadvised locality the inhabitants will doubtless mistake his song for the blowing of Gabriel’s famous trumpet and act accordingly.”

The Oakland Enquirer, which reported the incident, did not report what happened to the donkey.

Mishaps

Klinkner, of course, was the darling of local newspapers, which could count on a constant stream of Klinkner “items.” Although Klinkner like to say “Early to bed, early to rise, never get drunk but advertise,” the following newspaper report from the September 12, 1887 Oakland Evening Tribune indicates that Klinkner chose not to follow his own scripture:

“Klinkner‘s cart was stolen by a couple of drunks and jound by the police. Thereafter Klinkner came to the prison to reclaim the advertising vehicle, but while he was across the street celebrating its recovery with a drink someone else drove off in it and it was late before it was recovered. As if the firm were not already in trouble enough, yesterday the driver of the wagon (Klinkner) took a little outing and ran afoul of Officer Ross with the result that he was docketed for drunkenness and disturbing the peace.· His drunkenness cost him just $6 this morning, but lte would not admit the disturbances and will be tried on the 17th.”

The May 27, 1887 Oakland Enquirer reported another mishap involving celebrity Klinkner:

“C. A. Klinkner came nearer to being killed last night than perhaps he ever did before. While driving along San Pablo Avenue near 9th Street. he came to a place where a big ditch had been dug and as there were no lanterns hung out to give warning he drove into the abyss. The horse stood on his head and belabored the air with his hind legs, while Mr. Klinkner rolled around in the ditch beside his beast and vainly tried to extricate himself. Fortunately a cable car came along and the people on board, seeing the struggling, got off and pulled the great town builder out of the dangerous hole.”

Accounts of Klinknerville’s Sazerac Liars Club, which met at the Del Monte Hotel, appeared regularly in the Crier Column of the Morning Times. The column for June 4, 1889 reported: “C.A. Klinkner was present and enlivened the exercise with a bass solo. He is possessed of a flexible voice, bird-like at times, but capable of lightning descents at low register.”

Some of Klinkner’s self-promotion yielded less benign attention. In September of 1887 a scheme to raffle off unsold houses through the sale of lottery tickets went badly awry. A San Francisco Daily Report article on September 12, 1887 titled “Captured Klinkner” described the result of Klinkner’s scheme:

“Detectives Leon and Hanley paid a visit to C.A. Klinkner, the red rubber stamp man, at his office, No. 320 Sansome Street, this afternoon and arrested him for having lottery tickets in his possession. They took sixteen tickets for the next drawing in his scheme for raffling off houses and lots in Klinknerville at $2 a chance. In his plug hat they found a Louisiana lottery ticket. To their astonishment the officers discovered that he had thirty-eight pockets and it was almost a days work to search him. He was released upon posting $50 bail.”

“This is the Place”

A second scheme, designed to promote Klinkner‘s rubber stamp business, also resulted in Klinkner‘s apprehension by the law and newspaper accounts of his arrest. The Daily Examiner of April 23, 1890 ran the following article under the banner “Never Do It Again: Klinkner’s Advertising Causes His Arrest”:

“Secret Service Agent Harris today made a raid upon the office of C.A. Klinkner at 320 Sansome Street and captured several boxes of imitation 5 cent nickels, with which Klinkner had been flooding the city during the past week. The imitation bear an advertisement of the goods sold by Klinkner and can be readily detected, but might be passed upon an unsuspecting person as good. Last Sunday numbers of them were distributed at the children’s playground at Golden Gate Park, where the youngsters found them very useful in working the drop-a-nickel-in-the-slot machines. Klinkner was taken before District Attorney Carey but upon promising that he would issue no more of his counterfeits was allowed to go.”

The article ended with an advisement to readers that Klinkner had been arrested before for “distributing obscene matter, cruelty to animals, etc.”

Klinkner was not always humbled by the law. At one point, fearing that some stranger might wander through town without stopping to buy a lot or house from him, he had a huge banner strung across San Pablo Road to promote his real estate company. ”STOP HERE. THIS IS THE PLACE — KLINKNERVILLE” it declared in letters the height of a grown man.

This, added to the jackasses and Klinkner’s ceaseless self-promotion, was too much for some of the prosperous citizens of Klinkner’s Eden and they took him to court to have the sign removed. Justice of the Peace Reed decided that the sign was legal. Jubilantly. Klinkner had the posts on each side of the banner painted white and lettered “Long May She Wave. Hurrah For Reed.”

Lobbying for Klinknerville

Some years later, though, Klinkner was denied his triumph, and denied the legacy of an eternal Klinknerville, when he got into a scramble with J. O. Watkins, who ran a grocery store and real estate company at Stanford and San Pablo Avenues. The scrape centered on the name and location of the post office to serve the area. “What’s In A Name?” asked the Oakland Evening Tribune’s account of the great Klinknerville feud which fought its way to the nation’s capital. The Evening Tribune’s article was based on an intervlew with Klinkner after he had just returned from Washington, although he denied that his trip East involved lobbying for Klinknerville.

