Old Town Pinole

Old Town Pinole is the few blocks of San Pablo Avenue and Tennent Avenue that were the whole of the city when it incorporated in 1903. What makes it worth an hour is not that it is old but that it is intact: despite the growth that arrived after the 1950s, the commercial buildings and the Queen Anne and Italianate cottages are still standing, and most are still in use — as a florist, a café, a tavern.

The city publishes a free Historic Walking Tour with 27 stops, available as a PDF from pinole.gov. The buildings below are the ones you cannot miss.

Bank of Pinole, 2361 San Pablo Avenue

The Bank of Pinole is the landmark of San Pablo Avenue and the one building here listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bank was organised in 1905 by E.M. Downer Sr., who went on to build the business into the Mechanics Bank chain; the neoclassical limestone building you see was put up across the street in 1915. Two ionic columns flank a colossal portico and a grand arched glass entrance.

Its later history is a small civic saga. It served as a bank until the 1960s, was sold to a youth organisation, and in 1975 the City of Pinole bought it for $1 on condition it stayed a youth facility. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake left it structurally unsafe; the Redevelopment Agency took it on, seismically upgraded it, and it now houses the Flower Cart.

Boyd Home, 2454 San Pablo Avenue

The Boyd Home at 2454 San Pablo Avenue dates from 1874, which makes it older than the city that grew around it, and it is the easiest building here to visit — it is now the Pinole Creek Café. It stands across San Pablo Avenue from the bank, at the Fernandez Avenue corner.

Nunes Building, 2310 San Pablo Avenue

The Nunes Building at 2310 San Pablo Avenue shows how Old Town rebuilt itself. It began as a two-storey wooden structure with shops below and rooms to let above. During the 1920s Nunes replaced the timber with the brick building standing today.

Fernandez Mansion, 100 Tennent Avenue

The Fernandez Mansion at 100 Tennent Avenue is the grandest thing in Pinole. Built circa 1894 for Bernardo and Carlotta Fernandez, it runs to 22 rooms in Second Empire French style — rare anywhere in the East Bay. It was the family's third home.

Bernardo Fernandez was a Portuguese immigrant who founded the wharf and shipping business here in the 1850s. By 1882 he held four large warehouses and five acres of waterfront; by 1894 more than 3,000 acres; eventually over 20,000 across Pinole, Oakland and San Francisco. His son later gave the city the land that became Fernandez Park.

Walking it

Walking Old Town takes about an hour at a slow pace. The tour route runs from the Greenfield Department Store and the Baldwin House through Quinan Street and Tennent Avenue, past Fernandez Park and the Antlers Tavern, along the San Pablo Avenue commercial block, and out to the Fernandez Mansion and the Faria House at the far end. Everything is flat and everything is within about half a mile.

Dates, addresses and building histories compiled August 2026 from the City of Pinole's history pages and its Historic Walking Tour. Current occupants change; the buildings do not.