Penngrove way back when

What used to be a railroad town is now all about agriculture. Take a peek at our gallery of some of tiny Penngrove's earliest residents, landmarks and schools.|
JANET BALICKI
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Penngrove is a small agricultural community nestled between Cotati and Petaluma, with a population just over 2,000.

According to historian Ellen Harris, author of “Penngrove: A Jigsaw Puzzle of Its Past and Present,” the town may have been named after the Penn brothers from Pennsylvania, who bought 80 acres of land in the area and planted olive trees in the late 1800s.

Penn's Grove was formally changed to Penngrove, by the United States Postal Service in 1908 to distinguish it from the New Jersey Penn's Grove or Sebastopol, formerly called Pine Grove.

The town centered around the old Northern Pacific Railroad Station, a busy transportation point bringing Sonoma Mountain volcanic basalt stone to San Francisco to be used as turn of the century paving stones.

Take a peek at our gallery of some of Penngrove's earliest residents, landmarks and schools.

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