Leather had a history on the Peninsula

The tanning business was important at that time, as all leather for shoes had to be processed and tanned for use. The world had never heard of plastic or synthetic products. In the 1800s, leather was the best material for shoes.

Frank’s Tannery produced leather goods for the Peninsula and the world. Frank began his business in Redwood City along what is now the Bayshore Highway. The leather he processed was used mainly for boots for lumberjacks who needed rock-hard soles. In the1800s, there were many lumbermen in the Redwood City area and elsewhere, and he supplied their needs. The leather he processed would hold caulk so their boots would not stretch or give under stress and the hobnails would not wobble, which would have endangered the loggers’ lives. Ordinary leather was not adequate for their boots. To process the leather in Redwood City, tons of leather hides were imported from South America and Switzerland, as well as from California. The hides were unloaded in San Francisco and brought to Redwood City on barges, such as the Belvedere and the Rio Ray. The tan bark that was used to make the tanning chemical was also brought from San Francisco on boats and unloaded by the Redwood Creek.

Frank’s Tannery was not the first tannery in Redwood City. In 1864, Joseph Krieg started his tannery, and it wasn’t until 1873 that Ira Martin Wentworth started his on a 200-acre site he owned in Redwood City, along Redwood Creek and the Bay. Wentworth accumulated too much debt and Frank bought him out. He and his son moved to Redwood City to run the tannery. Frank perfected the vegetable tanning industry in Redwood City and continued operating until 1959 when the chemical type of tanning became too competitive. The original tanning operation was very expensive and required many odd machines. The hides had to be dehaired and defleshed, washed in a lime solution and suspended in vats of tanning liquor made of ground tanning bark and water. The first dunking lasted 10 days and then 45 days in a stronger solution and after that they were soaked in a solution that was obtained from South American trees. The process was not yet over and rotating hard wooden drums would be used to add more minerals to the leather that was in a mixture of mineral oils. After that it was prepared for cutting. This was a long, involved and smelly process. Frank had 450 employees who worked at the tannery, running the machinery and mixing the liquor for the tanning process, as well as packing the 12 tons of product that was shipped out every week at the height of his business. In one unique time of his business, in 1939, Frank even tanned the hide of a killer elephant which had trampled two people at the San Francisco zoo.

Frank owned much land along the present-day Highway 101. When the city incorporated, he sold some of his land for five dollars to the city of Redwood City to be used as an extension of Main Avenue. By 1959, only 36 acres of the original site were still in Frank’s possession.

The Bayshore Freeway was extended through part of the property in the 40s and in 1954 Solomon and Swig bought the already dying business. In 1959, the tannery shut down and later the last of its processed leather was sold for over $500,000. Offers to buy the property for use as a hotel-boatel and an industrial site were declined as the owners wanted to save the property for a better use. The thick redwood planks used for the floors had, over the years, become soaked with highly combustible tallow. In 1968, most of the empty buildings burned to the ground in a spectacular fire fueled by those saturated planks.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of The Daily Journal.