Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 24 April 2000

• 1 W. P. Fuller and Co. Warehouse - 201 3rd Street (1914)
• 2 W. P. Fuller & Co. Annex - 225 3rd Street (1937)
• 3 Davis-Parker Warehouse - 255 3rd Street (1926-27)
• 4 American Bag Co. Annex - 281 3rd Street (1954)
• 5 American Bag & Union Hide Co. - 299 3rd Street (1917)
• 6 S & W Fine Foods, Inc. Warehouse - 200 4th Street (1937)
• 7 Safeway Stores Headquarters - 201 4th Street (1929-30)
• 8 General Supply Co. Warehouse - 220 4th Street (1947-48)
• 9 Western States Grocery Co. - 247 4th Street (1926)
• 10 C. L. Greeno Co. Headquarters - 255 4th Street (1923)
• 11 Oakland Wholesale Grocery Co. - 267 4th Street (1920)
• 12 Nelson Lee Paper Co. - 270 4th Street (1923)
• 13 Makins Produce Co. Warehouse - 278 4th Street (1928)
• 14 Oakland Wholesale Grocery Co. - 283 4th Street (1928)
• 15 Unknown (G & R Drug Co.) - 292 4th Street (1945)
• 16 Impurgia Warehouse - 302 4th Street (1944-45)
• 17 Oakland Poultry Co. - 308 4th Street (1940)
• 18 Oakland Plumbing/P.E. O’Hair Co. - 309 4th Street (1929)
• 19 Portico Lofts - 311 4th Street (1998)
• 20 Western Tool & Supply Co. - 287 5th Street (1950-51)
• 21 Prime Smoked Meats, Inc. Plant - 220 Alice Street (1953)
• 22 Autocar Sales and Service Co. - 401 Alice Street (1920)
• 23 United Grocers, Ltd. Warehouse - 426 Alice Street (1931-32)
• 24 Poultry Producers of Central Calif. - 229 Harrison Street (1929)
• 25 Saroni - Sugar - Rice - 318 Harrison Street (1922)
• 26 Oakland Portal - 415 Harrison Street (1925-28)
• 27 Industrial Bearing Co. Building - 417 Harrison Street (1946)
• 28 Western California Fish Co. - 425 Harrison Street (1947)
• 29 Quong Tai Shrimp Company - 432-38 Harrison Street (1946-47)
• 30 New California Poultry Co. - 401 Jackson Street (1946)
• 31 Tyre Bros. Glass Company - 300-10 Webster Street (1923)

Sidewalk trash receptacles and historic signage are a project of the Jack London Neighborhood Association. Project partially funded through the generosity of District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel and Vice Mayor Henry Chang, Jr.

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The District's Fourth Street streetscape has changed very little since 1954, the end of the period that qualifies the District for the National Register. The later warehouses beginning at the northeast corner of Fourth and Harrison Streets and wrapping around the Oakland Portal were constructed during the economic revival that followed the end of World War II. These Moderne warehouses have identical American common bond brickwork and form their own coherent subgroup. Yet in their setting, size, style, uses, and materials, the later warehouses relate to the District's older warehouses and together they form a distinctive, cohesive, and recognizable 20th century industrial streetscape.

Designer: A.W. Smith, N.B. Green, Ralph Wastell
Construction Dates: 1920, 1923, 1928, 1945
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian and Moderne

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The West Coast's largest and oldest paint company built the District's first warehouse. W. P. Fuller Paint Company used the warehouse to distribute paint and window glass throughout the western United States. Although the company has been sold many times over the years, the Fuller paint brand endures today. East Bay Tire Co. was a later warehouse occupant. Although no longer a District contributor because of a 1997 rooftop addition, the W. P. Fuller warehouse anchors the District's southwest boundary and its 1914 construction begins the District's period of significance.

Designer: Walter D. Reed
Construction Date: 1914, add. 1937, 1945 & 1950, rem. 1997
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian

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A tiny wholesale grocery firm was the first occupant of this warehouse built on speculation for developers Hyman Davis and M. Parker. Founded in San Francisco in 1896 by Samuel Sussman, and Gustav and Samuel I . Wormser, Sussman Wormser & Company grew to become S & W Fine Foods, Inc., one of the most enduring food brands in the United States. In 1937, S & W relocated to its own warehouse at Jackson and F ourth Streets. I n 1994, the Davis-Parker warehouse was converted to 24 live-work lofts with street-level commercial space and renamed Tower Lofts after the warehouse's 50,000 gallon rooftop water tank.

