The old warehouse district along the Petaluma River is the most atmospheric part of town — a stretch of 19th-century brick warehouses that once handled the agricultural produce flowing in from the surrounding farms. The river, really a tidal slough navigable for small boats all the way from San Pablo Bay, brought Petaluma its wealth and its cosmopolitan air: in the 1870s and 1880s, steamboats from San Francisco docked here regularly, and the warehouses filled with eggs, butter, wool, and grain.
Today the riverfront is converted to restaurants, shops, and galleries, but the bones of the original industrial district remain intact. The old warehouse facades along Water Street and Petaluma Boulevard South give a strong sense of the place as it was. The area is walkable from downtown and connects to the turning basin at the north end of the navigable river. Weekend mornings, when the farmers market is running and the cafes are busy, it is a lively and pleasant place to spend an hour or two.