{"nrhp_refnum":"00001067","name":"Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"56 Jack London Square","address_restricted":false,"city":"Oakland","county":"Alameda County","state":"CA","lat":37.793901832000074,"lon":-122.27418082899999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2000-09-01","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small one-story wooden commercial building, about forty by fifty feet, on the Oakland estuary waterfront at 56 Jack London Square in Oakland, California. It was built in 1880 from timbers of an old whaling ship and first served as a bunkhouse for oyster workers before becoming a saloon.","why_significant":"It is closely associated with author Jack London, who spent much of his youth there and wrote about it in John Barleycorn. It is also a rare surviving example of the modest wood-frame commercial buildings, including oyster-worker bunkhouses, that lined Oakland's turn-of-the-century waterfront. It was named a National Literary Landmark in 1998.","narrative":"Heinolds' First and Last Chance Saloon is a small, one-story wooden building on the Oakland estuary at Jack London Square. Built in 1880 from the timbers of an old whaling ship, it first housed oyster harvesters before Johnny Heinold converted it into a saloon in the 1880s. Its false front carries simple Italianate bracketing, and the interior still holds the original bar, a pot-belly stove, a large ice-box with taps, and gas light fixtures. The floor slopes sharply, a result of the 1906 earthquake's effect on its pilings. The saloon is tied to author Jack London, who as a youth sold newspapers, read, and drank there, and who borrowed money from Heinold for his university entry fee. It appears in John Barleycorn. It is also the last waterfront landmark of its kind in an area now dominated by redevelopment, and it was named a National Literary Landmark in 1998.","period_of_significance":"1880-1916","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"Italianate; Western false front","criteria":["B","C"],"status_note":"Still in use as a restaurant/tavern; the form describes its integrity as good, with the front facade intact and the south wall rebuilt in the late 1980s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:28.191643-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/00001067.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00001067/67c2b26656-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00001067/67c2b26656-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"derivative work: Frank Schulenburg (talk) Heinolds.jpg: Calibas","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heinold%E2%80%99s_First_and_Last_Chance_2007.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">derivative work: Frank Schulenburg (talk) Heinolds.jpg: Calibas</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heinold%E2%80%99s_First_and_Last_Chance_2007.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123858246","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinold%27s_First_and_Last_Chance_Saloon","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1596347"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/alameda-county/heinolds-first-and-last-chance-saloon-00001067/"}