“According to Klinkner this is what happened re: name of town: He had tried to get a post office at Klinknerville before 1887 and found that it could not be done because there was another post office within a mile at a place called “Lorin.” Then Klinkner learned that a former employee of his, J. O. Watkins, was petitioning to be postmaster of the Klinknerville tract. When Klinkner heard this he got up a petition to Washington with a telegraph asking that they withhold action on Watkins’ request until Klinkner’s petition arrived. The authorities did so and upon the strength of Klinkner’s petition established a post office in 1887 designating it as “Klinknerville” and appointing a Dr. Hogshead as postmaster.

Mr. Klinkner’s story is that Watkins was mad when this was done and swore vengeance and sent a petition to Washington asking to have the name changed, Enclosed with the petition were several statements reflecting on the character of Klinkner. This petition was granted, and the Post Office was changed from Klinknerville to Golden Gate. Klinkner states that one of the reasons given by the objectors to the town bearing his name was: ‘Why you may as well call the town Jackassville as Klinknerville’

Mr. Klinkner sent another petition to Washington bearing the signature of 75% of the voters of the town, asking for the reversal of the name of Golden Gate to Klinknerville and he expects that after the smoke and heat of the political battle which is now raging will have cleared away the postal authorities will restore the name to Klinknerville.

W. B. Wightman, Senator Heart’s private secretary, who is now at home in this city, says that the petitions sent to Washington about the name of this hamlet showed extraordinary interest of the people living there and that the name was considered at length by the postal authorities.”

As predicted by Klinkner, after the first go-round, the name of the town was changed back to Klinknerville, perhaps because of a trip to Washington made by Klinkner during which he was reported to have made a “personal appeal” to President Cleveland. However, still later the nane was returned to Golden Gate, after Klinkner’s opponents sent to the White House cards and letters issued by Klinkner which, according to Klinkner’s obituary “were not gotten up in the choicest language.”

A Brief but Colorful Life

The good die young and so too did Charles Klinkner. In mid-March of 1893 Klinkner became ill with a cold, which he apparently neglected until severe complications developed. Klinkner “took to his bed” and died on the morning of March 17, 1893 at the age of forty. He left behind his wife, six. children, Klinkner Hall, the Del Monte Hotel, and a fully-developed real estate tract. No one is certain, but among those who mourned Klinkner’s death, one would like to imagine Klinkner’s monkey atop his advertisement-laden dog, both with tears in their eyes.

Predictably, Klinkner’s obituary writers focused on his town-building and his animals, with the emphasis on the latter, The writer for the San Francisco Chronicle summed it up best: “He used to drive around a pair of pink donkeys and always had a monkey with him.” Could anyone aspire to leave behind a more perfect final image?

Klinkner’s business affairs had never been simple or routine and Katherine had her hands full in trying to manage the small empire Charles had left behind. She operated the San Francisco business, C. A. Klinkner & Company, for four years before selling to a former business associate of her husband, L. H. Moise. Moise had been a salesman for Klinkner, but started his own competitive business in the same building before Klinkner died. Moise operated the Moise-Klinkner Co. at the 320 Sansome Street address until 1905, moving to a new building Just in time for the big earthquake. In 1930 Patrick and Co. purchased the Moise-Klinkner Company. Today the firm proudly traces its history back to Charles Klinkner and his red rubber stamps, and continues to supply the business community with signs, coins, and all manner of merchandise.

Klinknerville itself continued to attract residents. Klinkner hadn’t been the only real estate developer in the area, and home construction continued after his death. In 1897. the City of Oakland annexed Klinknerville and with the changing of the name Klinkner Avenue to 59th Street the name Klinknerville came to be used less and less frequently.

Katherine Klinkner

The Klinkner home, having been moved across San Pablo Road to the Southeast corner of Klinkner Avenue and San Pablo, was leveled in 1929 to make way for a modern brick commercial building where Klinkner’s son Fred operated a drugstore for many years. Katherine lived in an apartment in Klinkner Hall until 1941, when she sold the building and moved to a cottage at 1048 59th Street, adjacent to the home of her daughter, Cora DeRome.

After its sale, Klinkner Hall was demolished to make way for a supermarket and parking lot. The Gateway Market is still in operation at the former site of Klinkner Hall. When the time came to demolish the building, Katherine Klinkner, then 86, was unsentimental. She felt it had to make way for progress and that she had ”taken care of the place long enough.“

When Katherine Klinkner died on May 1, 1945, she was believed to be the oldest native-born Oakland resident. She‘d managed Klinkner Hall alone for 48 years and raised six children; besides Fred and Cora there were Charles and Elma, who lived in Berkeley. Harry, who lived in Oakland, and Herman, who settled in Portland, Oregon. Katherine Klinkner lived to see a world most residents of 1893 could never have imagined.

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This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical Essays book.

Feature Image: Oakland Library History Room