Designer: Hugh C. White
Construction Date: 1926-27, remodeled 1994
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian with Gothic and Art Deco elements

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American Bag and Union Hide Company pioneered the vacuum cleaning and machine mending of used burlap bags which it resold as "Guaranteed Amerbags" with an unconditional guarantee, an unusual practice at the time. The company also made new burlap, cotton, and open mesh bags used by rail and water shippers. Individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places for architecture, the American Bag Co. warehouse is distinguished by the rich textures and patterns of its three-dimensional polychrome brickwork and by the rhythm of its arched windows. The warehouse was lovingly restored in 1994 by Marianne and Ron Dreisbach.

Designer: Leonard H. Thomas
Construction Date: 1917, remodeled 1994-95
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian

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After leaving its leased location at 255 Third St. and constructing this warehouse, S&W Fine Foods, Inc. adopted the name that is today one of the oldest food brands in the United States. S&W grew to become one of the country's largest packagers of canned fruits and vegetables. In 2001, Del Monte Foods Co. bought the S&W brand. While earlier District warehouses were designed with loading docks at rail car height, S&W Fine Foods' 1937 warehouse included both truck height loading on Jackson Street and rail car height loading docks on Fourth Street. Both loading dock facilities have been partially filled in.

Designer: Jesse Rosenwald
Construction Date: 1937, addition 1946, rem. 1998
Architectural Style: Moderne

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Sirloin steak sold for 20 cents a pound when Safeway Stores established its first headquarters in this warehouse. An adjacent Western Pacific Railroad spur line and nearby Port of Oakland shipping facilities allowed Safeway to receive inventory and dispatch it to branch stores. The basement and first three floors held inventory; the top two floors housed offices. By the time Safeway left in 1996, the entire building was devoted to offices. In 2001, the building was converted to condominiums by the son of Quentin Reynolds, who worked for Safeway for 50 years, rising from stock clerk to Chairman of the Board.

Designer: Couchot, Rosenwald & Roeth
Construction Date: 1929-30, remodeled 2000-01
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian with Beaux Arts elements

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Western States Grocery Company roasted over 250,000 pounds of coffee a year in the basement of this warehouse. In addition to coffee, Western States distributed a full line of grocery products. Western States competed on price ("one case or a hundred, the same price"). This four-story warehouse was situated along a Western Pacific Railroad spur line, allowing Western States to buy in huge quantities and reach retail grocery stores from southern Oregon to southern California and west to Nebraska. Safeway Stores and Western States shared this warehouse until Safeway completed its warehouse and corporate headquarters next door in 1929. Safeway eventually purchased Western States.

Designer: Couchot, Rosenwald & Roeth
Construction Date: 1926, remodeled 1991
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian

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The Cincinnati-based C. L. Greeno Company built the C. L. Greeno Pacific Coast Headquarters warehouse to receive upholstery and bedding supplies via rail from its Ohio factory for distribution throughout the area west of Denver. Favorable rail rates made it more economical for firms wishing to reach western markets to establish a distribution outlet on the Pacific Coast rather than build manufacturing plants in western cities. The warehouse is one of Oakland's most elaborate examples of the early 20th century utilitarian warehouse. Its monumental entry hood reflects the early 20th century's "City Beautiful" trend to embellish utilitarian buildings with historicist architectural treatments.

Designer: W.K. Owen
Construction Date: 1923
Architectural Style: Early 20th century with Beaux Arts derivative and Arts and Crafts elements

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The Oakland Plumbing Supply Company warehouse and showroom was one of the few buildings constructed in the District during the 1920s that did not serve a wholesale grocery purpose. The company was nevertheless a significant Port of Oakland customer and at its height was one of the largest distributors of plumbing, heating, and engineering supplies on the Pacific Coast. The building was used continuously as a plumbing supply warehouse and showroom first by Oakland Plumbing Supply Company and then by P. E . O'Hair & Company from its construction in 1929 until 1998 when it was converted into live-work lofts.

