WE CAN DO THIS...
It's time to complete the plan.
SAVETHETRESTLE.com. With the help of the Petaluma Trolley Living History Railway Museum, the Save The Trestle Committee
has developed a strategy for rehabilitating Petaluma's most historically important landmark: the WATER STREET TRESTLE. Without the Trestle, there would be no Petaluma. For the Trestle represented the marriage between kinetic motion and organic commerce.
A symbiotic dance that gave rise to the possibilities of 'a chicken in every pot.'
Once she is rehabilitated to her former glory, the WATER STREET TRESTLE will deliver the goods - a revitalized and energized downtown. Just like she did when the Trestle was first erected in the early part of the 20th century. Back then, dreamers turned visionaries, like founding father John McNear and his son George P. McNear, knew that a thriving town was built on rail.(For more
on that story, visit PetalumaTrolley.org) McNear and his team actually envisioned the forerunner of Federal Express. It took some convincing of municipalities from Petaluma to Forestville, but McNear recognized that if you could place a train depo every three-quarters of a mile on the electric rail line of what would become the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad, farmers could spend less
time getting their goods to market and more time on the farm doing what they do best: farming. And the P&SR could deliver 'farm
fresh eggs,' and the entire bounty Sonoma County had to offer, the kind that once made Petaluma the 'Egg Basket to the World,'
via next day rail-to-ferry service to San Francisco. And from there...the nation.
It's taken close to half a million dollars, courtesy of a grant from the California Coastal Conservancy, but Petaluma, the town on a river that married water to rail and produced one of California's most eclectic and important cities, is ready to shore up those pilings, resurface that deck, and breathe new life into a not so new, yet very future-thinking idea.
We've got the plan to rebuild what men like McNear pushed forward. It's time to complete the plan!
