Name/Title
Handbill advertising the Alameda Park Asylum, c. 1866Entry/Object ID
2021.99.1Description
Acc. No. 21.99.1
Subject Category: Park Street; Hotels; Hospitals and Sanitoria; Doctors
Date or Period: c. 1866
Object: Handbill (reproduction?)
Description: A tan-colored handbill (or reproduction?) featuring on one side an advertisement for the Pacific Iron Works Foundry in San Francisco, and on the other side, an advertisement for the Alameda Park Asylum, Physicians, J.C. Tucker, M.D., and E. Trenor, M.D. This side Includes a lithographic image of a building.
Size: L 9 x W 5 1/2 inches.
History of Object: a handbill featuring the Park Hotel, after it had been bought by Doctors Tucker and Trenor, to use as an insane asylum. The elaborate building had been built between Central and Webb by train magnate and investor Alfred A. Cohen and partner James D. Farwell. It was subsequently leased to Frank Johnson, McGown, and Reed none of which were able to make the hotel work, after which Cohen and Farwell tried to sell the building in 1865. It did not sell, and in 1866 eventually Tucker, with Trenor as attending physician, bought the building and set it up as an insane asylum. On suggestion of A. A. Cohen, they housed the victims of a train collision of his San Francisco & Alameda Railroad and a Central Pacific Railroad train in 1869 - for which the doctors apparently expected payment, but didn't receive. In December 1870 Trenor and Tucker closed the asylum; on January 31, 1871, when it was set to be opened as a school for girls, the building burnt down. Tucker used a section of the lot to build the 'Tucker' block, which still stands - much altered - today. The lithograph image was created by William Keith and business partner Durbin Van Vleck.
Acquired from: Chuck Millar
Catalog Date: September 20, 2021