Designer: Edward A. Eames
Construction Date: 1929, remodeled 1998
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian with Beaux Arts elements

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This one-story brick warehouse served as the showroom and service garage for The Autocar Sales & Service Company, an Ardmore, Pennsylvania car and truck manufacturer that pioneered the mass production of forward control trucks (cab-over design). Autocar's location in the District coincided with the growing importance of car and truck transportation to District businesses. Saroni-Sugar-Rice, for example, supplemented its rail and water shipping with two Autocar trucks. The building's prolific and acclaimed architect, A. W. Smith, also designed two other District warehouses - 300 Webster Street and 267 Fourth Street.

Designer: A.W. Smith
Construction Date: 1920
Architectural Style: Early 20th century commercial

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"United We Buy - Individually We Sell" was the marketing tag line of United Grocers, Ltd., a wholesale grocer that supplied 1,460 retail outlets in northern California and Nevada and posted $1 billion in annual sales by the time it was purchased in 1984 by the giant food company, Fleming Companies, Inc. United Grocers, Ltd. operated as a for-profit wholesale grocery cooperative whose members were retail grocers. The Richmond-based company vacated this Oakland warehouse in 1947. Later occupants included other wholesale grocery companies. Among them were Wellman Peck & Co. and Mutual Grocery Co.

Note: this building was demolished in 2005 for the construction of 428 Alice condominiums

Designer: Unknown
Construction Date: 1931-32
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian

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In 1985, this warehouse was renamed "The Egghouse" after the building's first use as an egg distribution center for Poultry Producers of Central California. Poultry Producers originated the Nulaid brand name, a brand employed today to market egg products ranging from fresh eggs to extended shelf-life liquid whole eggs. Renamed Nulaid Foods, Inc. in 1963, the company is California's largest and oldest egg products company. This reinforced concrete warehouse, embellished with Art Deco details, contributes to the District by its association with a major wholesale food business. Since 1985 the building has contained six artist studios, two with attached living quarters.

Designer : H.C. Baumann
Construction : Date 1929
Architectural Style : Early 20th century utilitarian with Art Deco elements

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Saroni - Sugar - Rice was the first of seven warehouses built in the District in the 1920s specifically for wholesale grocery uses. The Saronis were San Francisco candy makers and sugar wholesalers who established Oakland offices after the 1906 earthquake. With his father's help, sixteen-year-old Alfred B. Saroni expanded the Oakland branch into rice, which the company imported by rail and water from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and China. Unlike other grocers, Saroni steadfastly stuck to just two main commodities - sugar and rice - and their byproducts.
Saroni also operated a powered sugar mill and delivered fresh confectioners' sugar to local bakers.

Designer: R . Vane Woods
Year of Construction: 1922, remodeled 1992
Architectural Style: Early 20th century utilitarian

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The Oakland Portal's elaborate Beaux Arts façade conceals eight massive fans that draw in fresh air and expel foul air to prevent carbon monoxide buildup in the George A. Posey Tube, an underwater automobile tunnel that runs under Harrison Street between the cities of Oakland and Alameda. One block west sits the Webster Tube Portal, a 1963 structure that serves the same function as the more decorative Oakland Portal. At the time of its construction, the Posey Tube was the largest underground tunnel in the world. George Lucas filmed a scene in the tunnel for THX 1138, Lucas's first feature film.

Designer: Henry H. Meyers
Construction Date: 1925-28
Architectural Style: Beaux Arts derivative/Art Deco

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After winning a legal challenge to Southern Pacific Railroad's 50-year stranglehold on the Oakland waterfront, Western Pacific Railroad Company inaugurated freight service in December 1909 and opened the Western Pacific Freight Office at Third and Harrison Streets. Hampered by the federal government's seizure of railroads in December 1917, Western Pacific's business grew slowly. After the railroad was returned to private ownership in March 1920, Western Pacific's fortunes turned, aided greatly by the businesses that relocated to the District to take advantage of rail and Port shipping facilities. The building was demolished in the 1970s.

Designer: Unknown
Construction Date: Circa 1909
Architectural Style: Late 19th century utilitarian

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