First and Last Chance
"In
the winter, some of us (university students) occasionally went to the
Oakland-Alameda estuary to climb over and romance about the old Alaska
packers fleet of clipper ships that fished for salmon in Alaskan waters
during the summer and docked on the Alameda side during the winter
months. Across the estuary from where they were moored was a little
saloon name The First and Last Chance. It was a hangout for sailors, and
Jack London frequented it. We would go there, buy a glass of beer, and
listen to him and the other talk about their experiences, real and
imagined, in the frozen North and in the South Seas. It whetted our
imagination and made Jack London’s book the more exciting."
From Chief Justice Earl R. Warren,
The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl R. Warren
"Walk Along the Water"
© Oakland Museum of California, used with permission.
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History of the First and Last Chance Saloon - Heinhold's First and
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